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The Broken Road: George Wallace and a Daughter’s Journey to Reconciliation
From the daughter of one of America's most virulent segregationists, a memoir that reckons with her father George Wallace's legacy of hate--and illuminates her journey towards redemption.
In the summer of 1963, Peggy Wallace Kennedy was a young girl watching her father stand in a schoolhouse door as he tried to block two African-American students from entering the University of Alabama. This man, former governor of Alabama and presidential candidate George Wallace, was notorious for his hateful rhetoric and his political stunts. But he was also a larger-than-life father to young Peggy, who was taught to smile, sit straight, and not speak up as her father took to the political stage. At the end of his life, Wallace came to renounce his views, although he could never attempt to fully repair the damage he caused. But Peggy, after her own political awakening, dedicated her life to spreading the new Wallace message-one of peace and compassion.
In this powerful new memoir, Peggy looks back on the politics of her youth and attempts to reconcile her adored father with the man who coined the phrase “Segregation now. Segregation tomorrow. Segregation forever.”
Timely and timeless, The Broken Road speaks to change, atonement, activism, and racial reconciliation.
In the summer of 1963, Peggy Wallace Kennedy was a young girl watching her father stand in a schoolhouse door as he tried to block two African-American students from entering the University of Alabama. This man, former governor of Alabama and presidential candidate George Wallace, was notorious for his hateful rhetoric and his political stunts. But he was also a larger-than-life father to young Peggy, who was taught to smile, sit straight, and not speak up as her father took to the political stage. At the end of his life, Wallace came to renounce his views, although he could never attempt to fully repair the damage he caused. But Peggy, after her own political awakening, dedicated her life to spreading the new Wallace message-one of peace and compassion.
In this powerful new memoir, Peggy looks back on the politics of her youth and attempts to reconcile her adored father with the man who coined the phrase “Segregation now. Segregation tomorrow. Segregation forever.”
Timely and timeless, The Broken Road speaks to change, atonement, activism, and racial reconciliation.
304 pages, Hardcover
First published December 3, 2019
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July 21, 2019
Thanks to Bloomsbury for the ARC at BEA 2019.
TLDR: this book is revisionist history designed to protect the Wallace legacy, don't read it.
This book is Peggy Wallace Kennedy's memoir of growing up with and dealing with the legacy of her infamous father, Governor of Alabama and Independent candidate for President in 1968 and 1972, George Wallace. I was skeptical of what this book would entail; Wallace was not only directly responsible for an enormous amount of harm by being one of the most ardent defenders of Jim Crow in his time, but remains to this day a prominent symbol and figure among a reactionary far-right that harkens back to the glory days when white supremacy could be as open and direct as possible. I was worried this book would try to rehabilitate Wallace and try to diminish the harm he did, instead of honestly recognizing the suffering he caused and the damage he did and showing the work Peggy has done since to undo the deep moral wrong he committed by waging an unrelenting war to defend white supremacy.
Unfortunately, this book is exactly that. While it occasionally notes the harm Wallace did, it consistently tries to rebrand Wallace as a race-neutral populist hero who didn't hate black people, but simply wanted to stop federal intervention and protect down on their luck working class people. I want to quote some passages, so as a heads up this was the paperback version and it's from a ARC I received at the end of May. It's possible that these quotes change by the final copy that comes out in December.
"If I had asked Daddy in the summer of 1958 if he was a racist, I'm not sure what he would have said. For many years, I felt obligated to defend Daddy's character and actions. I took the official Wallace line: Daddy was segregationist, but not a racist...What is the difference between a segregationist and a racist? A racist is defined as a person who believes that one race is superior to others. To be a segregationist means upholding a caste system - a system of apartheid....I know in our house when I was growing up the use of the N-word was strictly forbidden." - pages 53-54.
I'm sorry Peggy, but no, there's no difference between personally hating black people and actively working to maintain a system of racial political, social, and economic separation and willingly using state violence through the police and the prisons and showing support for paramilitary organizations like the KKK to enforce that separation. It's the same damn thing. In fact, I'd much rather have a 1000 Wallaces who just make snide comments in private but never do anything about it, to 1 Wallace in office, actively resisting federal efforts to end legal segregation. Also, just because you don't say the N-word doesn't mean you aren't racist.
"[Daddy] was able to say: I am running as an independent [for POTUS in 1968] because there's not a dime's bit of difference between the Republican and Democratic parties and neither of them represents the values of the people I represent. Those people were overwhelmingly comprised of the white working class who felt the rest of the country didn't give a damn about them. Through Daddy's efforts, they now had a national party of their own. Their grandchildren would one day be voting for Trump" -page 152-153.
The "values" he was representing where the values of "black people are our political, social and economic inferiors, and the infrastructure of the state should be used to uphold that racial caste system and keep black people our inferiors".
This is from a passage of Governor Wallace talking to his family near the end of his life: "I was never against the blacks. I never, in any of my speeches, made slanderous or derogatory comments about the blacks. Folks like Hugo Black, Ervin, Lyndon Johnson, Stennis, Faubus, all of them were staunch segregationists. While I was a moderate on those issues, those men had already preached separation of the races. Johnson was a leader of the fight against the Civil Rights bill in the Senate....all those folks have been rehabilitated. I outlasted them. Maybe one day I'll be rehabilitated too. The issue I felt so strongly about was the issue of the growing federal bureaucracy and how it would devastate the state's sovereign power." pages 230-231.
I mean, sure, the others were racist too? But good job misrepresenting Johnson's 1957 CRA fight, if you wanna know what actually went down, read Master of the Senate by Robert Caro, and while Johnson was almost certainly a racist, at least he passed and viciously fought for the Civil Rights Act of 1964, the Voting Rights Act of 1965, the Federal Housing Act of 1968, and established a massive slew of social welfare programs that overwhelmingly helped black people. Wallace actively opposed all of those things BECAUSE they helped black people. He had no issue with New Deal style jobs programs and government bureaucracy, as long as it excluded blacks and upheld white supremacy.
Meanwhile, Peggy claims that she wants to change the Wallace family's legacy to be better, especially after her father retired from politics in the 80s. She does this by......doing basically nothing for the black people in Alabama, until the late 2010s when she does some photo ops with Congressman Lewis and some other people from the movement decades later? Where was Peggy while her fathers allies and supporters were creating the War on Crime and the War on Drugs in the 70s and 80s, beginning the mass incarceration crisis that is decimating black America to this day? Where was Peggy as her father's proteges were slashing welfare in the 90s by demonizing black people? Where has Peggy been as police brutality kills tens of thousands of young black people in this country, from Rodney King to Travyon Martin to Tamir Rice to Sandra Bland to so many goddamn others? Her brother George Wallace Jr., is still associated with the Council of Conservative Citizens, a white supremacist organization directly descended from the White Citizen's Council, yet she claims her family has grown and changed since the time of her father. She even tries to claim her father would have voted for Obama, LOL.
Peggy seems interested in the same sense of negative peace which is the absence of tension, to a positive peace which is the presence of justice, as Dr. King famously said when he was incarcerated in Birmingham, Alabama, to her father's delight.
All of our houses have their skeletons. I'm not perfect, and my family isn't perfect either. But my family, and basically everyone I've ever met and known, has never had the same platform George Wallace had to defend a brutal system of injustice. That needs to be reckoned with, an unfortunately, it isn't here.
This book reeks of Peggy Wallace Kennedy trying desperately to rehabilitate her father's image, to cast him as a man of the people. Newsflash Peggy; during the 1960s, 40% of the people of Alabama were black. His rhetoric directly excluded them. So he wasn't a man of the people. He was a man of white supremacy. If he really felt bad at the end of his career about the damage he did, he would have fought back against the new Jim Crow that his contemporaries were building at the time. Visiting a few black churches and apologizing for being the face of the pro-segregation movement doesn't undo the amount of harm he made in his political career.
This book is revisionist history. Shame on you, Peggy Wallace Kennedy, and shame on the people at Bloomsbury for publishing this garbage. Instead of giving even more voice and space to the side of the white supremacists, maybe publish a book telling the story of the black sharecroppers who were beaten by white Alabama cops for protesting their second class status? Maybe publish a book about the people who lived in fear of violence from the Klan for daring to register to vote? Maybe publish a book of the black children of Alabama who watched their governor go on national television to proclaim he would never stop defending a system that made them legally inferior to white people?
This book isn't worth the paper it's printed on. May it rot in hell, like George "segregation now, segregation tomorrow, segregation forever" Wallace hopefully is.
TLDR: this book is revisionist history designed to protect the Wallace legacy, don't read it.
This book is Peggy Wallace Kennedy's memoir of growing up with and dealing with the legacy of her infamous father, Governor of Alabama and Independent candidate for President in 1968 and 1972, George Wallace. I was skeptical of what this book would entail; Wallace was not only directly responsible for an enormous amount of harm by being one of the most ardent defenders of Jim Crow in his time, but remains to this day a prominent symbol and figure among a reactionary far-right that harkens back to the glory days when white supremacy could be as open and direct as possible. I was worried this book would try to rehabilitate Wallace and try to diminish the harm he did, instead of honestly recognizing the suffering he caused and the damage he did and showing the work Peggy has done since to undo the deep moral wrong he committed by waging an unrelenting war to defend white supremacy.
Unfortunately, this book is exactly that. While it occasionally notes the harm Wallace did, it consistently tries to rebrand Wallace as a race-neutral populist hero who didn't hate black people, but simply wanted to stop federal intervention and protect down on their luck working class people. I want to quote some passages, so as a heads up this was the paperback version and it's from a ARC I received at the end of May. It's possible that these quotes change by the final copy that comes out in December.
"If I had asked Daddy in the summer of 1958 if he was a racist, I'm not sure what he would have said. For many years, I felt obligated to defend Daddy's character and actions. I took the official Wallace line: Daddy was segregationist, but not a racist...What is the difference between a segregationist and a racist? A racist is defined as a person who believes that one race is superior to others. To be a segregationist means upholding a caste system - a system of apartheid....I know in our house when I was growing up the use of the N-word was strictly forbidden." - pages 53-54.
I'm sorry Peggy, but no, there's no difference between personally hating black people and actively working to maintain a system of racial political, social, and economic separation and willingly using state violence through the police and the prisons and showing support for paramilitary organizations like the KKK to enforce that separation. It's the same damn thing. In fact, I'd much rather have a 1000 Wallaces who just make snide comments in private but never do anything about it, to 1 Wallace in office, actively resisting federal efforts to end legal segregation. Also, just because you don't say the N-word doesn't mean you aren't racist.
"[Daddy] was able to say: I am running as an independent [for POTUS in 1968] because there's not a dime's bit of difference between the Republican and Democratic parties and neither of them represents the values of the people I represent. Those people were overwhelmingly comprised of the white working class who felt the rest of the country didn't give a damn about them. Through Daddy's efforts, they now had a national party of their own. Their grandchildren would one day be voting for Trump" -page 152-153.
The "values" he was representing where the values of "black people are our political, social and economic inferiors, and the infrastructure of the state should be used to uphold that racial caste system and keep black people our inferiors".
This is from a passage of Governor Wallace talking to his family near the end of his life: "I was never against the blacks. I never, in any of my speeches, made slanderous or derogatory comments about the blacks. Folks like Hugo Black, Ervin, Lyndon Johnson, Stennis, Faubus, all of them were staunch segregationists. While I was a moderate on those issues, those men had already preached separation of the races. Johnson was a leader of the fight against the Civil Rights bill in the Senate....all those folks have been rehabilitated. I outlasted them. Maybe one day I'll be rehabilitated too. The issue I felt so strongly about was the issue of the growing federal bureaucracy and how it would devastate the state's sovereign power." pages 230-231.
I mean, sure, the others were racist too? But good job misrepresenting Johnson's 1957 CRA fight, if you wanna know what actually went down, read Master of the Senate by Robert Caro, and while Johnson was almost certainly a racist, at least he passed and viciously fought for the Civil Rights Act of 1964, the Voting Rights Act of 1965, the Federal Housing Act of 1968, and established a massive slew of social welfare programs that overwhelmingly helped black people. Wallace actively opposed all of those things BECAUSE they helped black people. He had no issue with New Deal style jobs programs and government bureaucracy, as long as it excluded blacks and upheld white supremacy.
Meanwhile, Peggy claims that she wants to change the Wallace family's legacy to be better, especially after her father retired from politics in the 80s. She does this by......doing basically nothing for the black people in Alabama, until the late 2010s when she does some photo ops with Congressman Lewis and some other people from the movement decades later? Where was Peggy while her fathers allies and supporters were creating the War on Crime and the War on Drugs in the 70s and 80s, beginning the mass incarceration crisis that is decimating black America to this day? Where was Peggy as her father's proteges were slashing welfare in the 90s by demonizing black people? Where has Peggy been as police brutality kills tens of thousands of young black people in this country, from Rodney King to Travyon Martin to Tamir Rice to Sandra Bland to so many goddamn others? Her brother George Wallace Jr., is still associated with the Council of Conservative Citizens, a white supremacist organization directly descended from the White Citizen's Council, yet she claims her family has grown and changed since the time of her father. She even tries to claim her father would have voted for Obama, LOL.
Peggy seems interested in the same sense of negative peace which is the absence of tension, to a positive peace which is the presence of justice, as Dr. King famously said when he was incarcerated in Birmingham, Alabama, to her father's delight.
All of our houses have their skeletons. I'm not perfect, and my family isn't perfect either. But my family, and basically everyone I've ever met and known, has never had the same platform George Wallace had to defend a brutal system of injustice. That needs to be reckoned with, an unfortunately, it isn't here.
This book reeks of Peggy Wallace Kennedy trying desperately to rehabilitate her father's image, to cast him as a man of the people. Newsflash Peggy; during the 1960s, 40% of the people of Alabama were black. His rhetoric directly excluded them. So he wasn't a man of the people. He was a man of white supremacy. If he really felt bad at the end of his career about the damage he did, he would have fought back against the new Jim Crow that his contemporaries were building at the time. Visiting a few black churches and apologizing for being the face of the pro-segregation movement doesn't undo the amount of harm he made in his political career.
This book is revisionist history. Shame on you, Peggy Wallace Kennedy, and shame on the people at Bloomsbury for publishing this garbage. Instead of giving even more voice and space to the side of the white supremacists, maybe publish a book telling the story of the black sharecroppers who were beaten by white Alabama cops for protesting their second class status? Maybe publish a book about the people who lived in fear of violence from the Klan for daring to register to vote? Maybe publish a book of the black children of Alabama who watched their governor go on national television to proclaim he would never stop defending a system that made them legally inferior to white people?
This book isn't worth the paper it's printed on. May it rot in hell, like George "segregation now, segregation tomorrow, segregation forever" Wallace hopefully is.
December 12, 2019
“I was perhaps Daddy’s most important legacy of all.”
Thanks go to Bloomsbury and Net Galley for the review copy, which I read free and early in exchange for this honest review.
I was a child during the Civil Rights era, and although I didn’t live in the American South, I recall news footage of Kennedy’s father, George Wallace, the man that the author rightly attributes as a harbinger of the Trump movement. Instead of “Make America Great Again,” Wallace urged his constituents—including the Klan, whom he openly welcomed to his campaign—to “Stand Up for America.” When the federal government signaled that it would enforce the segregation ban, Wallace made headlines around the world by literally standing in the door of the schoolhouse in order to turn the first Black student away from a public school in Alabama. My own father was a redneck of the first order, but even he distanced himself from this extremist. Wallace ran for U.S. president but was defeated; upon returning to the governor’s mansion, he was shot and paralyzed from the waist down. By that time Malcolm X was dead and could not have told us that this was a case of chickens coming home to roost, and yet it may well have been.
Although the book’s summary suggests that Kennedy is vastly different from her father politically, her prose indicates that her true, bitterest grievances all center on his philandering betrayal of her sainted mother and his failure to be a strong provider and dedicated family man. She tells us that even in the 1960s, she felt his racist rhetoric was wrong, and so I waited for what I thought must surely come next: the moment she either confronted him or simply moved out of the house to another part of the country to restart her life in saner surroundings. None of this happened, as it turns out. She stayed in the governor’s mansion, thrilled by the relative affluence and privilege she regarded as her due following a tumultuous, sometimes impoverished childhood.
The title is taken from a Hemingway quote, and in her own story designated the location of her maternal grandparents, whose simple, homespun nurturance provided relief to her mother and herself when her father went on the road politicking and didn’t send money home for them to live off of. At the beginning of the book she uses the expression often enough to beat it to death, but once her father becomes governor she rarely speaks of these kind, gentle people. Toward the end, she parenthetically notes that her grandmother died at some point back in the middle of the book.
It’s interesting that although Lurleen Wallace was elected governor in order to circumvent what was at the time a state law against successive terms for her husband, the author says nothing at all about her mother’s civil rights policies. We see that she won the governorship in a landslide and was loved by all, and yet if her policies diverged much from George’s, that would have created screaming headlines. It’s just one of the many inconsistencies within this memoir.
The last several chapters are devoted to her father’s redemption politically, or so she asserts. He never hated African-Americans, she tells us, but only did and said those things in order to gain office. Later in life, he asked a handful of Civil Rights leaders for forgiveness and spoke in Black churches about his error. She follows this up by pointing to the large numbers of Black voters that returned him to the Capitol.
I find myself wondering a lot of things, and foremost among them is why anyone would consider a candidate that makes the cold-blooded decision to promote violent racism for the sake of gaining office to be morally superior to one holding the genuine belief in the inferiority of other races and ethnicities. Wallace, she tells us, didn’t sign onto the Klan’s program because of his convictions, but because of what they could do for him. And while the parallels she draws with Nixon are apt ones, the rationalization of her late father’s destructive, ethically bankrupt lifetime is chilling in its own way, but she underplays this aspect of his career.
Her “daddy” lived long enough to appoint her 26-year-old attorney husband to the state bench.
The second star here is reluctantly provided because she does some very nice things at the outset with regard to her description of time and place in the life of poor white folks in mid-twentieth century rural Alabama. If you’re looking for a silver lining to this wretched work, there it is. It’s all I can find.
I would place this book in the child-revenge category along with Christina Crawford, Patti (Reagan) Davis, and Carrie Fisher. Read it if you want to wallow, but when you’re finished, you will likely want to shower and gargle.
Thanks go to Bloomsbury and Net Galley for the review copy, which I read free and early in exchange for this honest review.
I was a child during the Civil Rights era, and although I didn’t live in the American South, I recall news footage of Kennedy’s father, George Wallace, the man that the author rightly attributes as a harbinger of the Trump movement. Instead of “Make America Great Again,” Wallace urged his constituents—including the Klan, whom he openly welcomed to his campaign—to “Stand Up for America.” When the federal government signaled that it would enforce the segregation ban, Wallace made headlines around the world by literally standing in the door of the schoolhouse in order to turn the first Black student away from a public school in Alabama. My own father was a redneck of the first order, but even he distanced himself from this extremist. Wallace ran for U.S. president but was defeated; upon returning to the governor’s mansion, he was shot and paralyzed from the waist down. By that time Malcolm X was dead and could not have told us that this was a case of chickens coming home to roost, and yet it may well have been.
Although the book’s summary suggests that Kennedy is vastly different from her father politically, her prose indicates that her true, bitterest grievances all center on his philandering betrayal of her sainted mother and his failure to be a strong provider and dedicated family man. She tells us that even in the 1960s, she felt his racist rhetoric was wrong, and so I waited for what I thought must surely come next: the moment she either confronted him or simply moved out of the house to another part of the country to restart her life in saner surroundings. None of this happened, as it turns out. She stayed in the governor’s mansion, thrilled by the relative affluence and privilege she regarded as her due following a tumultuous, sometimes impoverished childhood.
The title is taken from a Hemingway quote, and in her own story designated the location of her maternal grandparents, whose simple, homespun nurturance provided relief to her mother and herself when her father went on the road politicking and didn’t send money home for them to live off of. At the beginning of the book she uses the expression often enough to beat it to death, but once her father becomes governor she rarely speaks of these kind, gentle people. Toward the end, she parenthetically notes that her grandmother died at some point back in the middle of the book.
It’s interesting that although Lurleen Wallace was elected governor in order to circumvent what was at the time a state law against successive terms for her husband, the author says nothing at all about her mother’s civil rights policies. We see that she won the governorship in a landslide and was loved by all, and yet if her policies diverged much from George’s, that would have created screaming headlines. It’s just one of the many inconsistencies within this memoir.
The last several chapters are devoted to her father’s redemption politically, or so she asserts. He never hated African-Americans, she tells us, but only did and said those things in order to gain office. Later in life, he asked a handful of Civil Rights leaders for forgiveness and spoke in Black churches about his error. She follows this up by pointing to the large numbers of Black voters that returned him to the Capitol.
I find myself wondering a lot of things, and foremost among them is why anyone would consider a candidate that makes the cold-blooded decision to promote violent racism for the sake of gaining office to be morally superior to one holding the genuine belief in the inferiority of other races and ethnicities. Wallace, she tells us, didn’t sign onto the Klan’s program because of his convictions, but because of what they could do for him. And while the parallels she draws with Nixon are apt ones, the rationalization of her late father’s destructive, ethically bankrupt lifetime is chilling in its own way, but she underplays this aspect of his career.
Her “daddy” lived long enough to appoint her 26-year-old attorney husband to the state bench.
The second star here is reluctantly provided because she does some very nice things at the outset with regard to her description of time and place in the life of poor white folks in mid-twentieth century rural Alabama. If you’re looking for a silver lining to this wretched work, there it is. It’s all I can find.
I would place this book in the child-revenge category along with Christina Crawford, Patti (Reagan) Davis, and Carrie Fisher. Read it if you want to wallow, but when you’re finished, you will likely want to shower and gargle.
August 12, 2019
Releases on December 3, 2019, I read an advanced reader copy from the publisher. Not what I expected, which I think was more introspection of Ms. Wallace Kennedy's own part in growing up as George Wallace's daughter and then her own work as a civil rights advocate. I don't have enough scholarly knowledge to judge if this is "revisionist" in nature but it must be affected by a daughter's lens. It is a little disjointed in terms of timeline so I needed to keep that in mind as I read. I am very tired of reading the old platitude or excuse of the south being "complicated" as is stated several times in the first half of the book. Racism, compromising belief systems for power, etc. is not "complicated." Calling racism "segregation-ism" is not complicated. The results are still racist. As I was reading the early days of Wallace's political ambitions and campaigns, I keep thinking it mirrors Trump's political ambitions and campaigns, as does the rhetoric; Wallace Kennedy points that out.
December 9, 2019
In November, 2008, soon after the Obama presidential victory, I read an article in - I think, "USA Today" - written by Peggy Wallace Kennedy. Wallace Kennedy was the daughter of Governors George and Lurleen Wallace and in the article she writes of visiting her parents' graves in Alabama earlier that fall. She was approached by a little old lady who told her how much she had loved Peggy's parents, and, as an aside, wouldn't George be horrified at the thought of a black man (I'm sure she might have used a more racially charged term than "black") running for president. Peggy gave the woman a hug but didn't ask if she'd seen Peggy's car, which had an "Obama for President" sticker on the fender. Peggy ended the column by writing she thought there was a good chance that if her father were still alive and voting, he'd have voted for Barack Obama. Oh, what a claim to make about one of the strongest segregationists ever elected to office. Now, 11 years after that fateful election, Peggy Wallace Kennedy has written a memoir which expands on that original article.
Wallace Kennedy's book, "The Broken Road: George Wallace and a Daughter’s Journey to Reconciliation", is an interesting and well-written look at how Peggy grew up in the 1950's and 60's Alabama, with a father who wanted electoral success at any price and a mother devoted to raising her four children in times of economic hard times as her husband did not provide for the family when he was running perpetually for public office. He also ran around on his wife, and often had a side piece. Not a pleasant home to grow up in but Peggy loved both parents.
Much of the book is devoted to George's political aspirations and public life. Peggy states that George had been a racial moderate with good relationships with African-Americans when he was a judge, but that changed when he lost his first race for Alabama governor in the early 1960's. He figured he had to out "n-r" his opponents, which he did in the next election. He won the election and his outlook towards blacks in Alabama changed completely. It was under his administration that state police challenged civil rights marches and attempts at desegregation. But then he was shot in 1972 in an assassination attempt when he ran for the Democratic nomination for president
The most interesting part of the book was Wallace Kennedy's evaluation of her father and his followers as potential Donald Trump supporters forty years later. And that somehow, her father's character changed and he began to reach out to the black community and appologise for his previous actions. I presume it's true because Peggy Wallace Kennedy writes it in her book, but I was left to wonder if the rest of her family - she had two sisters and a brother - also felt the same way. While she talks about her husband and two sons and her parents, she doesn't talk about her siblings. Maybe it's a question of not wanting to speak for them, but it did leave a curious void in the story.
Peggy Wallace Kennedy's memoir is an excellent followup - 11 years later - to her newspaper article about her father and his beliefs.
Wallace Kennedy's book, "The Broken Road: George Wallace and a Daughter’s Journey to Reconciliation", is an interesting and well-written look at how Peggy grew up in the 1950's and 60's Alabama, with a father who wanted electoral success at any price and a mother devoted to raising her four children in times of economic hard times as her husband did not provide for the family when he was running perpetually for public office. He also ran around on his wife, and often had a side piece. Not a pleasant home to grow up in but Peggy loved both parents.
Much of the book is devoted to George's political aspirations and public life. Peggy states that George had been a racial moderate with good relationships with African-Americans when he was a judge, but that changed when he lost his first race for Alabama governor in the early 1960's. He figured he had to out "n-r" his opponents, which he did in the next election. He won the election and his outlook towards blacks in Alabama changed completely. It was under his administration that state police challenged civil rights marches and attempts at desegregation. But then he was shot in 1972 in an assassination attempt when he ran for the Democratic nomination for president
The most interesting part of the book was Wallace Kennedy's evaluation of her father and his followers as potential Donald Trump supporters forty years later. And that somehow, her father's character changed and he began to reach out to the black community and appologise for his previous actions. I presume it's true because Peggy Wallace Kennedy writes it in her book, but I was left to wonder if the rest of her family - she had two sisters and a brother - also felt the same way. While she talks about her husband and two sons and her parents, she doesn't talk about her siblings. Maybe it's a question of not wanting to speak for them, but it did leave a curious void in the story.
Peggy Wallace Kennedy's memoir is an excellent followup - 11 years later - to her newspaper article about her father and his beliefs.
November 2, 2019
This book was an education for me. Born the same year as Peggy I fell a connection in historical data. You often wonder about the children of politicians and how they feel about what is going on. Peggy doesn't sugar coat her life or over dramatizes it but basically tells about her feelings. The conflicting emotions and trying to understand her father . Through her we got a bit better understanding what kind of man George Wallace was. Half a century of history in Alabama through the eyes of a child and the woman she has become. The issues with segregation. The attitude of people (even become violent) when they feel their rights have been infringed on. Politicians who will say whatever they feel is needed in order to get votes even when it is not what they original stood for. Does this all seem to be a bit familiar with 2019. The players have changed. The races involved have changed but in a lot of ways history keeps repeating itself in one form or another. I'm grateful to Peggy Wallace Kennedy that she shared these facts of her life and her knowledge in this book .
January 30, 2020
This is a disjointed mix of memoir and a revisionist biography of the segregationist/bigot George Wallace. Her father was a horrible man, who created tremendous amounts of pain and suffering on at least 40% of the population of her beloved Alabama during the 1960s. I found it offensive to read her claim that her father didn't really hate African-Americans, he was just standing up for state rights. And it felt opportunistic to try to compare those Alabama citizens of the sixties and early seventies to the Trump voters of 2016. She provides glowing descriptions of her mother but fails to include how her mother felt about the racial upheaval surrounding them and her mother's continuation of Wallace's policies when she took over as governor.
December 17, 2019
I write to comment on the post about this book being revisionist history. It is not and the commentator who made that statement did not read the book or knows little of the history of that period. I did live in Alabama during that time and I do know Peggy Wallace Kennedy and I did know George Wallace (when I was a young man). I did work on civil rights cases in Alabama during that time and after. I was a young man in high school through law school in Alabama during all these times recounted by Ms. Kennedy.
Ms. Kennedy is certainly not making excuses for her farther and, indeed, makes clear that her father's actions and policies were reprehensible, as they surely were. George Wallace spent his last years regretting and asking for forgiveness for all his actions while governor and as a politician on the national stage.
Wallace's deplorable legacy continues with the current administration and the white supremacist and racest that Trump has appointed to high government positions and to the federal courts.
Ms. Kennedy is certainly not making excuses for her farther and, indeed, makes clear that her father's actions and policies were reprehensible, as they surely were. George Wallace spent his last years regretting and asking for forgiveness for all his actions while governor and as a politician on the national stage.
Wallace's deplorable legacy continues with the current administration and the white supremacist and racest that Trump has appointed to high government positions and to the federal courts.
January 21, 2020
A missed opportunity. I wanted to know how the author came to adopt a more anti-racist perspective amidst decades of closeness to some of the most fervent practitioners of racism. Instead, the book reads as at best a naive biography written by a doting daughter, or at worst a cynical attempt at historical revisionism.
February 24, 2020
From a writing perspective I would give this book a 3 or 4 stars. I am not sure, but I believe this is her first book, a memoir of growing up in the deep south with a politically driven father whose racist practices caused such incredible harm to both individuals and society as a whole.
I glady give the book 5 stars from a belief that what her voice and rememberances offer is absolutely priceless. I am so glad she wrote her memoir. I thank her for sharing such personal details and for demonstrating how we can change, even when our early family life can instill in us harmful beliefs.
Ms. Kennedy is a valuable voice in today's world of divisive, dirty politics. She has an insider's view on how voters are manipulated and how vulnerable they can be when someone with some charisma and an insatiable desire for power runs for office. It is a dangerous combination and Ms. Kennedy is able to draw numerous parallels between her father and his governorship in Alabama, and today's politics of division loaded with racial innuendos and policies of prejudice.
Despite the problems that Ms. Kennedy faced in her life, she loved her parents very much and thankfully she had a loving support system in her maternal grandparents. She was left with deep psycological scars from childhood like so many of us, but she has taken her experiences and her pain and used them for the good of society. The U.S. has not reckoned with its racists beginnings and its current systemic racism that continues to divide us, but through her memoir we can perhaps open our eyes to new possibilities than can heal us.
I glady give the book 5 stars from a belief that what her voice and rememberances offer is absolutely priceless. I am so glad she wrote her memoir. I thank her for sharing such personal details and for demonstrating how we can change, even when our early family life can instill in us harmful beliefs.
Ms. Kennedy is a valuable voice in today's world of divisive, dirty politics. She has an insider's view on how voters are manipulated and how vulnerable they can be when someone with some charisma and an insatiable desire for power runs for office. It is a dangerous combination and Ms. Kennedy is able to draw numerous parallels between her father and his governorship in Alabama, and today's politics of division loaded with racial innuendos and policies of prejudice.
Despite the problems that Ms. Kennedy faced in her life, she loved her parents very much and thankfully she had a loving support system in her maternal grandparents. She was left with deep psycological scars from childhood like so many of us, but she has taken her experiences and her pain and used them for the good of society. The U.S. has not reckoned with its racists beginnings and its current systemic racism that continues to divide us, but through her memoir we can perhaps open our eyes to new possibilities than can heal us.
January 10, 2020
Read the book through in less than 24 hours. I recall George and Lurleen Wallace visiting my school to campaign when I was around 10 years old. Theirs was already a household name in mine and every other Alabama
town.
Though I well remember the times of Wallace as governor I was too young to understand it, too young to have opinions beyond those I was exposed to in that place and time. I was aware of the adoration and support for Wallace and why.
And like his daughter, Peggy, I would spend years learning better. Learning to overcome that hateful, shameful time.
The book does not sugarcoat. It invites you right in to the Wallace home and family.
You can feel the anxiety of this child forced to live in a huge spotlight, and her retreat into herself to avoid issues too big for her to handle.
EVERYone I came in contact with as a child was racist. EVERYone I knew shared the same views as George Wallace. The letterhead at city hall stated “...a town for white people” and the intent was to keep it that way. (I still have that letterhead.) Our swimming pools were segregated and, when threatened, they were closed and filled in. Black people could work in our homes but they could share none of our space.
I was an adult before my world view began to expand. The story of Emmet Till was the beginning of my education. Changing a mind can be a difficult task, I imagine much like escaping a cult. Racism is still cult like, still present, and still being passed from generation to generation where I’m from. It should have ended centuries ago. Why does it persist?
Some of these reviews attack Peggy for not doing more. I imagine, like me, it took some time for Peggy to find her own voice and her own mind. I don’t know all she’s done but we do know she shows up, she shared her story with us, and she votes. I don’t know her to attack or defend her. But I know well where and what she has overcome.
So happy that she found her path to enlightenment. And I found mine.
No doubt many others had to travel that same path and will identify with this book.
town.
Though I well remember the times of Wallace as governor I was too young to understand it, too young to have opinions beyond those I was exposed to in that place and time. I was aware of the adoration and support for Wallace and why.
And like his daughter, Peggy, I would spend years learning better. Learning to overcome that hateful, shameful time.
The book does not sugarcoat. It invites you right in to the Wallace home and family.
You can feel the anxiety of this child forced to live in a huge spotlight, and her retreat into herself to avoid issues too big for her to handle.
EVERYone I came in contact with as a child was racist. EVERYone I knew shared the same views as George Wallace. The letterhead at city hall stated “...a town for white people” and the intent was to keep it that way. (I still have that letterhead.) Our swimming pools were segregated and, when threatened, they were closed and filled in. Black people could work in our homes but they could share none of our space.
I was an adult before my world view began to expand. The story of Emmet Till was the beginning of my education. Changing a mind can be a difficult task, I imagine much like escaping a cult. Racism is still cult like, still present, and still being passed from generation to generation where I’m from. It should have ended centuries ago. Why does it persist?
Some of these reviews attack Peggy for not doing more. I imagine, like me, it took some time for Peggy to find her own voice and her own mind. I don’t know all she’s done but we do know she shows up, she shared her story with us, and she votes. I don’t know her to attack or defend her. But I know well where and what she has overcome.
So happy that she found her path to enlightenment. And I found mine.
No doubt many others had to travel that same path and will identify with this book.
January 18, 2020
The Broken Road: George Wallace and a Daughter’s Journey to Reconciliation
by Peggy Wallace Kennedy
The Broken Road is a wonderfully written memoir by the second child of George Wallace and Lurleen Wallace. The author covers much of the family’s story from before she was born through the four terms her father served as governor. The reader will learn about how George Wallace, from childhood, had a lifelong desire to be Governor of Alabama, how he evolved during his life and did whatever was necessary to reach this goal. He subjected his family to difficult living conditions and at times alienated his children and wife. The book tells of Peggy Wallace Kennedy’s personal effort to come to terms with her Father’s strong segregationist stands and the difficult time she had growing up and finding her own voice in the world.
While reading this book, I recalled seeing the news on TV of Governor Wallace standing in the doorway of the University of Alabama blocking the path of black students and the conflict of “Bloody Sunday” on Edmund Pettus Bridge in Selma, Alabama. I remember my own confusion as to why these things were happening and with this book I see George Wallace’s own daughter had similar feelings.
If you’re a Baby Boomer and a News Junky you may find this book an interesting read. I did.
by Peggy Wallace Kennedy
The Broken Road is a wonderfully written memoir by the second child of George Wallace and Lurleen Wallace. The author covers much of the family’s story from before she was born through the four terms her father served as governor. The reader will learn about how George Wallace, from childhood, had a lifelong desire to be Governor of Alabama, how he evolved during his life and did whatever was necessary to reach this goal. He subjected his family to difficult living conditions and at times alienated his children and wife. The book tells of Peggy Wallace Kennedy’s personal effort to come to terms with her Father’s strong segregationist stands and the difficult time she had growing up and finding her own voice in the world.
While reading this book, I recalled seeing the news on TV of Governor Wallace standing in the doorway of the University of Alabama blocking the path of black students and the conflict of “Bloody Sunday” on Edmund Pettus Bridge in Selma, Alabama. I remember my own confusion as to why these things were happening and with this book I see George Wallace’s own daughter had similar feelings.
If you’re a Baby Boomer and a News Junky you may find this book an interesting read. I did.
January 8, 2020
When I was in Kindergarten in Selma, AL I still remember the 8 x10 glossy photo I received from Gov. George Wallace with his signature in the lower corner. I wish I had kept that photo. At the time it made me feel very special to receive a photo signed by the Governor. But after reading this book, I realize it was all part of the Wallace political machine. Sending photos, letters, making calls, shaking hands with common folk across the state was the Wallace brand. This brand was promoted at the expense of the Wallace family.
Peggy Wallace Kennedy’s story still stings. I am sure it is difficult to write about horrible things done by a parent. At moments I feel she is trying to justify or explain her father’s racist actions as political expediency to win elections – as if that excused the behavior. Then, later I believe her stories in which George honestly asks for forgiveness from those he hurt. As the book closes, I finally begin to empathize with the author – who has to reconcile the father she so desperately wanted to be loved by with a power-hungry, selfish political racist.
Peggy Wallace Kennedy’s story still stings. I am sure it is difficult to write about horrible things done by a parent. At moments I feel she is trying to justify or explain her father’s racist actions as political expediency to win elections – as if that excused the behavior. Then, later I believe her stories in which George honestly asks for forgiveness from those he hurt. As the book closes, I finally begin to empathize with the author – who has to reconcile the father she so desperately wanted to be loved by with a power-hungry, selfish political racist.
April 14, 2022
This book was another one that was hard to rate. I tore through it in one day and was fascinated by every part of it, so that's the 4-star rating. But I was left with very conflicted feelings, both about the author and her father and mother.
At the end of the book the author says, "And I wanted to be remembered for who I was rather than who I belonged to." But I was left without much of an idea of who Peggy was. Granted, the book is about her as her father's daughter -- that's why I read it. But if her goal is to be remembered in her own right, I needed to know more about who she really is.
As she discusses her father and his hate-mongering, she says that she privately disagreed with him. But she never spoke up. I can understand that as a child and even a teenager she wasn't tuned in to politics and only saw her parents as her parents, but even as an adult I never got the sense that she had a change of heart or a strengthening of character. She goes from being a sweet Southern girl who thinks it's rude to contradict her elders to a staunch hero of racial justice -- where's the middle part? Did she wait for her father to die and THEN have a change of heart? At one point, early in the book, a woman approaches her when at her father's grave when Obama was running for president and says, "I never thought I would live to see the day when a black would be running for president. I know your daddy must be rolling over in his grave." And Peggy says...nothing. So she gives speeches in front of John Lewis, who already agrees with her, but doesn't confront any of the actual supporters of her father's hateful policies?
I also have my doubts about George Wallace's "redemption". He ran as a moderate for governor the first time around, and was beaten by a segregationist. So he goes all the way to the right and wins. Then the political tide shifts and he "repents". Hmmmm...sounds like the same old opportunism. I wish that she would have gotten more into that and her conversations with him on the topic.
Even though she claims to be against the things that her father did, she also manages to set him juuuust outside of the really horrible things that were done under his watch. For instance, she says that her father told the state troopers to stay away from the Selma bridge, but that they disobeyed him. She claims that he pulled his "stand in the schoolhouse door" stunt to deter violence and later posted sentries outside the black students' doors so they wouldn't be harassed. I have my doubts.
Her father is portrayed as a very flawed man who she loved because he was her father (understandable), but her mother is portrayed as a a heroic, good woman. This woman was married to the standard-bearer for racism and hatred and went along with it, but Peggy never discusses whether her mother believed in that or not. Her mother, taken out of the context of George Wallace's wife, seems like a strong and interesting woman. But she basically stayed with him to get to wealth and power, even though he treated her and her children badly, and in doing so leant her support to a disgusting and violent cause.
I get it -- your parents are your parents. You can't see them the way other people do. Your feelings toward your parents are complex and hard to unwind. I don't fault Peggy for that. But if you write a book about being George Wallace's daughter, then you better be ready to do some pretty hard, uncomfortable digging and pondering.
The parallels between George Wallace and his political career and that of Donald Trump are pretty staggering. Both of their public atrocities seem to be an outgrowth of genuine personal disfunction, with different but equally flawed childhoods and upbringings. Both seem to act out of a desire for power more than any real belief system and are rampant opportunists. Their personal insecurities and fragile egos are also strikingly similar. The lesson I take from this: Parents! Take the time to raise your kids right and spare future generations more demagogues!
There is a very brief chapter on Peggy's struggle with depression, and I found her description of the illness very true to my own experience and well written:
"Depression hides in the crack and crannies of life, oozing out like black tar. It's sticky and leaves ugly smears on whatever it touches. It lies low, like morning fog. It brings darkness and offers escape in days of dreamless sleep It is a disease, not just a state of mind. Depression is not something you get over; it is something you climb out of. It's patient. It lies in wait inside you until a word, a song, a memory, or loss unlocks its cage. It encourages our mothers, fathers, husbands, and wives to ask, "What's your problem?" or "You better be thankful for what you've got." And finally, "All I have to say is get yourself together. Get over this."
Depression taps at your window and scurries along the ceiling overhead at night while your family tries to make the best of it. "Let her sleep," they say. Not for your sake but for their own."
The most beautiful part of Peggy's story was the relationship she had with her maternal grandparents. They were an oasis in her chaotic childhood, and she paid them a moving tribute by recounting her memories of them here.
All in all, I needed more from this book. I needed a deeper exploration of why she stayed silent and her journey to her own personhood.
At the end of the book the author says, "And I wanted to be remembered for who I was rather than who I belonged to." But I was left without much of an idea of who Peggy was. Granted, the book is about her as her father's daughter -- that's why I read it. But if her goal is to be remembered in her own right, I needed to know more about who she really is.
As she discusses her father and his hate-mongering, she says that she privately disagreed with him. But she never spoke up. I can understand that as a child and even a teenager she wasn't tuned in to politics and only saw her parents as her parents, but even as an adult I never got the sense that she had a change of heart or a strengthening of character. She goes from being a sweet Southern girl who thinks it's rude to contradict her elders to a staunch hero of racial justice -- where's the middle part? Did she wait for her father to die and THEN have a change of heart? At one point, early in the book, a woman approaches her when at her father's grave when Obama was running for president and says, "I never thought I would live to see the day when a black would be running for president. I know your daddy must be rolling over in his grave." And Peggy says...nothing. So she gives speeches in front of John Lewis, who already agrees with her, but doesn't confront any of the actual supporters of her father's hateful policies?
I also have my doubts about George Wallace's "redemption". He ran as a moderate for governor the first time around, and was beaten by a segregationist. So he goes all the way to the right and wins. Then the political tide shifts and he "repents". Hmmmm...sounds like the same old opportunism. I wish that she would have gotten more into that and her conversations with him on the topic.
Even though she claims to be against the things that her father did, she also manages to set him juuuust outside of the really horrible things that were done under his watch. For instance, she says that her father told the state troopers to stay away from the Selma bridge, but that they disobeyed him. She claims that he pulled his "stand in the schoolhouse door" stunt to deter violence and later posted sentries outside the black students' doors so they wouldn't be harassed. I have my doubts.
Her father is portrayed as a very flawed man who she loved because he was her father (understandable), but her mother is portrayed as a a heroic, good woman. This woman was married to the standard-bearer for racism and hatred and went along with it, but Peggy never discusses whether her mother believed in that or not. Her mother, taken out of the context of George Wallace's wife, seems like a strong and interesting woman. But she basically stayed with him to get to wealth and power, even though he treated her and her children badly, and in doing so leant her support to a disgusting and violent cause.
I get it -- your parents are your parents. You can't see them the way other people do. Your feelings toward your parents are complex and hard to unwind. I don't fault Peggy for that. But if you write a book about being George Wallace's daughter, then you better be ready to do some pretty hard, uncomfortable digging and pondering.
The parallels between George Wallace and his political career and that of Donald Trump are pretty staggering. Both of their public atrocities seem to be an outgrowth of genuine personal disfunction, with different but equally flawed childhoods and upbringings. Both seem to act out of a desire for power more than any real belief system and are rampant opportunists. Their personal insecurities and fragile egos are also strikingly similar. The lesson I take from this: Parents! Take the time to raise your kids right and spare future generations more demagogues!
There is a very brief chapter on Peggy's struggle with depression, and I found her description of the illness very true to my own experience and well written:
"Depression hides in the crack and crannies of life, oozing out like black tar. It's sticky and leaves ugly smears on whatever it touches. It lies low, like morning fog. It brings darkness and offers escape in days of dreamless sleep It is a disease, not just a state of mind. Depression is not something you get over; it is something you climb out of. It's patient. It lies in wait inside you until a word, a song, a memory, or loss unlocks its cage. It encourages our mothers, fathers, husbands, and wives to ask, "What's your problem?" or "You better be thankful for what you've got." And finally, "All I have to say is get yourself together. Get over this."
Depression taps at your window and scurries along the ceiling overhead at night while your family tries to make the best of it. "Let her sleep," they say. Not for your sake but for their own."
The most beautiful part of Peggy's story was the relationship she had with her maternal grandparents. They were an oasis in her chaotic childhood, and she paid them a moving tribute by recounting her memories of them here.
All in all, I needed more from this book. I needed a deeper exploration of why she stayed silent and her journey to her own personhood.
August 26, 2020
It was a pleasant surprise when I learned of this recently published book. The day I learned of it I had visited the casket of Congressman John Lewis lying in state in the Alabama Capitol Building. Gazing intently at the casket from the rotunda next door, was the marble bust of former Governor Lurleen Wallace, the author's mother. Then I saw on a news broadcast that the author had visited the casket that day as well. I was intrigued that the Governors' (both George and Lurleen) daughter was there paying respects to a civil rights icon like John Lewis. I eagerly purchased the book to learn more about her and her family. I was rewarded with a great and insightful read on growing up in a powerful political family, whose father chose to walk the path of bigotry in a power-hungry quest for votes. But everything with the author's father, Governor George Wallace, wasn't as one-dimensional as I expected. The author doesn't pull any punches with her father's memory, but she is willing to consider the genuineness of his later repentance of his racist views based upon not just what he said, but what he DID in contrition, as he experienced suffering of his own late in life from a would-be assassin's bullet. Simply powerful. I am so grateful for this book. It reminds me that history is complicated, because people are complicated.
December 6, 2022
While heartfelt and genuine, I felt the book focused too much on her recounting of the narrative of her dad's life. She openly admits that she probably isn't the right person to give an unbiased historical look on the legacy of George Wallace. Yet, that seems to be the focus. I would've loved to hear more about her differing views that she had, how that affected her relationship, and how she felt pressured to stay silent or what led her to stay in her lane. What made her see the horrors of Jim Crow as her father fought tooth and nail to keep an apartheid system in place? While briefly mentioned, I felt like these reflections should be more of the focus than summarizing events
December 26, 2019
An interesting look inside the family that benefitted most from George Wallace’s racist rhetoric. Rhetoric that lit the dynamite in the church that killed four African-American girls: Addie Mae Collins, Cynthia Wesley, Carole Robertson, and Carol Denise McNair.
Rhetoric that unleashed fire hoses and dogs on innocent people. Rhetoric that resulted in Jimmie Lee Jackson being beaten to death by Alabama state troopers. Rhetoric that drove a bullet through the head of civil rights activist, Viola Liuzzo.
How many innocent people died as a result of George Wallace’s ambition? We will never know.
In this memoir, his daughter Peggy Wallace Kennedy, doesn’t paint him in a sympathetic light. Instead, she exposes his flaws as a father and a husband. George Wallace was a man who neglected his wife and children in pursuit of power. A man who condoned violence, hatred, and murder to further his political career.
Kennedy claims Wallace was a moderate before losing his first race for governor. There is general consensus that Wallace employed segregationist rhetoric to win future elections.
Throughout the book, Kennedy wonders if her father really was a segregationist or if he adopted the ideology to manipulate the white working-class into voting for him. I’m not sure that it really matters. Is condoning violence against marginalized people for political ambition superior to condoning violence to uphold racist ideology?
At the end of his life, Wallace expressed regret and asked the black community for forgiveness. Did he really regret the pain and suffering he caused, or did he only regret the stain on his legacy? He lived long enough to see the tide of progress cast him in an unfavorable light.
Kennedy makes it clear that George Wallace was a man who only cared about himself and his image, but she wants to believe her father grew and became a better person in his later years. We want to believe the lies we tell ourselves about the people we love.
Kennedy asserts that her dad’s anything-to-win mentality is what led him down the path of hate and racism. She hesitates to hold him responsible for his own words and actions. She blames his words on racist speechwriter, Asa Carter. George Wallace was in control of his image and his speeches. He needs to be held accountable for his words and actions.
I would have liked her to reflect more on the privileges her family gained at the expense of all the families who were hurt by her father’s policies. She mentions her father appointed her husband to a position, but she doesn’t spend much time making the connection between the privileges she gained (and continues to enjoy) through the pain of others.
Overall, I would recommend if you are interested in civil rights history.
Rhetoric that unleashed fire hoses and dogs on innocent people. Rhetoric that resulted in Jimmie Lee Jackson being beaten to death by Alabama state troopers. Rhetoric that drove a bullet through the head of civil rights activist, Viola Liuzzo.
How many innocent people died as a result of George Wallace’s ambition? We will never know.
In this memoir, his daughter Peggy Wallace Kennedy, doesn’t paint him in a sympathetic light. Instead, she exposes his flaws as a father and a husband. George Wallace was a man who neglected his wife and children in pursuit of power. A man who condoned violence, hatred, and murder to further his political career.
Kennedy claims Wallace was a moderate before losing his first race for governor. There is general consensus that Wallace employed segregationist rhetoric to win future elections.
Throughout the book, Kennedy wonders if her father really was a segregationist or if he adopted the ideology to manipulate the white working-class into voting for him. I’m not sure that it really matters. Is condoning violence against marginalized people for political ambition superior to condoning violence to uphold racist ideology?
At the end of his life, Wallace expressed regret and asked the black community for forgiveness. Did he really regret the pain and suffering he caused, or did he only regret the stain on his legacy? He lived long enough to see the tide of progress cast him in an unfavorable light.
Kennedy makes it clear that George Wallace was a man who only cared about himself and his image, but she wants to believe her father grew and became a better person in his later years. We want to believe the lies we tell ourselves about the people we love.
Kennedy asserts that her dad’s anything-to-win mentality is what led him down the path of hate and racism. She hesitates to hold him responsible for his own words and actions. She blames his words on racist speechwriter, Asa Carter. George Wallace was in control of his image and his speeches. He needs to be held accountable for his words and actions.
I would have liked her to reflect more on the privileges her family gained at the expense of all the families who were hurt by her father’s policies. She mentions her father appointed her husband to a position, but she doesn’t spend much time making the connection between the privileges she gained (and continues to enjoy) through the pain of others.
Overall, I would recommend if you are interested in civil rights history.
December 30, 2019
I was lucky enough to meet Peggy Wallace Kennedy in Montgomery recently at a short talk regarding this book that she and her husband, Justice Kennedy, gave at Read Herring bookstore. She spoke straight from the heart, and that is the way this book reads. I still don't really feel I understand her father, a man whose career as a segregationist was book-ended by periods of surprisingly progressive and tolerant thinking. He emerges in the book as a very remote father and husband, and even now it is hard to say what, beyond ambition, drove him. It is clear that he was remarkably selfish: I'm still gobsmacked about how people like him can inspire such love and devotion from voters. On the other hand, this book gave me a warm sense of connection to Kennedy's mother, Lurleen, who seems to have had a magnificent heart. And it is a fascinating look, again, at a key period in American history, from a very unusual perspective. I applaud Kennedy for her bravery in exposing her own history, for her insight into the MAGA movement and its origins, and for her steadfast fight to do the right thing in her own life. It was a joy to meet her and to read her book.
October 23, 2019
[I received a DIGITAL Advance Reader Copy of this book from #NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.]
This memoir by George Wallace's daughter covers an arc from an unaware child to an adult woman coming to grip a segregationist family legacy remembered shaped by these six words: "Segregation now! Segregation tomorrow! Segregation forever!" and other lines attributed to Wallace (some worse) recalled here. The picture I get is over that man's long life his views evolved while his views appeared actually irrelevant. I had the feeling he would have ascribed any viewpoint from segregationist to integrationist if it would have got him to be governor. This author's life is overtly tied to the right wing wise in American politics from a witness to a similar upswell a half century ago. She is a lucid and valuable primary source on the American political mind.
This memoir by George Wallace's daughter covers an arc from an unaware child to an adult woman coming to grip a segregationist family legacy remembered shaped by these six words: "Segregation now! Segregation tomorrow! Segregation forever!" and other lines attributed to Wallace (some worse) recalled here. The picture I get is over that man's long life his views evolved while his views appeared actually irrelevant. I had the feeling he would have ascribed any viewpoint from segregationist to integrationist if it would have got him to be governor. This author's life is overtly tied to the right wing wise in American politics from a witness to a similar upswell a half century ago. She is a lucid and valuable primary source on the American political mind.
December 29, 2019
This was a fast, easy and interesting read to someone who grew up with relatives in the south who did NOT vote against segregation. From Wallace’s ascent in the racially charged environment of the South in the 50’s, I can see how Trump supporters are swayed into believing he’s the next son of God. Wallace and Trump would have definitely had a good laugh as to how they managed to get their rallies to grow in size while inciting racial and antisemitic violence among their bases.
It takes courage to admit your personal faults along side with your family’s. Not all will be able to agree with the author’s version of history. Hopefully, Ms. Wallace’s effort to be the better part of her father’s legacy will inspire others from families like hers to do the same.
It takes courage to admit your personal faults along side with your family’s. Not all will be able to agree with the author’s version of history. Hopefully, Ms. Wallace’s effort to be the better part of her father’s legacy will inspire others from families like hers to do the same.
February 19, 2020
I don’t usually leave a review but felt I just had to for this book. I feel this was terribly written and find it hard to believe that the editors and proofreaders let it pass. Then the cover says it’s about her journey to reconciliation yet nothing is really said about her life beyond her father’s death until the final chapter. Just what did she do in that timeframe that warranted the receipt of the awards listed on the jacket cover? What does she continue to do? Maybe if I knew that I could understand the reconciliation but as it stands it is more about softening the perception of her father’s legacy.
January 19, 2020
Peggy Wallace Kennedy writes about her life with an ambitious, but mean and racist dad, George Wallace. She may sugarcoat somewhat, but she is seeing her dad through the lens of a daughter. It is her attempt to right the wrongs of hate and bigotry.
February 22, 2023
I lived through this time period and never gave a thought to George Wallace's daughter. If I thought anything, it would be that she held his views. I discovered that she is her own person with her own voice. I enjoyed hearing her story more than I thought I would.
January 3, 2020
This is a book written by a daughter who loved her dad, with the hopes that history will remember him in a different way. Hmmmm.
January 9, 2020
A bit of rehabilitation of Wallace, and there are some problematic understandings of racism here but it also contains some honest appraisals of Wallace’s flaws.
November 6, 2022
The Broken Road is the story of Peggy Wallace Kennedy, the daughter of the racist governor of Alabama, George Wallace. This book caught my eye when the author was listed as a speaker on a civil rights tour, and her book was referenced. I was interested because I remember as a young teen when George Wallace was shot; I have an image in my head of it on TV. Also in the description of the book, it states that Peggy rejected her father’s racism and has become a civil rights activitist. It also says that George Wallace himself rejected racism and apologized toward the end of his life. According to this book, he was forgiving by black activist leaders.
The book is written entirely from Peggy’s point of view. She reports the story of her life and recounts her experiences well. She is a good writer and I was eager to keep reading and see what she has to say. Early on, she equates the hate-politics of her father to the Trump era:
“There are those who admire politicians who focus their energy on power rather than compassion, whose words spark anger and fear rather than the reconciliation and peace for which we all deeply yearn.
The politics of today plays to that same sense of fear and anger. Make America Great Again is not a plan. It is an insinuation that America is not good enough to be proud of. It is a pledge of allegiance to discrimination. It makes people feel that their way of life is under assault, and their deepest values are being trampled, no matter how misguided, hurtful or destructive those notions are. It makes hating right.” Pg 38.
Later in the book she dives deeper into the Wallace/Trump similarities and even says, "Daddy and Donald Trump would have agreed on at least one thing. While powerless people may sometimes be skeptical of those who have the power, powerful people are the the ones they most often worship, accepting their authority without question and teaching their chidren that respect for authority is a moral absolute. That is at the heart of the appeal of both 'Stand up for America' and 'Make America Great Again.'
George Wallace ran for governor in 1958 and lost. There is a famous quote that he denies saying, but regardless, he adhered to in his future campaigning. “I will never be out n'd again.” Peggy points out that while he may never had said it, he still stood in the school house doorway, didn’t stop the crisis on the bridge, and supported Bull Connor’s 1963 reign of terror. She uses this example to show the reader that even though he thinks he is not racist, she understands that his actions are. He ended up serving 4 terms of governor as a racist. He supposedly turned around during the last term, but she describes his mess of a third marriage as what kept him from being effective in making positive change in Alabama.
I learned a lot about history and was fascinated by Peggy’s life experiences. However, I was disappointed in her lack of description of her own values. She never really goes into much detail about when and how she came to see the world differently than her dad. The only example in the book is from junior high. At her graduation ceremony, a relative of another graduate says to George Wallace, “I’m glad you kept the blacks out of here.” (out of the school). Peggy says to herself, “They belong here too. They are my brothers and sisters and I want them at my side.” But she never explains how she would have come to such a conclusion, when surrounded by her father’s attitude as well as the whole Wallace political machine. There is no sharing of meaningful instrospection. No confrontation with her dad. No rejection of her privelege to be in solidarity with those whom her father hurt. We don’t know why and how her own beliefs are created and sustained. We have only that jr hi statement to go on, until the very end of the book where she is crossing the Edmund Pettus Bridge at its 5oth anniversary with John Lewis and Bernice King, and speaking as a civil rights advocate. How did she really get there?
She has some great insights and there are transcripts of some important remarks she has made. Those things were good to read, but what I had hoped to gain from her memoir was an understanding of HOW this happened, and I didn’t. So the question of how someone really leaves their original teachings and adapts to another set of values and beliefs is left unanswered in this memoir.
The book is written entirely from Peggy’s point of view. She reports the story of her life and recounts her experiences well. She is a good writer and I was eager to keep reading and see what she has to say. Early on, she equates the hate-politics of her father to the Trump era:
“There are those who admire politicians who focus their energy on power rather than compassion, whose words spark anger and fear rather than the reconciliation and peace for which we all deeply yearn.
The politics of today plays to that same sense of fear and anger. Make America Great Again is not a plan. It is an insinuation that America is not good enough to be proud of. It is a pledge of allegiance to discrimination. It makes people feel that their way of life is under assault, and their deepest values are being trampled, no matter how misguided, hurtful or destructive those notions are. It makes hating right.” Pg 38.
Later in the book she dives deeper into the Wallace/Trump similarities and even says, "Daddy and Donald Trump would have agreed on at least one thing. While powerless people may sometimes be skeptical of those who have the power, powerful people are the the ones they most often worship, accepting their authority without question and teaching their chidren that respect for authority is a moral absolute. That is at the heart of the appeal of both 'Stand up for America' and 'Make America Great Again.'
George Wallace ran for governor in 1958 and lost. There is a famous quote that he denies saying, but regardless, he adhered to in his future campaigning. “I will never be out n'd again.” Peggy points out that while he may never had said it, he still stood in the school house doorway, didn’t stop the crisis on the bridge, and supported Bull Connor’s 1963 reign of terror. She uses this example to show the reader that even though he thinks he is not racist, she understands that his actions are. He ended up serving 4 terms of governor as a racist. He supposedly turned around during the last term, but she describes his mess of a third marriage as what kept him from being effective in making positive change in Alabama.
I learned a lot about history and was fascinated by Peggy’s life experiences. However, I was disappointed in her lack of description of her own values. She never really goes into much detail about when and how she came to see the world differently than her dad. The only example in the book is from junior high. At her graduation ceremony, a relative of another graduate says to George Wallace, “I’m glad you kept the blacks out of here.” (out of the school). Peggy says to herself, “They belong here too. They are my brothers and sisters and I want them at my side.” But she never explains how she would have come to such a conclusion, when surrounded by her father’s attitude as well as the whole Wallace political machine. There is no sharing of meaningful instrospection. No confrontation with her dad. No rejection of her privelege to be in solidarity with those whom her father hurt. We don’t know why and how her own beliefs are created and sustained. We have only that jr hi statement to go on, until the very end of the book where she is crossing the Edmund Pettus Bridge at its 5oth anniversary with John Lewis and Bernice King, and speaking as a civil rights advocate. How did she really get there?
She has some great insights and there are transcripts of some important remarks she has made. Those things were good to read, but what I had hoped to gain from her memoir was an understanding of HOW this happened, and I didn’t. So the question of how someone really leaves their original teachings and adapts to another set of values and beliefs is left unanswered in this memoir.
February 16, 2020
This book is part memoir, part biography, and part history lesson. Peggy Wallace Kennedy, daughter of two Alabama governors, writes about how her virulent racist of a father neglected his wife and his children to win power and what it cost him.
I have seen and read reviews in which Peggy Wallace Kennedy is accused of trying to rehabilitate her father's image and tries to soften the past. I disagree with this notion. I think it is extremely difficult to criticize someone you love, especially a parent, but she provides example after example of how shamefully her father acted. He conducted affairs here, there, and just about everywhere in Alabama, he neglected his wife and children constantly (which the author is clearly still sore and sad about), he + his team essentially shoved Lurleen Wallace, who would sadly die of cancer at a relatively young age, into being the governor so George Wallace could hold onto power, and did not seem to give much a damn about the children he had. And that is just some of what he did to his family.
George Wallace, he of the infamous quote (created by Asa Carter, a hardcore racist who was a leader of the KKK) "segregation now, segregation tomorrow, segregation forever", fought hard and fought long to dismantle the rights and privileges of black people in Alabama. He stood in front of school doors to prevent black American children from attending integrated schools, let black and white protesters get brutally assaulted and harassed, and deliberately stirred up the anger and racism of Alabamians to get himself in power. Peggy Wallace Kennedy draws the obvious comparisons between her father and Trump several times over, showing how tapping into anger, frustration, and fear of whites and turning it toward a different group of people to blame them for the things wrong in their state/country - rather than the leaders that could be providing decent education, decent healthcare, and ensuring everyone has access to shelter, food, and basic comfort, but don't.
And even until the end of his life, Wallace flailed and claimed that he wasn't really a racist (bullshit), that his lieutenants were out of his control and let black and white protesters get assaulted and killed against his orders (bullshit), and that he worked in tandem with other government departments to put on a show (bullshit). Even his daughter acknowledges that her father would have done whatever and said whatever it took to get and keep power - and did do just that.
This is a book primarily of how the daughter focused on her parents and on her father. Her other siblings are barely mentioned, besides their dates of birth and whenever they call. It is an odd choice to me - I understand the book is mostly about her parents and her relationship with those two people, but her other siblings are pretty much left out of it.
I think this book is an honest and raw look at a man who wrecked so much havoc and pain through the eyes of a loving but still critical daughter. She even criticizes herself at points. For example, she explains that she saw black students get harassed and bullied and did nothing, out of fear for her reputation and what her family would do. The author is a bit self-aggrandizing, for example: "John Lewis...allowed me to realize that I was perhaps Daddy's most important legacy of all", but the book comes from a place of love, reflection, and conflict. She is a great writer (she summarized what depression is and feels like in a way I have never read before but captures so much of the essence of what it is and how families typically deal with it) and I am really glad I read this book.
I have seen and read reviews in which Peggy Wallace Kennedy is accused of trying to rehabilitate her father's image and tries to soften the past. I disagree with this notion. I think it is extremely difficult to criticize someone you love, especially a parent, but she provides example after example of how shamefully her father acted. He conducted affairs here, there, and just about everywhere in Alabama, he neglected his wife and children constantly (which the author is clearly still sore and sad about), he + his team essentially shoved Lurleen Wallace, who would sadly die of cancer at a relatively young age, into being the governor so George Wallace could hold onto power, and did not seem to give much a damn about the children he had. And that is just some of what he did to his family.
George Wallace, he of the infamous quote (created by Asa Carter, a hardcore racist who was a leader of the KKK) "segregation now, segregation tomorrow, segregation forever", fought hard and fought long to dismantle the rights and privileges of black people in Alabama. He stood in front of school doors to prevent black American children from attending integrated schools, let black and white protesters get brutally assaulted and harassed, and deliberately stirred up the anger and racism of Alabamians to get himself in power. Peggy Wallace Kennedy draws the obvious comparisons between her father and Trump several times over, showing how tapping into anger, frustration, and fear of whites and turning it toward a different group of people to blame them for the things wrong in their state/country - rather than the leaders that could be providing decent education, decent healthcare, and ensuring everyone has access to shelter, food, and basic comfort, but don't.
And even until the end of his life, Wallace flailed and claimed that he wasn't really a racist (bullshit), that his lieutenants were out of his control and let black and white protesters get assaulted and killed against his orders (bullshit), and that he worked in tandem with other government departments to put on a show (bullshit). Even his daughter acknowledges that her father would have done whatever and said whatever it took to get and keep power - and did do just that.
This is a book primarily of how the daughter focused on her parents and on her father. Her other siblings are barely mentioned, besides their dates of birth and whenever they call. It is an odd choice to me - I understand the book is mostly about her parents and her relationship with those two people, but her other siblings are pretty much left out of it.
I think this book is an honest and raw look at a man who wrecked so much havoc and pain through the eyes of a loving but still critical daughter. She even criticizes herself at points. For example, she explains that she saw black students get harassed and bullied and did nothing, out of fear for her reputation and what her family would do. The author is a bit self-aggrandizing, for example: "John Lewis...allowed me to realize that I was perhaps Daddy's most important legacy of all", but the book comes from a place of love, reflection, and conflict. She is a great writer (she summarized what depression is and feels like in a way I have never read before but captures so much of the essence of what it is and how families typically deal with it) and I am really glad I read this book.
March 28, 2020
It is frightening to compare the political campaigns and administration of George Wallace, and the racial hatred conveyed by his supporters, to the political campaign and administration of Donald Trump. Unfortunately for this country, we have allowed history to repeat itself.
Peggy Wallace Kennedy shows us how insidious the political machine can be as it manipulates public thought and individual insecurities.
Everyone should read this.
Peggy Wallace Kennedy shows us how insidious the political machine can be as it manipulates public thought and individual insecurities.
Everyone should read this.
January 1, 2025
An interesting take. It was more political than I would have liked and could have used a good editor to better organize her chapters. We were kind of all over the place at times. It shows we all have many different sides to us. No one is wholely good or wholely bad. We fall somewhere on the middle. When we do terrible things, our family and maybe even ourselves need to rationalize one way or another what we’ve done.
July 23, 2022
Peggy Wallace Kennedy does an extraordinary job of giving us her history, and the history her parents, George and Lurleen Wallace. She chronologically details the events of both their pasts, and hers, giving the reader a glimpse of what shaped them. Her contempt and later redemption of her father is most telling of the woman she has become.
March 8, 2020
I would likely not have paid this book any attention had not Mrs. Wallace come to our local book store in Fairhope, Alabama to speak and sign books. Raised in the Deep South in Alabama by parents who were not Wallace fans, as a kid my only thought of him was that he was a racist governor we were not proud of. I really was not aware of what was going on in racial Alabama in amy sort of meaningful way as a child. We did not talk about it. But as an adult, I cannot imagine what it would be like growing up as the daughter of George Wallace. Hearing her speak and reading her book, all I felt was sadness for her. The reviews that are angry and attack the revisionist history, that saddens me as well. I don’t feel she is trying to white-wash anything, but rather just giving her perspective from her view, as she sees it. The book is an attempt to account for her own life, her feelings, and trying to evolve from a childhood she did not choose. She has had to come to terms with hard truths. What a terrible way to be raised by a father with power on the wrong side of freedom.
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