Lester Maddox Governor of Georgia, 1964

Introduction

Lester Maddox the restaurateur who became a symbol of segregationist defiance and then Georgia governor in a fluke election died this morning at an Atlanta hospice. Family members confirmed his death at 1:59 a.m. in a statement released through Gov. Sonny Perdue's office. Maddox who had battled cancer since 1983 - cracked two ribs when he fell about 10 days ago at an assisted living home where he was recovering from intestinal surgery. He later developed pneumonia and was placed in an Atlanta hospice. Maddox will be remembered as one of the civil rights era's most unusual characters.

Discussion

Maddox was a born showman, selling fried chicken and voicing the raw reaction of whites to desegregation with equal gusto. He used every trick from riding a bicycle backwards to playing the harmonica to stay in the public eye, and sold souvenir copies of the pick handles infamously used to drive would-be black customers from his restaurant.

It was largely an accident of the turbulent desegregation era that Maddox became governor in 1967. He used the office as a national stage for his right-wing views, but showed a progressive side in his approach to issues such as prison reform.

With his bald pate, round glasses and prominent ears, Maddox was a ripe subject for cartoonists. He even tried his hand at show business after leaving office. But he had an important role in the state's history: the transition from Maddox to Jimmy Carter marked the decisive turning point in Georgia's response to the racial questions that had been lingering since the Civil War.

While Maddox articulated a potent mixture of both racial and class resentment, which made him a major figure in Georgia, he never was taken as seriously nationally as his contemporary, Alabama Gov. George C. Wallace, said Merle Black, a professor of political science at Emory University. "(Maddox) seemed milder once he got in office. He really hearkened back to the idea of political activity as a form of entertainment and showmanship," said Black, co-author of several books on Southern politics.

Becoming an anachronism

But unlike Wallace, Maddox never asked to be forgiven for things said and done during the height of the South's debate over race. To the end, he remained a true believer in himself. "For some in government, I did ruffle a few feathers and proved to be a thorn in their flesh. However, that was their problem, not mine," Maddox wrote in his later years. Maddox, the only Atlantan to serve as Georgia's governor, served from 1967 to 1971. He might have been elected to a second term had the state constitution then allowed governors to succeed themselves. Instead, he settled for lieutenant governor from 1971-75, leaving little doubt that he would try to regain the governor's office.

However, quieter times and the changing electorate made Maddox an anachronism in four years, and he lost his 1974 run for governor. The Democrat followed that with a brief fling in 1976 as a presidential candidate under the ...