Lester Maddox ran a small cafeteria on
what's now the Georgia Tech campus, and
Lester Maddox was an ardent supporter of the system of segregation.
He was a segregationist, believed that he could run his business and serve to whomever he wanted.
And that's pretty well the way
he ran that business until the Civil Rights Movement,
and he began to be
challenged about it.
Folks came to to be admitted and he resisted.
He and others picked up some axe handles and ran folks off in front of cameras.
He saw that desegregation was going to
run his business and so he was a vocal
supporter of segregation and an opponent
of the political leaders who were making
accommodations.
And when the Civil Rights Act of 1964 was passed and ratified,
Maddox decided to close his cafeteria instead of observing the law.
He had an interest in politics and he ran for governor.
He unexpectedly won the
Democratic primary to the surprise of many people.
It obviously was a protest
vote on the part of many white voters.
When Lester Maddox became governor, he
clearly was ready to assure that the
state would remain as opposed to
desegregation as possible.
He surprised a few people by doing things that no one
would expect somebody who had run black
folks out of his restaurant with an axe
handle would do.
He appointed some black people to office to appointed office in Georgia,
and that surprised a lot of folks.
They thought he would try to
maintain an all-white government.
Governor Maddox did not do that, but he
also did not welcome desegregation and
he resisted it as much as he could
within the powers of his office.
He also exhibited very little sympathy and understanding of the African-American community.
For example when Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. was assassinated,
he refused to lower the
state flags in honor of his death.
It was clear with all of the changes that were
taking place in the public schools and
the universities with the Civil Rights
Act of 64, the Voting Rights Act of 65,
and the Fair Housing Act of 68, that was
much more difficult to maintain.
And so Lester Maddox as governor had to begin
to make accommodations himself.
We had a Georgia law at that time, which
said that no governor could succeed himself.
So that you could have one term,
but couldn't run again next term,
had to wait at least four more years.
Well, Governor Maddox decided he didn't want to wait four more years,
he would just run for lieutenant governor.
And the person who took office as governor was
Jimmy Carter, who ran as a clear moderate.
So Jimmy Carter, a moderate New South
governor, and his lieutenant governor,
with whom he had lots of conflicts
during his term, was Lester Maddox,
the governor who had run people out of his
restaurant a few years earlier with an axe handle.
It was a period of transition.
