Stand Up for America

Blue and white photograph of a man with a red top outer edge and blue button outer edge both with white text

Stand Up for America was the slogan of George Wallace’s 1968 presidential campaign.  Wallace was the Governor of Alabama and candidate of the American Independent Party.  The other candidates were Richard Nixon (R) and Hubert Humphrey (D).  The year 1968 was tumultuous with widespread opposition to the Vietnam War, and the assassinations of Martin Luther King, Jr. and Robert F. Kennedy.  Additionally, this was the first election after the Voting Rights Act of 1965 which extended the franchise to racial minorities throughout the county. 

Nixon and Humphrey were equally unpopular, and Wallace hoped his entrance into the race would help defer federal attempts at further desegregation in the South.  Wallace never expected to win, but he hoped to secure enough electoral votes from the other two candidates to force a tie that the House of Representatives would have to break.  In the end Wallace won 5 states and Nixon won the election.

Wallace is most famously known for his stance at the front door of the University of Alabama in 1962 where two black students were attempting to register.  President Kennedy ordered the National Guard to Tuscaloosa to intervene and Wallace was forced to step aside.