Publisher's Synopsis
Introduction I compiled this book about these two National figures on segregation and integration, each had a different view of how our Society should be. One lost and one succeeded in change. George Corley Wallace Jr. was born on August 25, 1919 - September 13, 1998) was an American Politician and the 45th Governor of Alabama, having served two nonconsecutive Terms and two consecutive Terms as a Democrat. Wallace is remembered for his Southern neo-Dixiecrat and pro-segregation "Jim Crow" positions during the mid-20th Century Period of the Civil Rights Movement, declaring in his 1963 Inaugural Address that he stood for "segregation now, segregation tomorrow, segregation forever," and standing in front of the entrance of the University of Alabama in an attempt to stop the enrollment of two Black students. He eventually renounced segregationism but remained a Social conservative. Wallace survived an assassination attempt in Laurel, Maryland in 1972, perpetrated by Arthur Bremer, but remained wheelchair-bound until his death in 1998. Martin Luther King Jr. (born Michael King Jr., January 15, 1929 - April 4, 1968) was an American Baptist Minister and activist who became the most visible spokesperson and leader in the Civil Rights Movement. King became a Civil Rights activist early in his Career. He led the 1955 Montgomery bus boycott and helped found the Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC) in 1957, serving as its first President. With the SCLC, King led an unsuccessful 1962 struggle against segregation in Albany, Georgia, and helped organize the 1963 nonviolent protests in Birmingham, Alabama. King also helped to organize the 1963 March on Washington, where he delivered his famous "I Have a Dream" speech. On October 14, 1964, King received the Nobel Peace Prize for combating racial inequality through nonviolent resistance. In 1965, he helped to organize the Selma to Montgomery marches, and the following year he and SCLC took the movement north to Chicago to work on segregated housing. In 1968, King was planning a National occupation of Washington, D.C., to be called the Poor People's Campaign, when he was assassinated by James Earl Ray on April 4 in Memphis, Tennessee. King's death was followed by riots in many U.S. Cities. Ray, who fled the Country, was arrested two months later at London Heathrow Airport. Ray was sentenced to 99 years in prison for King's murder, and died in 1998 from hepatitis while serving his sentence. King was posthumously awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom and the Congressional Gold Medal. Martin Luther King Jr. Day was established as a holiday in numerous Cities and States beginning in 1971, and as a U.S. Federal holiday in 1986. King spent his entire life struggling for Racial Equality for Black Americans. Therlee Gipson
