During the turmoil of the 1960s, civil rights leader the Rev. Joe Lowery had tried to get a meeting with Alabama's then governor, George Wallace. The governor at first sent a secretary to meet with the civil rights contingent — but, Lowery said, "I hadn't walked 50 miles just to talk to a secretary." Then Wallace agreed to a meeting, but wanted it to be with only with blacks he named — "and I wasn't about to let the governor name our representatives," Lowery recalled.

Eventually, the forces of segregation — personified by Wallace — did meet with the army of integration, and an unusual friendship began.

When Wallace first ran for governor, in 1958, he said: "I advocate hatred of no man, because hatred will only compound the problems facing the South." Then, after losing the election to Klan-backed John Patterson, Wallace proclaimed: "I will never be out-niggered again." It's the latter quote that's most often cited. Only those truly interested in the complete Wallace — someone like Lowery, for example — also recall the governor's apology in 1982: "I did stand, with a majority of white people, for the separation of the schools. But that was wrong."

Wallace was elected governor four times, ran for president four times, and was shot and paralyzed in 1972. Meanwhile, the civil rights movement marked victories, especially in voting rights, even if society's systemic disparities remain. Lowery and Wallace, at first enemies, found kinship.

At a 1995 memorial for the civil rights movement, Wallace "apologized for what had happened 30 years earlier," Lowery told me.

The cynical journalist asks: Do you really think he was sincere?

"Yes, I do," Lowery said. "I wasn't going to stand in the door blocking his way to repentance the way he stood in the door of the University of Alabama blocking us. Can you imagine, there was a photograph on the front page of the New York Times of George Wallace and Joe Lowery holding hands and singing 'We Shall Overcome.'"

I asked Lowery, who just turned 84: "Can the South ever move on past racism?" We talked for a few minutes about the many disturbing signs that the South is regressing — the re-emergence of restrictive voting laws, the erosion of workplace rights, the callous Republican response to the New Orleans tragedy.

Finally, Lowery interjected, "George Wallace — George Wallace! — grew as a man. There is hope for the South."

John F. Sugg

Senior Editor John Sugg can be reached at john.sugg@creativeloafing.com.

This article appears in Oct 19-25, 2005.