Lester G. Maddox
Georgia Governor from 1967-1971

Lester G. Maddox served as the 75th governor of Georgia from 1967-1971. Throughout the 1950s and 1960s, Maddox was a fringe political character and constant nuisance to the Atlanta establishment. His name appeared on the ballot for major of Atlanta in 1957 and 1961 and for the lieutenant governorship in 1962. He lost all three races. But when Maddox refused to serve three Black ministers at his Pickrick Restaurant on July 3, 1964, in direct violation of the Civil Rights Act, his political fortunes changed. The fact that he drove these three men away with an ax handle and a gun turned him into a folk hero of white resistance against a changing society. So, when he ran for governor in 1966, he won. Maddox represented a white backlash against Black civil rights advancements in the American South.

I have several research project that examine Governor Lester G. Maddox’s rise to power, his use of white backlash politics to advance whiteness and white supremacy, and his support of school segregation in Georgia.

Segregation Academies

This project focuses on the post-Brown private school movement in Georgia.

During the late 1960s, Georgia saw a proliferation of private schools spring up across the state as white families fled integrating public systems. Governor Maddox supported this white abandonment of public schools. The governor viewed these new private schools—schools that, today, we refer to as segregation academies—as the “last vestige of freedom in education.” As such, he used the bully pulpit of the governorship to denounce integration by giving speeches at the grand openings of or fundraising events for several of these new private academies.

Specifically, I am interested in Governor Maddox’s rhetoric: his definitions of political concepts such as justice, freedom, and liberty as well as how the conservative politics he exemplified still frames the conservative politics of today.

I’m currently working on the following papers related to this area of research:

  • Nichols, Joseph R., Natalie Gerke, and Stephanie Hendel. "‘Unless Something Is Done, and Done Quickly, We Can Just Kiss Our Schools Goodbye": Governor Lester G. Maddox and the Post-Brown Private School Movement in Georgia.”

  • Nichols, Joseph R. and Bailey Hanson. “Us Versus Them: The Rhetoric of Separation in Governor Lester G. Maddox’s Response to School Integration in Georgia, 1967-1971.”

Freedom of Choice

Governor Maddox argued that forced integration violated the constitutional right to freedom of assembly. After all, he had refused to comply with the Civil Rights Act of 1964 before he was governor. Maddox permanently closed the doors of this restaurant rather than serve Black customers.

With regards to education and schooling, Maddox argued that the federal government’s push to integrate Georgia’s public schools was a violation of liberty. During his tenure as governor, Maddox never missed an opportunity to make his beliefs known. At a rally in Washington County in East-Central Georgia, Maddox put it this way, “if a million mothers and fathers in our Southern states would demand that their freedom of choice be recognized, the battle would be won before the month was out, and the police state over public education would be removed. And those parents would not be violating the law, my friends, they would be upholding the Constitution of the United States.”

This project focuses on the demise of legal school segregation in Georgia after the Supreme Court ruled freedom of choice desegregation plans unconstitutional in Green v. County School Board of New Kent County on May 27, 1968. Like my work on segregation academies, I am interested in the language Governor Maddox used to talk about race: how the language of freedom and liberty served as dog whistles to support the maintenance of white supremacist politics. And, once again, I am concerned about how the politics Maddox represented are still with us today.

I’m currently working on the following paper related to this area of research:

  • Nichols, Joseph R. “‘We Fight for Our Children and for Our Liberty”: Governor Lester G. Maddox and White Flight from Public Schools in Georgia.”

Publications

Presentations

  • Nichols, Joseph R. “‘To Defend and Strengthen Their Heritage’: White Flight from Public Schools and the Rise of Segregation Academies in the 1960s South” Paper presented at the annual meeting of the History of Education Society, Atlanta, GA, November 1-5, 2023. (paper)

  • Nichols, Joseph R. “For Those Who ‘Love Liberty and the American Way of Life’: Georgia Governor Lester Maddox and the Politics of Segregation Academies.” Presentation at the annual meeting of the Midwest Political Science Association, Chicago, IL, April 13-16, 2023. (presentation)

  • Nichols, Joseph R. and Natalie Gerke. “For Those Who ‘Love Liberty and the American Way of Life’: How the History of Segregation Academies has Shaped the Civic Mission of Schools. Poster presented at the annual meeting of the National Council for History Education, Salt Lake City, UT, March 23-25, 2023. (poster)

  • Nichols, Joseph R. “Segregation Academies: History and How They Affect Public Education Today.” Panelist on the History of Racism webinar for the PRiME Center at Saint Louis University, St. Louis, MO, March 11, 2021. (webinar)