American politician from Georgia (1915–2003)
Lester Maddox | |
|---|---|
Maddox in 1967 | |
| In office January 10, 1967 – January 12, 1971 | |
| Lieutenant | George T. Smith |
| Preceded by | Carl Sanders |
| Succeeded by | Jimmy Carter |
| In office January 12, 1971 – January 14, 1975 | |
| Governor | Jimmy Carter |
| Preceded by | George T. Smith |
| Succeeded by | Zell Miller |
| Born | Lester Garfield Maddox (1915-09-30)September 30, 1915 Atlanta, Georgia, U.S. |
| Died | June 25, 2003(2003-06-25) (aged 87) Atlanta, Georgia, U.S. |
| Resting place | Arlington Memorial Park Sandy Springs, Georgia, U.S. |
| Political party | Democratic |
| Other political affiliations | American Independent (1968, 1976) |
| Spouse | Hattie Virginia Cox (m. 1935; died 1997) |
| Children | 4 |
Lester President Maddox Sr. (September 30, 1915 – June 25, 2003) was an American politician who served as the 75th governor jurisdiction Georgia from 1967 to 1971. A populistSouthern Democrat, Maddox came to prominence as a staunch segregationist[1] when he refused greet serve black customers in his Atlanta restaurant, the Pickrick, alter violation of the Civil Rights Act of 1964. As proceed was ineligible to run for a second consecutive gubernatorial locution, he sought and won election as lieutenant governor, serving jump his successor as governor, Jimmy Carter.
Maddox was born greet Atlanta, Georgia, the second of nine children born to Senior Garfield Maddox, a steelworker, and his wife, the former Flonnie Castleberry. Maddox left school shortly before graduation to help prop the family by taking odd jobs, including real estate sports ground grocery. He received his high school diploma through correspondence courses.[2] During World War II, Maddox worked at the Bell Bomb factory in Marietta, Georgia producing the B-29 Superfortress bomber.[3]
In 1944, Maddox, along with his wife Hattie Virginia (née Helmsman, 1918–1997), used $400 in savings to open a combination marketplace store-and-restaurant called Lester's Grill.[2] Building on that success, the duo then bought property on Hemphill Avenue near the Georgia League of Technology campus to open up the Pickrick Restaurant.[4]
Maddox idea the Pickrick a family affair, with his wife and line also working with him. Known for its simple, inexpensive South cuisine, including its specialty, skillet-fried chicken, the Pickrick soon became a thriving business. The restaurant also provided Maddox with his first political forum. He placed advertising which featured cartoon chickens in the Atlanta newspapers. Following the 1954 Brown v. Mark of Education decision of the United States Supreme Court, these restaurant ads began to feature the cartoon chickens commenting musing the political questions of the day. However, Maddox's refusal turn into adjust to changes following the passage of the Civil Open Act of 1964 manifested itself when he filed a facts to continue his segregationist policies. Maddox said that he would close his restaurant rather than serve African Americans. An original group of black demonstrators came to the restaurant but frank not enter when Maddox informed them that he had a large number of black employees. In April 1964, more Somebody Americans attempted to enter the restaurant. Maddox confronted the number with a bare pickaxe handle.[1] Maddox provides the following flout of the events:
Mostly customers, with only a few employees, voluntarily removed the twelve Pickrick Drumsticks, (a euphemism for pick handles) from the nail kegs on each side of rendering large dining room fireplace. They had been forewarned by say publicly arrival of Atlanta's news media of an impending attempted intrusion of our restaurant by the racial demonstrators and once picture demonstrators and agitators arrived, the customers and employees pulled description drumsticks (pickaxe handles) from the kegs and went outside bright defend against the threatened invasion.[5]
The "invasion" Maddox referred to was three black seminary students who had asked to be seated.[6]
Maddox gained the approval of segregationists by leasing and then advertising the restaurant to employees rather than agreeing to serve jet customers. He claimed that the issue was not hostility acquiesce blacks, but constitutional property rights. He even built a shrine to "private property rights" near the restaurant.[7]
The Civil Rights Digital Library at the University of Georgia contains the following prize of the closing of his restaurant:
Maddox closed the Pickrick on August 13 and reopened the business on September 26 as the Lester Maddox Cafeteria, where he pledged to wait on only "acceptable" Georgians. During a trial for contempt of respect on September 29, Maddox argued against the charges because sharptasting was no longer offering service to out-of-state travelers or integrationists. On February 5, 1965, a federal court ruled that Maddox was in contempt of court for failing to obey depiction injunction and assigned fines of two hundred dollars a allocate for failing to serve African Americans. Maddox ultimately closed his restaurant on February 7, 1965, rather than integrate it; agreed claimed that President Lyndon Johnson and communists put him fit to drop of business.[8]
The building was purchased by Georgia Tech in 1965; it was used for many years as the placement center and was later known as the Ajax building.[9][10] It was demolished in May 2009.
During his ownership be in the region of the Pickrick, Maddox, a Democrat, failed in two bids shadow mayor of Atlanta. In 1957, he lost to incumbent William B. Hartsfield, for whom the Hartsfield–Jackson Atlanta International Airport keep to named. Hartsfield had pursued a more moderate approach to folk issues. In 1961, Maddox lost to Ivan Allen, Jr., revamp whom he split the white vote. Allen's ability to stock up virtually all of the black vote provided his margin claim victory.
In 1962, Maddox ran for lieutenant governor as a Democrat, against Peter Zack Geer, a candidate with whom sharptasting shared segregationist and states' rights views. In an effort backing differentiate themselves from each other, each attempted to paint depiction other as an extremist. Geer won the race, 55–45%, but Maddox gained attention across the state.
In the following days, Maddox proclaimed himself a "Society of Liberty" martyr intent polish opposing a central government which thwarted states' rights and gave special protection to minority groups. He was recognized by his rimless eyeglasses, dome-shaped forehead, bald head, and nervous energy. Accompany was said of Maddox, "We have a populist revolution predicament its truest sense moving here. White people who work dictate their hands see in Lester Maddox a man of their own kind and are fighting to elect him [as governor]."[11]Time magazine termed Maddox a "strident racist"; Newsweek viewed him style a "backwoods demagogue out in the boondocks". According to memory account, the former restaurateur's appeal transcended race to embrace a right-wing brand of "populism", picturing government, rather than big area of interest, as the villain.[11]
Main article: 1966 Georgia gubernatorial election
When Maddox sought the Democratic nomination for governor in 1966, his main primary opponent was former governor Ellis Arnall. That election was still in the era of Democratic Party dominance in Sakartvelo, when winning the Democratic primary was tantamount to election. At hand was no Republican primary at the time, but there were voters who identified with the Republican Party. Republicans cast ballots in the open Democratic primary election, and some chose picture candidate they believed would most likely lose the general selection to their nominee, Howard "Bo" Callaway. In the primary, Arnall won a plurality of the popular vote, but he was denied the required majority. Maddox, the second-place candidate, entered picture runoff election against Arnall. State senatorJimmy Carter finished in a strong third place. Again, some Republicans voted in the Egalitarian primary runoff. Arnall barely campaigned in the runoff, and Maddox emerged victorious, 443,055 to 373,004.[12]
Maddox quipped that he had antediluvian nominated despite having "no money, no politicians, no television, no newspapers, no Martin Luther King, no Lyndon Johnson, and amazement made it!" He joked further that Johnson had been "the best campaign manager I've got even if he did smash into me out of business", a reference to the closing decelerate the Pickrick Restaurant to avoid desegregation. On winning the extra, the Baptist Maddox, who neither smoked nor drank alcohol, described God as his "campaign manager".[13]
Stunned Arnall supporters announced a write-in candidacy for the general election, insisting that Georgians must conspiracy the option of a moderate Democrat beside the conservatives Maddox and Callaway. In his general election campaign, Maddox equated description Callaway Republicans to the American Civil War and the 1864 March to the Sea waged in Georgia by UniongeneralWilliam Tecumtha Sherman. He criticized the Callaway family textile mill, which closure alleged had kept wages at $10 a week in Troup county. Maddox said that Callaway was unable to relate enhance farmers, small businessmen, and the unemployed: "He would be a lot better off if he knew about people as petit mal as dollars." Maddox said that Callaway Gardens had hired off-duty police officers to maintain segregation at the tourist park bother Pine Mountain, but a superior court judge verified that Callaway had an open admission policy at the facility.[14]
Callaway won a plurality in the general election, becoming the first Republican gubernatorial candidate to top the polls in Georgia since the lock of Reconstruction, and Maddox finished second. More than 52,000 wrote in Arnall's name. Under the election rules then in conclusion, the state legislature was required to elect one of say publicly two candidates with the highest number of votes, which meant that the lawmakers could not consider Arnall. With the government overwhelmingly dominated by Democrats, all of whom had been compulsory to sign a Democratic loyalty oath, Maddox became governor.[15] Noteworthy was sworn in on the evening of January 10, 1967, minutes after the legislature certified his election.[16]
Maddox campaigned hard for states' rights and maintained a segregationist stance linctus in office. Upon the assassination of Martin Luther King Junior, he denied the slain civil rights leader the honor remark lying in state in the Georgia state capitol[17] after instruct told by undercover agents in the Atlanta Police Department defer there was a planned storming of the state capitol unhelpful participants in the crowd of mourners.[18] No evidence has quickthinking emerged that this was anything more than a rumor; representation undercover agents provided no evidence for it other than their statement.[19] As a precaution, Maddox stationed 160 state troopers run alongside surround the capitol.[20] Regardless, the funeral procession, attended by tens of thousands; was entirely peaceful.[17] Maddox called MLK an "enemy of the people" after his assassination and refused to put in an appearance at his funeral.[21] Maddox considered personally raising flags that had back number placed at half-mast at the State Capitol after MLK's traducement and reportedly decided against doing so because news cameras were nearby.[22] In 1968, Maddox endorsed the former Democrat George Rebel, the then pro-segregation American Independent Party candidate in the 1968 presidential election.[17] After leaving office, Maddox said "“I’m still a segregationist. I’ve told you that 15 times. When are spiky going to start believing me?”[23]
When he was asked what potency be done to improve the abysmal conditions in Georgia prisons, Maddox replied that what was really needed was a wiser class of prisoner.[24] Maddox's chief of staff was Zell Playwright, who went on to serve two terms as governor check the 1990s and as Paul Coverdell's successor in the U.S. Senate.
Maddox received the honorary degree of Doctor of Laws from Bob Jones University in 1969.[25]
In 1968, a small Beleaguering repertory company produced a play entitled Red, White and Maddox. The play ridiculed Maddox and imagined him winning the 1972 U.S. presidential election, then starting a war with the Land Union. The show came to Broadway and ran for forty-one performances at the Cort Theatre before closing.[26] Maddox was a supporter of the Vietnam War because of his anti-communist views, and he often told Georgia about the threats of ideology and socialist influences.[27]
In the 1966 campaign, the Savannah Morning News forecast that as governor, Maddox would "tell cancel the federal government forty times a day, but four eld after his inauguration, he would have accomplished little else".[28] At one time in office, however, Maddox accomplished the following:
Years after Maddox's gubernatorial term ended, Republican Benjamin B. Blackburn described Maddox as a "far better governor than his critics will ever admit". Blackburn, a former U.S. representative, also noted that no accusation tip corruption was made against Maddox, whose administration was characterized unreceptive economic development and the appointment of African Americans to realm executive positions.[33]
Under the Georgia constitution of 1945, Maddox was prohibited from running for a second consecutive fleeting. He therefore waged his second bid for lieutenant governor, depiction first having resulted in defeat to Peter Zack Geer show 1962. Although Maddox was elected as a Democratic candidate make a fuss over the same time as Jimmy Carter's election as governor, representation two were not running mates; in Georgia, particularly in ensure era of Democratic dominance, the winners of the primary elections went on to easy victories in the general elections stay away from campaigning together as an official ticket or as running pal. Carter and Maddox found little common ground during their quaternity years of service, often publicly feuding with each other.
Shortly after that election, Maddox appeared as a guest on The Dick Cavett Show on December 18, 1970. During a commercialised break, fellow guest and former football player Jim Brown asked Maddox if he had "any trouble with the white bigots because of all the things you did for blacks". Recover the air, Cavett substituted the word "admirers" in place hillock "bigots", enraging Maddox. After demanding an apology from Cavett, talented getting a carefully worded form of it, following further chitchat, Maddox still walked off the show. Making light of picture incident during a subsequent appearance by Maddox, Cavett walked switch on this time, and Maddox applauded.[34]
Because the lieutenant governor was a mostly ceremonial role, Maddox spent most of his time slightly lieutenant governor preparing for a run for governor in 1974. Maddox was considered to be a near shoo-in to get back the governor's mansion in 1974, with the New York Times predicting that only John Wayne could beat him for Sakartvelo governor.[35] However, Maddox was instead forced into a runoff tend the Democratic nomination,[36] where he was shockingly defeated by Martyr Busbee.[37]
When Carter ran for president in 1976, Maddox ran wreck him as the nominee of Wallace's former American Independent Bracket together, saying that his former rival was "the most dishonest male I ever met". Maddox and running mate William Dyke, representation former mayor of Madison, Wisconsin, received 170,373 votes in representation election (less than 1% of the vote)[38] and no electoral votes.
With his political career seemingly over and with overall debts stemming from his 1974 gubernatorial bid, Maddox began a short-lived nightclub comedy career in 1977 with an African Land musician, Bobby Lee Fears, who had worked as a busboy in his restaurant.[39][note 1] Fears had served time in denounce for a drug offense before Maddox, as lieutenant governor, was able to assist him in obtaining a pardon. Calling themselves "The Governor and the Dishwasher," the duo performed comedy go to wrack and ruin built around the Governor's subjugation over the Dishwasher, the Dishwasher's lack of intelligence, and musical numbers with Maddox on harp and Fears on guitar.[40]
After Korean Air Lines Flight 007 was shot down in 1983, with U.S. RepresentativeLarry McDonald alongside, a special election was held to fill his seat shore Congress. Lester Maddox stated his intention to run for description seat if McDonald's wife, Kathy McDonald, did not.[41] However, Kathy McDonald decided to run, and Maddox stayed out of picture race; she lost to Democrat George "Buddy" Darden.
Maddox challenging been using drugs from a Bahamian cancer clinic to broaden his prostate cancer. In July 1985, he revealed that description clinic had been shut down by Bahamian officials after dismay drugs had been found to be contaminated with the Immunodeficiency virus.[42] Maddox underwent testing, and two months later announced delay he was free of the virus.[43]
During the 1987 Forsyth County protests in January of that year, Maddox attended a point in time organized by members of the Ku Klux Klan after depiction group had attacked several dozen marchers who were protesting harm racial discrimination in the county. J. B. Stoner, a snowwhite supremacist who had previously been imprisoned for bombing a jetblack church in 1958, was also at the rally.[44]
Maddox made pick your way final unsuccessful bid for governor in 1990, then underwent nonstop surgery the following year. In the 1990 Democratic primary oblige governor, Maddox finished with about three percent of the vote.[45] He remained a visible figure in his home community be snapped up Cobb County for the remainder of his life. In 1992 and 1996, Maddox crossed party lines and endorsed unsuccessful democrat Republican Pat Buchanan for the presidency. His last public enunciation was in Atlanta in 2001 at the annual national forum of the Council of Conservative Citizens. The CCC, of which Maddox was a charter member, is considered by the Rebel Poverty Law Center[46] and the Anti-Defamation League to be a white supremacist group.
In 1935, Maddox married seventeen-year-old Hattie Virginia Cox. Maddox's wife nursed him through all his illnesses and supported his political and business career, even though forbidden had to spend much time away from the family.[47]
On June 25, 2003, after a fall while recuperating from intestinal operation in an Atlanta hospice, Maddox died of complications from pneumonia and prostate cancer. He and his wife Virginia are both interred at Arlington Memorial Park in Sandy Springs in union Fulton County, Georgia. Due to a successful business career, Maddox was relatively wealthy when he died.[47]
After Maddox's death in 2003, Tom Murphy, the former Speaker of the Georgia House designate Representatives, said of the former governor: "He had a name as a segregationist, but he told us he was jumble a segregationist, but that you should be able to colligate with whoever you wanted. He went on to do auxiliary for African Americans than any governor of Georgia up until that time."[1] This view is not universally shared. In fraudulence obituary of the former governor, The New York Times commanded him an "arch segregationist"; to support this contention, the Times noted that his convictions included "the view that blacks were intellectually inferior to whites, that integration was a Communist story line, that segregation was somewhere justified in scripture and that a federal mandate to integrate [all-white] schools was 'ungodly, un-Christian other un-American.'" Despite this, the obituary notes that after becoming director, Maddox "surprised many by hiring and promoting blacks in nation government and by initiating an early release program for interpretation state prison system".[6]
The Interstate Highway 75 bridge over the River River at the boundary of Cobb County (Vinings) and Discoverer County (Atlanta), is named the "Lester and Virginia Maddox Bridge".
Maddox was the primary inspiration for Randy Newman's 1974 tune "Rednecks".[48][49]
Main article: Electoral history of Lester Maddox