A reporter recently called me about a television production of the life of George Wallace, and the question was, well, it was depicted in the movie that Governor Wallace had run a moderate campaign for governor the first time he ran for governor against a fellow named John Patterson. And John Patterson ran a racist-oriented campaign, about how we're going to stand up for the South and so forth. George Wallace was a more moderate guy in the campaign. He lost. And that's when the famous utterance, and it was in the movie, too, "well, I'll never be outniggered again". And from then on, Wallace became real, real strong, standing up against the civil rights movement, and fighting the civil rights movement, and standing in the schoolhouse door. The question was asked of me by the reporter, "Well, Tom, do you think that George Wallace really is racist, you know, or did he just do this for the political effect of it? Does he really feel that way in his heart now? And I says, "You can't look in, inside a man's mind. A person is what they do with their lives." And so, you just, you have to look at him that way. It's not what you say, it's what you actually do.
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