This guy beat Jimmy Carter in '66 for governor of GA...incredible

I had never heard of Lester Maddox until tonight while watching Larry King's 20th anniversary show....people never fail to amaze me.

http://www.southerncurrents.com/misc/maddox.htm

He and his movement was brought down when the Blacks boycotted the white stores who refused integration.

he was an open racist.

got his start his start in politics with that guy.

I guess that bastard returned to his roots in the last few years.

Normal people would probably never even speak to this creep.





Lester Maddox brandishes a pistol during an unsuccessful attempt by three
black men to desegregate his restaurant in Atlanta, Georgia, the day after
the Civil Rights Act was signed into law in 1964.





Apparently the old #### imagined riding his bike backwards was a real showstopper.

...are the same sick son of a bitches that are cheering the destruction of the Constitution. :puke:

Last night I saw Lester Maddox on a TV show
With some smart-ass New York Jew
And the Jew laughed at Lester Maddox
And the audience laughed at Lester Maddox too
Well, he may be a fool but he's our fool
If they think they're better than him they're wrong
So I went to the park and I took some paper along
And that's where I made this song

We talk real funny down here
We drink too much and we laugh too loud
We're too dumb to make it in no Northern town
And we're keepin' the niggers down
We got no-necked oilmen from Texas
And good ol' boys from Tennessee
And college men from LSU
Went in dumb - come out dumb too
Hustlin' 'round Atlanta in their alligator shoes
Gettin' drunk every weekend at the barbecues
And they're keepin' the niggers down

We're rednecks, rednecks
And we don't know our ass from a hole in the ground
We're rednecks, we're rednecks
And we're keeping the niggers down

Now your northern nigger's a Negro
You see he's got his dignity
Down here we're too ignorant to realize
That the North has set the nigger free
Yes he's free to be put in a cage
In Harlem in New York City
And he's free to be put in a cage in the South-Side of Chicago
And the West-Side
And he's free to be put in a cage in Hough in Cleveland
And he's free to be put in a cage in East St. Louis
And he's free to be put in a cage in Fillmore in San Francisco
And he's free to be put in a cage in Roxbury in Boston
They're gatherin' 'em up from miles around
Keepin' the niggers down

We're rednecks, we're rednecks
We don't know our ass from a hole in the ground
We're rednecks, we're rednecks
And we're keeping the niggers down
We are keeping the niggers down


Of course, idiot freepers wouldn't know about the satirical nature of the song.

Maddox shakes his head. "That's awful to write things like that just to sell something, isn't it?" What offends him most is Newman's crude reference to the Jewish man. Maddox says he occasionally attends synagogue with Jewish friends.

Personally I think the song is just as racist as those it purports to mock. And I never quite understood the making fun of poor people, regardless of color. I will have none of it.

but I have seen my share of people who play it in bars strictly because of the use of racist language (and the fact that there are black people in the vicinity).

LOVE that song!!

the culture shock of the civil rights movement made many people vote out of fear. 40 years later, many are still voting out of fear - this time because they fear the gay man

Lester Maddox owned a barbeque restaurant called the Pickrick. In the early days of desegregation he used to give pick handles away to customers (white ones) to help keep blacks away.

My dad was a young man at the time and while he was, and remains, a born-and-bred southerner, he was also deeply troubled by all the violence perpetrated by whites towards blacks that was going on at the time. Dad used to be a keen amateur photographer and he went down to Maddox's Picrick Restaurant once to take photographs of the rednecks brandishing pick handles to prevent blacks from trying to eat there. Some of them (the rednecks, that is) threatened him and one man threw his pick handle at him, so Dad picked it up (no pun intended) and brought it home as a reminder of what can happen when ignorance is given free rein. I'm pretty sure he still has it in a box somewhere.

that she and coworkers in Atlanta used to go there for lunch occasionally. Maddox put a guest book at the door for people to sign their names and she signed hers as "Eartha Kitt". After that, she said a waiter spilled very hot coffee in her lap and Maddox came over to her table and harassed her.

Thank you for posting this, it was a very interesting read about an apparently very colorful character that I previously hardly even knew by name alone.

Apparently, he did support Carter for governor later on:

With his support, Jimmy Carter was elected governor and, not long after, began planning a bid for the White House in '76.

And who knew that the he actually lost to the Republican candidate in the race, but that the Georgia Democrats got him installed anyway??

In the general election, Calloway edged Maddox by only 3,000 votes, but Georgia law required a majority, so the election was turned over to the heavily Democratic State House of Representatives, which decided in favor of Maddox.

As for the following assertions, wouldn't it be easy for somebody with the necessary interest to validate them?

Maddox shakes his head. In a quiet voice, his eyes still focused on the TV, he says, "Nobody ever got hit with a pick handle at my restaurant."
"Nobody ever swung anything," he says. Not him, not his friends, not his 20 white employees, not his 40 black employees. A racist? "Would a racist hire 40 African-Americans?" he asks. Would a racist appoint more blacks to state government during his term in office than any Georgia governor before him?
Would a racist, asks Bob Short, Maddox's former press secretary, join up with a black musician and play nightclubs for 20 months under the headline of "The Governor and the Dishwasher"?

"Lester Maddox did more for black people than any governor in the history of Georgia," Williams says. "He talked that racist talk, but the walk he walked was much different."
He lists Maddox's accomplishments. During his one term, which lasted from 1967 to 1971, Maddox appointed the first African-American to head a state department (the Board of Corrections). He also named the first black GBI agent, the first black state trooper and the first blacks to draft boards. He integrated the lines of farmer's markets throughout the state. He ordered state troopers to address African-Americans without using the "N" word. He expanded food stamp programs from 13 to 158 counties.
McKinney has one word for all that: "tokenism."

James Cook, professor of history at Floyd College in Rome, Ga., and author of The Governors of Georgia, sides with Williams.
"Maddox is a misunderstood, unique person," Cook said last month on the telephone. "He was not as anti-black as it was perceived. He genuinely believed in state's rights."
Cook doesn't believe Georgia has ever had a more unlikely governor. He writes that Maddox lacked legal training, a college education (Maddox dropped out after eleventh grade), political experience, family prominence, professional distinction, financial backing, military service, inhibitions and guile. And, if that's not enough, he adds that Maddox was "physically unimpressive."

This last bit, for what it's worth, certainly makes him one of this country's most original governors, am I right? Talk about being an underdog.

This was also news to me:

among those who got career boosts in his administration were future Gov. Zell Miller and future Agriculture Commissioner Tommy Irvin, both of whom he appointed as executive secretaries, and future House Speaker Tom Murphy, who was his House floor leader.

Also worth quoting is the closing part:

Does he still consider himself a segregationist? The answer is yes. He believes in the right to segregate one's business.
He proudly admits that he is an active member of the Council of Conservative Citizens -- the rightwing group that current politicians like Barr and Lott disavow when their links to the organization are exposed in the media. He opposes "the amalgamation of the races." He speaks out against the "New World Order."
No, he will not repent like George Wallace, who recanted at the end of his life and acknowledged that he did things for political gain. Maddox says he has no regrets, no need of repentance for anything he's done or said.
"I was Lester Maddox," he says. "How could I do anything different?"

Linked from the page in question is a letter in which Maddox himself responds to the article. I've just skimmed through it so far but he seems to offer some interesting insights. They certainly don't make Democrats like him much anymore, for better or worse. And while I have no reason to pine for the old days, they're still part of Democratic Party history, and as such better being discussed than swept under the rug.

This article was from 1999; Wikipedia tells me he died in 2003. I hope he found peace.

Replying to my own post since the editing period had expired. I found the biography "Everything is Pickrick" by his former staffer that the article mentions for sale on Amazon. Though some reviews claims it to take too apologist a stance and to have some editorial errors, I still think it could be an interesting read, and I'm putting it on my list of things to read if i (ever) get the time.

http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0865546622/qid=1135536719/sr=1-1/ref=sr_1_1/002-2614133-1426421?s=books&v=glance&n=283155

The Republicans were confident that in Callaway (of the Callaway Gardens family), they had the candidate who would win. To make sure, they turned out in the Dem primary and nominated Lester Maddox. We were faced with a terrible dilemma - do we vote for Maddox or the Republican? Both were anathema. Maddox was awful, but Callaway was arrogant, a typical product of wealth. So - a campaign was mounted to "write-in Arnall", Ellis Arnall, a former Dem governor. We knew we were likely throwing the decision to the state legislature, but maybe, just maybe, we'd win, which, of course, we didn't. My husband's vote pretty well sums up what it felt like. He told me repeatedly that by "writing in Arnall", I was electing Maddox, but when he got into the voting booth, found he couldn't vote Callaway, and "wrote in Arnall". Lester was an embarrassment, and not just because of The Pickrick. DH took photographed the opening of a bank (at that time at the edge of the Atlanta metro area, now in the heart of the NE suburbs), and got a snapshot of Lester riding a bicycle backwards and picking his nose. We were used to embarrassing governors, having lived in Louisiana when Gov. Earl Long got off an airplane in Fort Worth with a pillowcase over his head, and his hat on top of the pillowcase.

I remember it well, albeit from a rather juvenile perspective.

As I recall, a guy name Ellis Arnold actually more votes in the primary than Maddox or Carter, but he lost to Maddox in a run-off, mostly because Republicans voted for Maddox thinking he'd be easy to beat (for that reason, I refuse to vote in Republican primaries here in KS, temping tho it may be--it's playing with fire).

That was back in the days when almost everybody in GA was a Democrat, and had been since Civil War days. But precisely because Maddox was such a buffoon, the Republican (Bo Callaway, who would later serve in the Nixon administration) had a real chance of winning the general election, which would have been a historical event in Southern policis. Well, the state Democratic party bosses couldn't have that, so they got Arnall to run as an independent. Callaway wasn't a bad sort, as I recall. Back then in the south, the Republicans actually tended to be more liberal than most of the Dems, and that's sort of the way I remember him. But being just a kid, I may be wrong on that. I just mostly remember what an embarrassment Maddox was.

Anyway, as is typical, the party hierarchy cared much more about power than ideology. They knew Arnall didn't have a chance of winning, and he didn't get many votes--single digits if I recall. But it was enough to keep Callaway from getting a majority, which forced the decision into the state legislature. There was some sort of US Supreme Court challenge, but they upheld the GA state consitution.

I remember watching the state House vote live on TV. Almost all of the reps were Democrats, but a small but significant number (mostly from Atlanta and other cities) were black. There was a lot talk about their having had to sign a party loyalty oath, and sure enough, most of the black reps chose to abstain rather than vote for a Republican. Not that it really mattered... Maddox got every white Democratic vote, and that was more than enough to win.

Fwiw, I lived at the time in Chamblee, a NE suburb of Atlanta. In those days, an almost exclusively white area. Probably more Republican than GA as a whole, but not all that many. And the parents of everyone I knew, both Dems and Repubs, were for Calloway. I had one teacher for Maddox, and that was it. Period. He was NOT well liked or respected.

I have always wondered how much the shenanigans of the state Democratic power brokers in that election may have contributed to the exodus of a lot of middle-class whites from our party in GA. I guess ultimately the Vietnam War and Nixon vs. McGovern election were a bigger factor, but the Maddox/Arnall crap was most likely the beginning.

Cavett's show was a favorite at our house, and we were watching that night.

http://www.answers.com/topic/the-dick-cavett-show

In December 1971, former Georgia governor Lester Maddox walked off the show in the middle of a conversation about segregation after Cavett refused to apologize. (This had little effect on the proceedings, since it happened at the end of the show.) Truman Capote was on the show and said he got more comments about it than any other TV he had done. Cavett suspected that the walking off was mere showmanship and a calculated publicity stunt. It was reported in the news before it aired that night, increasing viewership. In Greenwood, Mississippi, the home town of Cavett's wife, Carrie Nye, the guests at a country-club dance abandoned the dance floor to watch the show on the TV in the lounge. Matters were patched up and Maddox returned on a later night, and this time Cavett himself walked off the show as a joke. Left alone on stage, Maddox cued the band and began singing "I Don't Know Why I Love You Like I Do" as Cavett reappeared in the wings to join in.

Marietta is in Cobb Co., just NW of Atlanta. I worked in the planning dept. back in the early nineties and Lester got in a snit about some property beside him that was being rezoned. At a county commissioner meeting he let go a tirade that would make Howard Stern blush. One of the commissioners leaned over to me and said this was "classic Lester"

This was about the same time that the commissioners voted to condemn the "homosexual lifestyle", they would lose several venues from the '96 olympics over that but they didn't care. They said it was the moral thing to do.

I quit soon afterwards.

She caused some controversy when she wrote a letter expressing her admiration for him after he refused to serve black customers in his restaurant. She said it was about his right to do what he wanted with his own property.

One of my college buddies -- an African-American man -- lived in Georgia when Maddox was Governor and told me he literally wept when Carter was elected. In fact, he said he was so grateful to Carter for getting Maddox out of office that told me he would support Carter in any of his political endeavors.

It was funny because the rest of my college buds -- most of whom were liberal/leftists were frothing-at-the-mouth Carter haters.