i grew up in north alabama back in the 1970s when dinosaurs
still roamed the earth.i'm speaking, of course, of the three
great alabama icons: GW, BB, and RVZ.Now, RVZ wasn't
from alabama, he was from florida, he was a huge neil young
fan but in the tradition of merle haggard writing Okie From
Muskogee to tell his dad's point of view on the hippies in
vietnam, Ronnie felt that the other side of the story should be
told.Neil Young always claimed that Sweet Home Alabama
was one of his favorite songs and legend has it that he was
an honorary pallbearer at Ronnie's funeral, such as the
duality of the southern thing.
...and Bear Bryant wore a cool lookin' red checkered hat and
won football games, and there's few things more loved in
Alabama than football and the men who know how to win at
it.So when the Bear would come to town, there would be a
parade.Me, I was one of them pussy boys cuz i hated
football, so i got a guitar but a guitar was a poor substitute
for a football with the girls in my high school.So my band hit
the road, and we didn't play no Skynyrd, neither.I came of
age rebelling against the music in my high school parking
lot.It wasn't until years later after leaving the south for a
while that I came to appreciate and understand the whole
Skynyrd thing and its misunderstood glory.I left the south
and learned how different people's perceptions of the
Southern Thing was from what I had seen in my life, which
leads us to George Wallace...
...now Wallace was, for all practical purposes, the governor
of Alabama from 1962 until 1986.Once when a law
prevented him from succeeding himself, he ran his wife
Lurleen in his place and she won by a landslide.He's most
famous as the beligerant racist voice of the segregationist
south, standing in the doorways of schools and waging a war
against the federal government that he decried as
hypocritical.Now Wallace started out as a lawyer and a
judge with a very progressive and humanitarian track record
for a man of his time, but he lost his first bid for governor in
1958 by hedging on the race issue against a man who spoke
out against intergration.Wallace ran again in '62 as a
staunch segregationist and won big and for the next decade
he spoke out loudly.He accused Kennedy and King of being
communist and he was constantly on national news
representing "the good people" of Alabama.
...and ya know race was only an issue on tv in the house that
i grew up in.Wallace was viewed as a man from another
time and place, but when i first ventured out of the south i
was shocked at how strongly Wallace was associated with
Alabama and its people.Racism is a worldwide problem, and
it's been like that since the beginning of recorded history and
it ain't just white and black, but thanks to George Wallace, it's
always a little more conveinent to play it with a southern
accent.
Bands like Lynyrd Skynyrd attempt to show another side of
the south, one that certainly exists, but few saw beyond the
rebel flag and this applies to their critics and detractors but
also their fans and followers.So for a while, when Neil Young
would come to town, he'd get death threats in Alabama.
Ironically, in 1971, after a particularly racially charged
campaign, Wallace began backpeddling and he opened up
Alabama politics to minorities at a rate faster than most
northern states or the federal government. Wallace spent
the rest of his life trying to explain away his racist past and in
1982 he won his last term in office with over 90% of the
black vote, such as the duality of the southern thing.
...and George Wallace died back in '98 and he's in hell now,
not because he's a racist.His track record as a judge and his
late life quest for redemption make a good argument for his
being, at worst, no worse than most white men of his
generation, North or South.Because of his blind ambition
and his hunger for votes, he turned a blind eye to the
suffering of black America and he became a pawn in the fight
against Civil Rights cause.
...fortunately for him, the devil is also a southerner.