Southern Rights Forever
Crisis: Behind a Presidential Commitment is a remarkable documentary. The film makers got JFK to agree to let himself be filmed during a crisis. It couldn’t be an international crisis so it turned out to be a domestic one: JFK’s June 1963 confrontation with George Wallace over the admission of two African American students to the University of Alabama. Four camera crews followed JFK, Attorney General RFK, Deputy Attorney General Nicholas Katzenback — and George Wallace, who when informed of the project gave it full cooperation (and comes off as surprisingly graceful). I’ve never seen anything quite like it. The DVD commentary by two of the film makers is fascinating as well.
For me the most riveting segments were those filmed by the crew that followed Wallace. The commentary says that the day began with Wallace hosting a private breakfast with the crew in which filming was forbidden and the camera equipment actually locked away. The first Wallace segment to appear in the documentary shows an establishing shot of the exterior of the governor’s mansion.
Then the film cuts to the interior of the mansion, with Wallace’s toddler daughter plinking on a piano while an African American maid (or perhaps nanny) chides her not to pinch her fingers.
Cut to: portrait of Jeb Stuart
Wallace appears, picks up his daughter and kisses her, shows the camera crew around.
George Wallace, pointing out a painting: “That’s William Lowndes Yancey there. I read a profound statement he made the other day that, ‘To live is not all of life and to die is not all of death.’ I’d rather live a short life of principle than lead a long life of compromise. [unclear if second sentence is Yancey or Wallace]. Of course, that may not mean much to you folks.”
Pointing out a second painting: “William C. Oates was a governor of this state. He was a real fighter. He was at Gettysburg, and he lost an arm. . . . I hope we’ll never see another war of any sort going on in the world, but I think it does us good to reflect and draw on the courage of those who do fight and stand for what they believe in. And there were brave folks on both sides of that combat. There were just a lot more of them than there were of us.”