A segregationist as governor, he drew criticism when Freedom Riders had been attacked whereas in Alabama and Patterson did nothing to guard them,
A segregationist as governor, he drew criticism when Freedom Riders had been attacked whereas in Alabama and Patterson did nothing to guard them, regardless of direct pleas from Lawyer Normal Robert F. Kennedy to aim to forestall violence. “As a number of administration insiders later acknowledged,” Raymond Arsenault wrote in his ebook “Freedom Riders: 1961 and the Wrestle for Racial Justice,” “the Kennedy brothers had been livid at Patterson. Both out of incompetence or outright connivance — and the Kennedys suspected the latter — he had presided over a pointless escalation of violence that included a shameless assault on federal authority.”
Patterson later voiced remorse for what occurred. He ended his political profession extra serenely on the Courtroom of Prison Appeals, the place he continued to put in writing opinions into his 80s.
Patterson additionally was concerned within the disastrous Bay of Pigs invasion, serving to the CIA get Alabama Air Nationwide Guard members to coach Cuban exiles. Some Alabama pilots died when the 1961 invasion of Cuba failed.
Patterson was born on his grandparents’ farm within the tiny Tallapoosa County group of Goldville, however completed highschool in Phenix Metropolis, the place his father, Albert Patterson, was a lawyer. After serving on Gen. Dwight Eisenhower’s employees throughout World Struggle II, Patterson returned dwelling, received his legislation diploma from the College of Alabama and went into observe along with his father, Albert Patterson.
Albert Patterson ran for legal professional normal in 1954 on a platform of cleansing up the vice and unlawful playing that had turned his city into “Sin Metropolis, U.S.A.” He gained the Democratic nomination to be the state’s prime prosecutor, however was gunned down in Phenix Metropolis on June 18.
Democratic Get together officers pressured his son to run for legal professional normal in his place. He did and gained.
In a 2003 interview, Patterson advised The Related Press he had no real interest in politics till his father’s loss of life. “If he hadn’t been killed, I by no means would have run for public workplace. No person would have ever heard of me exterior authorized circles,” Patterson stated.
As legal professional normal, Patterson saved his father’s marketing campaign promise to scrub up Phenix Metropolis. He additionally fought civil rights teams in courtroom. In a single case, he received a restraining order to maintain the NAACP from working in Alabama. The restraining order remained till 1964, when it was lifted by the U.S. Supreme Courtroom.
Patterson ran for governor in 1958, beating Wallace in a Democratic major that centered largely on Patterson’s pro-segregation stand.
Patterson was the one individual to beat Wallace in an Alabama election.
4 years later, Wallace efficiently claimed the segregationist banner to start his dynasty.
Throughout Patterson’s time period, Alabama launched a $100 million college constructing program, elevated outdated age pensions, returned the State Docks to profitability, and enacted a small mortgage legislation to curb mortgage sharks.