17-09-2015, 03:10 PM
That's what most people don't know about Wallace.
Wallace really was not a Ross Barnett. He did what he did for purely electoral politics.
Once he was defeated by being perceived as being too liberal on civil rights, he told a follower that he would never be "outniggered" again.
So he changed his whole style to "stand in the schoolhouse door" etc. It was mostly for effect.
But Barnett was different. RFK later said, the whole thing at Ole Miss was planned by Barnett to end up as it did. It was to be perceived as the federal government coming in and taking over a state issue, as in the Civil War. After Ole Miss, RFK said that his brother never looked upon Reconstruction the same way. And most historians have not. If Reconstruction had worked, Kennedy would not have had to do what he did.
Wallace really was not a Ross Barnett. He did what he did for purely electoral politics.
Once he was defeated by being perceived as being too liberal on civil rights, he told a follower that he would never be "outniggered" again.
So he changed his whole style to "stand in the schoolhouse door" etc. It was mostly for effect.
But Barnett was different. RFK later said, the whole thing at Ole Miss was planned by Barnett to end up as it did. It was to be perceived as the federal government coming in and taking over a state issue, as in the Civil War. After Ole Miss, RFK said that his brother never looked upon Reconstruction the same way. And most historians have not. If Reconstruction had worked, Kennedy would not have had to do what he did.