Lester Maddox | |
|---|---|
 Maddox in 1967 | |
| 75thGovernor of Georgia | |
| In office January 10, 1967 – January 12, 1971 | |
| Lieutenant | George T. Smith |
| Preceded by | Carl Sanders |
| Succeeded by | Jimmy Carter |
| 7thLieutenant 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 (1915-09-30)September 30, 1915 Atlanta, Georgia, U.S. |
| Died | June 25, 2003(2003-06-25) (aged 87) Atlanta, Georgia, U.S. |
| Resting place | Arlington Memorial Park Sandy Springs, Georgia,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 75thgovernor of Georgia from 1967 to 1971.
A populistSouthern Democrat, Maddox came to prominence as a staunchsegregationist,[1] when he refused to serveAfrican-American customers in hisAtlanta restaurant, the Pickrick, in violation of theCivil Rights Act of 1964. He was soon after elected governor in 1966. Ineligible to run for a second consecutive term in 1970, he sought and won election aslieutenant governor instead, serving alongside his successor as governor,Jimmy Carter. Maddox later ran for president in 1976.
Maddox was born inAtlanta, Georgia, the second of nine children born to Dean Garfield Maddox, asteelworker, and his wife, the former Flonnie Castleberry. Maddox left school shortly before graduation to help support the family by taking odd jobs, including real estate and grocery. He received his high school diploma through correspondence courses.[2] DuringWorld War II, Maddox worked at theBell Aircraft factory inMarietta, Georgia producing theB-29 Superfortress bomber.[3]
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.[2] Building on that success, the couple then bought property on Hemphill Avenue near theGeorgia Institute of Technology campus to open up the Pickrick Restaurant.[4]
Maddox made the Pickrick a family affair, with his wife and children also working with him. Known for its simple, inexpensiveSouthern cuisine, including its specialty,skillet-fried chicken, the Pickrick soon became a thriving business. The restaurant also provided Maddox with his first political forum. He placed advertising which featured cartoon chickens in the Atlanta newspapers. Following the 1954Brown v. Board of Education decision of theUnited States Supreme Court, these restaurant ads began to feature the cartoon chickens commenting on the political questions of the day. However, Maddox's refusal to adjust to changes following the passage of theCivil Rights Act of 1964 manifested itself when he filed a lawsuit to continue his segregationist policies. Maddox said that he would close his restaurant rather than serveAfrican Americans. An initial group of black demonstrators came to the restaurant but did not enter when Maddox informed them that he had a large number of black employees. In April 1964, more African Americans attempted to enter the restaurant. Maddox confronted the group with a barepickaxe handle.[1] Maddox provides the following account of the events:
Mostly customers, with only a few employees, voluntarily removed the twelve Pickrick Drumsticks, (aeuphemism 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]
TheCivil Rights Digital Library at theUniversity 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 thatPresident 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.
During his ownership of the Pickrick, Maddox, a Democrat, failed in two bids for mayor of Atlanta. In 1957, he lost to incumbentWilliam B. Hartsfield, for whom theHartsfield–Jackson Atlanta International Airport is named. Hartsfield had pursued a more moderate approach to racial issues. In 1961, Maddox lost toIvan Allen, Jr., with whom he split the white vote. Allen's ability to garner virtually all of the black vote provided his margin of victory.
In 1962, Maddox ran forlieutenant governor as a Democrat, againstPeter Zack Geer, a candidate with whom he shared segregationist andstates' 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]
When Maddox sought the Democratic nomination for governor in 1966, his principal primary opponent was former governorEllis Arnall. That election was still in the era of Democratic Party dominance in Georgia, when winning the Democratic primary wastantamount to election. There was no Republican primary at the time, but there were voters who identified with the Republican Party. Republicans cast ballots in theopen Democratic primary election, and some chose the candidate they believed would most likely lose the general election to their nominee,Howard "Bo" Callaway. In the primary, Arnall won a plurality of the popular vote, but he was denied the required majority. Maddox, the second-place candidate, entered therunoff election against Arnall.State senatorJimmy Carter finished in a strong third place. Again, some Republicans voted in the Democratic primary runoff. Arnall barely campaigned in the runoff, and Maddox emerged victorious, 443,055 to 373,004.[12]
Maddox quipped that he had been nominated despite having "no money, no politicians, no television, no newspapers, noMartin Luther King, noLyndon Johnson, and we made it!" He joked further that Johnson had been "the best campaign manager I've got even if he did put me out of business", a reference to the closing of the Pickrick Restaurant to avoid desegregation. On winning the runoff, theBaptist Maddox, who neither smoked nor drank alcohol, described God as his "campaign manager".[13]
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 theAmerican Civil War and the 1864March to the Sea waged in Georgia byUniongeneralWilliam Tecumseh Sherman. He criticized the Callaway familytextile mill, which he alleged had kept wages at $10 a week inTroup County. Maddox said that Callaway was unable to relate to farmers, small businessmen, and the unemployed: "He would be a lot better off if he knew about people as well as dollars." Maddox said thatCallaway Gardens had hired off-duty police officers to maintain segregation at the tourist park inPine Mountain, but a superior court judge verified that Callaway had an open admission policy at the facility.[14]
Callaway won aplurality in the general election, becoming the first Republican gubernatorial candidate to top the polls in Georgia since the close ofReconstruction, and Maddox finished second. More than 52,000 wrote in Arnall's name. Under the election rules then in effect, the state legislature was required to elect one of the two candidates with the highest number of votes, which meant that the lawmakers could not consider Arnall. With the legislature overwhelmingly dominated by Democrats, all of whom had been required to sign a Democraticloyalty oath, Maddox became governor.[15] He was sworn in on the evening of January 10, 1967, minutes after the legislature certified his election.[16]
Maddox campaigned hard for states' rights and maintained a segregationist stance while in office. Upon theassassination 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] Maddox called MLK an "enemy of the people" after his assassination and refused to attend his funeral.[21] Maddox considered personally raising flags that had been placed at half-mast at the State Capitol after MLK's assassination and reportedly decided against doing so because news cameras were nearby.[22] In 1968, Maddox endorsed the former DemocratGeorge Wallace, the then pro-segregationAmerican Independent Party candidate in the1968 presidential election.[17] After leaving office, Maddox said "“I’m still a segregationist. I’ve told you that 15 times. When are you going to start believing me?”[23]
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.[24] Maddox's chief of staff wasZell Miller, who went on to serve two terms as governor in the 1990s and asPaul Coverdell's successor in the U.S. Senate. Maddox received the honorary degree of Doctor of Laws fromBob Jones University in 1969.[25]
In 1968, a small Atlanta repertory company produced a play entitledRed, White and Maddox. The play ridiculed Maddox and imagined him winning the1972 U.S. presidential election, then starting a war with theSoviet Union. The show came to Broadway and ran for forty-one performances at theCort Theatre before closing.[26] Maddox was a supporter of theVietnam War because of his anti-communist views, and he often told Georgia about the threats of communist and socialist influences.[27] Maddox also championed private enterprise over government intervention, proclaiming in 1970 that the former “can wipe out more poverty in one year than government can erase in a quarter,” while also claiming that “Government continues to escalate its own war on poverty, and next week you’re going to work a day or two for some bum who won’t work.”[28]
In the 1966 campaign, theSavannah 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".[29] Once in office, however, Maddox accomplished the following:
Years after Maddox's gubernatorial term ended, RepublicanBenjamin 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.[34]
Under the Georgia constitution of 1945, Maddox wasprohibited 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 asJimmy Carter's election as governor, the two were notrunning 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 onThe Dick Cavett Show on December 18, 1970. During a commercial break, fellow guest and former football playerJim 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.[35]
Because the lieutenant governor was a mostly ceremonial role, Maddox spent most of his time as lieutenant governor preparing for a run for governor in 1974. Maddox was considered to be a near shoo-in to regain the governor's mansion in 1974, with theNew York Times predicting that onlyJohn Wayne could beat him for Georgia governor.[36] Campaign literature in support of Maddox’s bid for governor cited gains in health, education and penal reform during his tenure while also presenting Maddox as a champion of labor, citing measures introduced during his time as governor and lieutenant-governor such as Georgia’s first minimum wage law, improvements in workmen’s compensation benefits, and the end of a one-week waiting period for unemployment benefits.[37] In the end, Maddox was forced into a runoff for the Democratic nomination,[38] where he was shockingly defeated byGeorge Busbee.[39]
When Carter ran for president in1976, Maddox ran against him as the nominee of Wallace's formerAmerican Independent Party, saying that his former rival was "the most dishonest man I ever met". Maddox and running mateWilliam Dyke, the former mayor ofMadison,Wisconsin, received 170,373 votes in the election (less than 1% of the vote)[40] and no electoral votes.
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 anAfrican American musician,Bobby Lee Fears, who had worked as a busboy in his restaurant.[41][note 1] Fears had served time in prison for a drug offense before Maddox, as lieutenant governor, was able to assist him in obtaining a pardon. Calling themselves "The Governor and the Dishwasher," the duo performed comedy bits built around the Governor's subjugation over the Dishwasher, the Dishwasher's lack of intelligence, and musical numbers with Maddox onharmonica and Fears onguitar.[42]
AfterKorean Air Lines Flight 007 was shot down in 1983, withU.S. RepresentativeLarry McDonald aboard, a special election was held to fill his seat in Congress. Lester Maddox stated his intention to run for the seat if McDonald's wife, Kathy McDonald, did not.[43] However, Kathy McDonald decided to run, and Maddox stayed out of the race; she lost to DemocratGeorge "Buddy" Darden.
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 theAIDS virus.[44] Maddox underwent testing, and two months later announced that he was free of the virus.[45]
During the1987 Forsyth County protests in January of that year, Maddox attended a rally organized by members of theKu 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 ablack church in 1958, was also at the rally.[46]
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.[47] He remained a visible figure in his home community ofCobb County for the remainder of his life. In 1992 and 1996, Maddox crossed party lines and endorsed unsuccessful populist RepublicanPat Buchanan for the presidency. His last public speech was in Atlanta in 2001 at the annual national conference of theCouncil of Conservative Citizens. The CCC, of which Maddox was a charter member, is considered by theSouthern Poverty Law Center[48] and theAnti-Defamation League to be awhite supremacist group.
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.[49]
On June 25, 2003, after a fall while recuperating from intestinal surgery in an Atlantahospice, Maddox died of complications frompneumonia andprostate cancer. He and his wife Virginia are both interred at Arlington Memorial Park inSandy Springs in northern Fulton County, Georgia. Due to a successful business career, Maddox was relatively wealthy when he died.[49]
After Maddox's death in 2003,Tom Murphy, the formerSpeaker of the Georgia House of Representatives, said of the former governor: "He had a reputation as a segregationist, but he told us he was not a segregationist, but that you should be able to associate with whoever you wanted. He went on to do more for African Americans than any governor of Georgia up until that time."[1] This view is not universally shared. In its obituary of the former governor,The New York Times called him an "arch segregationist"; to support this contention, theTimes noted that his convictions included "the view that blacks were intellectually inferior to whites, that integration was a Communist plot, that segregation was somewhere justified in scripture and that a federal mandate to integrate [all-white] schools was 'ungodly, un-Christian and un-American.'" Despite this, the obituary notes that after becoming governor, Maddox "surprised many by hiring and promoting blacks in state government and by initiating an early release program for the state prison system".[6]
The Interstate Highway 75 bridge over theChattahoochee River at the boundary ofCobb County (Vinings) andFulton County (Atlanta), is named the "Lester and Virginia Maddox Bridge".
Maddox was the primary inspiration forRandy Newman's 1974 song "Rednecks".[50][51]
[The restaurant] never did become the Pickwick. That name was already registered in Atlanta and I wanted something entirely unique and my own. ...
{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: bot: original URL status unknown (link)| Party political offices | ||
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| Preceded by | Democratic nominee forGovernor of Georgia 1966 | Succeeded by |
| Preceded by | Democratic nominee forLieutenant Governor of Georgia 1970 | Succeeded by |
| Preceded by | American Independent nominee forPresident of the United States 1976 | Succeeded by |
| Political offices | ||
| Preceded by | Governor of Georgia 1967–1971 | Succeeded by |
| Preceded by | Lieutenant Governor of Georgia 1971–1975 | Succeeded by |
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