39 Facts About Lester Maddox

Lester Maddox later served as a lieutenant governor under Jimmy Carter.

Lester Maddox was born in Atlanta, Georgia, the second of nine children born to Dean Garfield Lester Maddox, a steelworker, and his wife, the former Flonnie Castleberry.

Lester Maddox left school shortly before graduation to help support the family by taking odd jobs, including real estate and grocery.

Lester Maddox received his high school diploma through correspondence courses.

Lester Maddox made the Pickrick a family affair, with his wife and children working with him.

Lester Maddox placed advertising which featured cartoon chickens in the Atlanta newspapers.

Lester Maddox said that he would close his restaurant rather than serve African Americans.

An initial group of black demonstrators came to the restaurant but did not enter when Lester Maddox informed them that he had a large number of black employees.

The "invasion" Lester Maddox referred to was three black seminary students who had asked to be seated.

Lester Maddox gained the approval of segregationists by leasing and then selling the restaurant to employees rather than agreeing to serve black customers.

Lester Maddox claimed that the issue was not hostility to blacks, but constitutional property rights.

Lester Maddox even built a monument to "private property rights" near the restaurant.

On February 5,1965, a federal court ruled that Lester Maddox was in contempt of court for failing to obey the injunction and assigned fines of two hundred dollars a day for failing to serve African Americans.

Lester Maddox ultimately closed his restaurant on February 7,1965, rather than integrate it; he claimed that President Lyndon Johnson and communists put him out of business.

In 1962, Lester Maddox ran for lieutenant governor as a Southern Democrat, against Peter Zack Geer, a candidate with whom he shared segregationist and states' rights views.

Lester Maddox was recognized by his rimless eyeglasses, dome-shaped forehead, bald head, and nervous energy.

When Lester Maddox sought the Democratic nomination for governor in 1966, his principal primary opponent was former governor Ellis Arnall.

Arnall barely campaigned in the runoff, and Lester Maddox emerged victorious, 443,055 to 373,004.

Lester Maddox criticized the Callaway family textile mill, which he alleged had kept wages at $10 a week in Troup county.

Lester Maddox was sworn-in on the evening of January 10,1967, minutes after the legislature certified his election.

Lester Maddox campaigned hard for states' rights and maintained a segregationist stance while in office.

In 1968, Lester Maddox endorsed the former Democrat George Wallace, the then pro-segregation American Independent Party candidate in the 1968 presidential election.

When he was asked what might be done to improve the abysmal conditions in Georgia prisons, Lester Maddox replied that what was really needed was a better class of prisoner.

Lester Maddox received the honorary degree of Doctor of Laws from Bob Jones University in 1969.

The play ridiculed Lester Maddox and imagined him winning the 1972 US presidential election, then starting a war with the Soviet Union.

Lester Maddox was a supporter of the Vietnam War because of his anti-communist views, and he often told Georgia about the threats of communism and communist and socialist influences.

Under the Georgia constitution of 1945, Lester Maddox was prohibited from running for a second consecutive term.

Lester Maddox therefore waged his second bid for lieutenant governor, the first having resulted in defeat to Peter Zack Geer in 1962.

Carter and Lester Maddox found little common ground during their four years of service, often publicly feuding with each other.

When Carter ran for president in 1976, Lester Maddox ran against him as the nominee of Wallace's former American Independent Party, saying that his former rival was "the most dishonest man I ever met".

Lester Maddox stated his intention to run for the seat if McDonald's wife, Kathy McDonald, did not.

Lester Maddox had been using drugs from a Bahamian cancer clinic to treat his prostate cancer.

Lester Maddox underwent testing, and two months later announced that he was free of the virus.

Lester Maddox made one final unsuccessful bid for governor in 1990, then underwent heart surgery the following year.

Lester Maddox remained a visible figure in his home community of Cobb County for the remainder of his life.

In 1992 and 1996, Lester Maddox crossed party lines and endorsed unsuccessful populist Republican Pat Buchanan for the presidency.

Lester Maddox's wife nursed him through all his illnesses and supported his political and business career, even though he had to spend much time away from the family.

On June 25,2003, after a fall while recuperating from intestinal surgery in an Atlanta hospice, Lester Maddox died of complications from pneumonia and prostate cancer.

Lester Maddox went on to do more for African Americans than any governor of Georgia up until that time.