George Wallace in Wisconsin by Ben Hubing
If Wisconsin is associated with George Wallace in a trivia quiz, it’s usually because a deranged Milwaukeean, Arthur Bremer, tried to assassinate him in 1972. As Milwaukee historian Ben Hubing show in his well-researched account, the Alabama governor visited Wisconsin on numerous occasions in the ‘60s, veiling his racist agenda under fine talk of federal overreach and private property rights. In the 1964 Democratic presidential primary, he received 30 percent of the vote. Running in 1968 under the American Party banner, he took only 7.6. Hubing speculates with some basis that Wallace siphoned off blue collar Democrats from the Humphrey ticket.
Hubing documents the largely unfavorable response by Wisconsin newspapers to the arch-segregationist’s visits as well as the raucous turnouts at some of his rallies. The author puts the support Wallace received in the state in context of the postwar migration that brought white and Black Southerners to the booming industrial city of Milwaukee. In an overtly racist 1956 campaign, Mayor Frank Zeidler was accused of “importing” African Americans into the city by an opponent who called for electing “an honest white man for mayor.” Zeidler won but stepped aside in 1960 for Henry Maier, who professed a “go slow” approach to civil rights.
The author correctly finds “cautionary parallels” between then and now in Wallace’s appeal to white working-class grievance and libertarianism. Wallace lost Wisconsin, twice, but the battle continues under other names.
