Lester Maddox
Lester Maddox | |
---|---|
75th Governor of Georgia | |
In office January 10, 1967 – January 12, 1971 | |
Lieutenant | George T. Smith |
Preceded by | Carl Sanders |
Succeeded by | Jimmy Carter |
7th Lieutenant Governor of Georgia | |
In office January 12, 1971 – January 14, 1975 | |
Governor | Jimmy Carter |
Preceded by | George T. Smith |
Succeeded by | Zell Miller |
Personal details | |
Born | Lester Garfield Maddox September 30, 1915 U.S. |
Political party | Democratic |
Other political affiliations | American Independent (1968, 1976) |
Spouse | |
Children | 4 |
Lester Garfield Maddox Sr. (September 30, 1915 – June 25, 2003) was an American politician who served as the 75th
Childhood
Maddox was born in
Restaurant owner
In 1944, Maddox, along with his wife Hattie Virginia (née Cox, 1918–1997), used $400 in savings to open a combination grocery store-and-restaurant called Lester's Grill.
Maddox made the Pickrick a family affair, with his wife and children also working with him. Known for its simple, inexpensive
Mostly customers, with only a few employees, voluntarily removed the twelve Pickrick Drumsticks, (a euphemism for pickaxe handles) from the nail kegs on each side of the large dining room fireplace. They had been forewarned by the arrival of Atlanta's news media of an impending attempted invasion of our restaurant by the racial demonstrators and once the demonstrators and agitators arrived, the customers and employees pulled the drumsticks (pickaxe handles) from the kegs and went outside to 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 selling the restaurant to employees rather than agreeing to serve black customers. He claimed that the issue was not hostility to blacks, but constitutional property rights. He even built a monument to "private property rights" near the restaurant.[7]
The Civil Rights Digital Library at the University of Georgia contains the following account 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 serve only "acceptable" Georgians. During a trial for contempt of court on September 29, Maddox argued against the charges because he 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 the injunction and assigned fines of two hundred dollars a day for failing to serve African Americans. Maddox ultimately closed his restaurant on February 7, 1965, rather than integrate it; he claimed that
President Lyndon Johnson and communists put him out 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.
Political career
Early campaigns
During his ownership of the Pickrick, Maddox, a Southern Democrat, failed in two bids for mayor of Atlanta. In 1957, he lost to incumbent
In 1962, Maddox ran for lieutenant governor as a Southern Democrat, against Peter Zack Geer, a candidate with whom he shared segregationist and states' rights views. In an effort to differentiate themselves from each other, each attempted to paint the other as an extremist. Geer won the race, 55–45%, but Maddox gained attention across the state.
In the following years, Maddox proclaimed himself a "Society of Liberty" martyr intent on 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. It was said of Maddox, "We have a populist revolution in its truest sense moving here. White people who work with 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 as a "backwoods demagogue out in the boondocks". According to one account, the former restaurateur's appeal transcended race to embrace a right-wing brand of "populism", picturing government, rather than big business, as the villain.[11]
1966 election
When Maddox sought the Democratic nomination for governor in 1966, his principal primary opponent was former governor
Maddox quipped that he had been nominated despite having "no money, no politicians, no television, no newspapers, no
Stunned Arnall supporters announced a write-in candidacy for the general election, insisting that Georgians must have the option of a moderate Democrat beside the conservatives Maddox and Callaway. In his general election campaign, Maddox equated the Callaway Republicans to the
Callaway won a
Governor of Georgia
Maddox campaigned hard for states' rights and maintained a segregationist stance while in office. Upon the assassination of Martin Luther King Jr., he denied the slain civil rights leader the honor of lying in state in the Georgia state capitol[17] after being told by undercover agents in the Atlanta Police Department that there was a planned storming of the state capitol by participants in the crowd of mourners.[18] No evidence has ever emerged that this was anything more than a rumor; the undercover agents provided no evidence for it other than their statement.[19] As a precaution, Maddox stationed 160 state troopers to surround the capitol.[20] Regardless, the funeral procession, attended by tens of thousands; was entirely peaceful.[17] In 1968, Maddox endorsed the former Democrat George Wallace, the then pro-segregation American Independent Party candidate in the 1968 presidential election.[17]
When he was asked what might be done to improve the abysmal conditions in Georgia prisons, Maddox replied that what was really needed was a better class of prisoner.[21] Maddox's chief of staff was Zell Miller, who went on to serve two terms as governor in 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.[22]
In 1968, a small Atlanta repertory company produced a play entitled
Accomplishments in office
In the 1966 campaign, the Savannah Morning News forecast that as governor, Maddox would "tell off the federal government forty times a day, but four years after his inauguration, he would have accomplished little else".[25] Once in office, however, Maddox accomplished the following:
- Maddox was favorably influenced by Murray M. Silver, Esq., General Counsel of the Georgia Department of Labor, and Commissioner Sam Caldwell to hire blacks and to approve legislation affecting unemployment insurance of automobile workers within the state.[26]
- Maddox integrated the Georgia State Patrol, appointed the first African American to head a state-wide government department, appointed the first African American Georgia Bureau of Investigation agent, appointed the first African American to a draft board in Georgia, integrated Georgia's farmer's markets' lines, and directed state troopers not to address African Americans as "niggers".[27]
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 of corruption was made against Maddox, whose administration was characterized by economic development and the appointment of African Americans to state executive positions.[28]
Lieutenant Governor of Georgia
Under the Georgia constitution of 1945, Maddox was prohibited from running for a second consecutive term. He therefore waged his second bid for lieutenant governor, the first having resulted in defeat to Peter Zack Geer in 1962. Although Maddox was elected as a Democratic candidate at the same time as Jimmy Carter's election as governor, the two were not running mates; in Georgia, particularly in that era of Democratic dominance, the winners of the primary elections went on to easy victories in the general elections without campaigning together as an official ticket or as running mates. Carter and Maddox found little common ground during their four 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 commercial 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". On the air, Cavett substituted the word "admirers" in place of "bigots", enraging Maddox. After demanding an apology from Cavett, and getting a carefully worded form of it, following further conversation, Maddox still walked off the show. Making light of the incident during a subsequent appearance by Maddox, Cavett walked off this time, and Maddox applauded.[29]
1976 presidential election
When Carter ran for president in 1976, Maddox ran against him as the nominee of Wallace's former American Independent Party, saying that his former rival was "the most dishonest man I ever met". The remark was similar to a statement once uttered by Barry Goldwater about U.S. president Richard Nixon. Maddox and running mate William Dyke, the former mayor of Madison, Wisconsin, received 170,373 votes in the election (less than 1% of the vote)[30] and no electoral votes.
Retirement
With his political career seemingly over and with massive debts stemming from his 1974 gubernatorial bid, Maddox began a short-lived nightclub comedy career in 1977 with an
Later years
1980s
After
Maddox had been using drugs from a Bahamian cancer clinic to treat his prostate cancer. In July 1985, he revealed that the clinic had been shut down by Bahamian officials after its drugs had been found to be contaminated with the AIDS virus.[34] Maddox underwent testing, and two months later announced that he was free of the virus.[35]
During the 1987 Forsyth County protests in January of that year, Maddox attended a rally organized by members of the Ku Klux Klan after the group had attacked several dozen marchers who were protesting against racial discrimination in the county. J. B. Stoner, a white supremacist who had previously been imprisoned for bombing a black church in 1958, was also at the rally.[36]
1990s
Maddox made one final unsuccessful bid for governor in 1990, then underwent heart surgery the following year. In the 1990 Democratic primary for governor, Maddox finished with about three percent of the vote.
Personal life
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 he had to spend much time away from the family.[39]
Death
On June 25, 2003, after a fall while recuperating from intestinal surgery in an Atlanta
Legacy
After Maddox's death in 2003,
The Interstate Highway 75 bridge over the Chattahoochee River at the boundary of Cobb County (Vinings) and Fulton County (Atlanta), is named the "Lester and Virginia Maddox Bridge".
Maddox was the primary inspiration for Randy Newman's 1974 song "Rednecks".[40][41]
Electoral history
See also
References
- ^ a b c "Former Georgia Gov. Maddox dies". CNN.com. June 25, 2003. Archived from the original on 2008-01-15. Retrieved 2007-12-02.
- ^ a b Severo, Richard (25 June 2003). "Lester Maddox, Whites-Only Restaurateur and Georgia Governor, Dies at 87". The New York Times. Retrieved 2010-11-08.
- ^ "Lester Maddox | Today in Georgia History". Archived from the original on 2016-09-06. Retrieved 2016-09-07.
- ISBN 0-385-08956-2.
[The restaurant] never did become the Pickwick. That name was already registered in Atlanta and I wanted something entirely unique and my own. ...
- ^ Jacobs, Hal (August 9, 1999). "Hal's Archives". Southern Currents. Retrieved 2019-02-23.
- ^ a b Severo, Richard (June 25, 2003). "Lester Maddox Dies at 87; Segregationist Was a Georgia Governor". The New York Times.
- Atlanta History: A Journal of Georgia and the South, Vol. XXXI (Winter 1987–1988), p. 38
- ^ "Civil Rights Digital Library". Archived from the original on 2 April 2015. Retrieved 2 September 2012.
- ^ "Picture of the Pickrick Cafeteria located in Atlanta at 891 Hemphill Avenue near the campus of the Georgia Institute of Technology". Archived from the original on 19 July 2011. Retrieved 25 May 2011.
- ^ "Georgia Institute of Technology: Campus Map". Archived from the original on 7 October 2007. Retrieved 25 May 2011.
- ^ a b Atlanta History, p. 38
- ^ Atlanta History, p. 40
- ^ Atlanta History, pp. 40–41
- ^ Atlanta History, p. 43
- ^ Atlanta History, p. 47
- ^ Hopkins, Sam (January 11, 1967). "Quickly Sworn In Behind Shut Doors". The Atlanta Constitution. Vol. 99, no. 175. pp. 1, 10.
- ^ ISBN 978-0-7432-4302-5.
- ISSN 1539-7459. Retrieved 2022-11-03.
- ISBN 978-0-7432-4302-5.
- ISBN 978-1-4391-3054-4.
- ^ Baxter, Tom (October 21, 1999). "In Recounting Famous Quip, Maddox Gives Clarity to Past". The Atlanta Constitution.
- ^ Sword of the Lord (July 4, 1969) 6.
- ^ Barnes, Clive (27 January 1969). "Stage: 'Red, White and Maddox' Here; Satire From Atlanta is at the Cort Theater". The New York Times. p. 27. Retrieved 25 May 2011.
- ^ "Lester G. Maddox Biographical File". Richard B. Russell Library for Political Research and Studies. Athens, GA: University of Georgia Libraries. Archived from the original on March 4, 2016. Retrieved February 12, 2016.
- ^ Savannah Morning News and Evening Press, October 9, 1966
- ISBN 978-0-9822583-2-3.
- ^ "Lester Maddox". Archived from the original on 2018-12-01. Retrieved 2018-11-02.
- ^ Atlanta History, p. 48
- ISBN 0-15-116130-5.
- ^ Leip, David. "1976 Presidential Election Results". Dave Leip's Atlas of U.S. Presidential Elections. Retrieved 25 May 2011.
- ^ http://www.sirshambling.com/artists_2012/D/bobby_dixon/index.php Archived 2013-10-04 at the Wayback Machine Information on Fears musical career
- ISBN 0-86554-662-2.
- The Miami Herald. 1983-09-08. Retrieved 25 May 2011.
- Sun-Sentinel. 1985-07-31. Archived from the originalon 2015-06-14. Retrieved 2015-06-12.
- ^ "Maddox Gets Good News: No Sign of AIDS". Los Angeles Times. 1985-08-27.
- ISBN 978-1-4299-5933-9.
- ^ "DynaXML Error: Servlet Error". Archived from the original on 2016-03-04. Retrieved 2020-06-18.
- ^ "Center Report Exposes Links Between Hate Group, Lawmakers". Southern Poverty Law Center. September 2004. Archived from the original on 2007-09-30. Retrieved 2013-01-08.
- ^ ISBN 9780865546622.
- ^ Jordan, Scott (2008). "Backtalk with Randy Newman". offBeat Magazine. Archived from the original on 2008-05-15. Retrieved 2023-08-16.
- ^ Lydia Hutchinson (2016). "Happy Birthday, Randy Newman". Performing Songwriter. Retrieved 2023-08-16.
Notes
- ^ Bobby Lee Fears was a native of Atlanta, who had previously worked as a guitarist and vocalist for the Fabulous Denos, who had a number of releases on the King label. He later joined an early incarnation of the Ohio Players before cutting around three solo records under his own name and using the alias Bobby Dixon.
Further reading
- Bruce Galphin, The Riddle of Lester Maddox (Atlanta: Camelot, 1968).
- Brad Rice, "Lester Maddox and the Politics of Populism," in Georgia Governors in an Age of Change: From Ellis Arnall to George Busbee, ed. Harold P. Henderson and Gary L. Roberts (Athens: University of Georgia Press, 1988).
- Bob Short, Everything Is Pickrick: The Life of Lester Maddox (Macon, Ga.: Mercer University Press, 1999).
External links
- Lester! from Creative Loafing, March 20, 1999 (with link to his personal rebuttal to the article)
- Entry in New Georgia Encyclopedia Archived 2012-02-04 at the Wayback Machine
- Oral History Interview with Governor Lester Maddox,[permanent dead link] March 7, 1986, Georgia's Political Heritage Program.
- https://dlg.usg.edu/record/uwg_phc_maddox2, April 17, 1986, Georgia's Political Heritage Program.
- "Former Georgia Gov. Maddox Dies". CNN. Archived from the original on January 15, 2008. Retrieved December 3, 2007.
{{cite web}}
: CS1 maint: bot: original URL status unknown (link) - Lester Maddox collection at the University of West Georgia
- Lester Maddox Photographs from the Atlanta History Center
- Lester Maddox at Find a Grave