Asa Earl Carter (September 4, 1925 – June 7, 1979) was a 1950s segregationist speech writer, and later Western novelist. He co-wrote George Wallace's well-known pro-segregation line of 1963, "Segregation now, segregation tomorrow, segregation forever", and ran in the Democratic primary for governor of Alabama on a segregationist ticket. Years later, under the alias of supposedly Cherokee writer Forrest Carter, he wrote The Rebel Outlaw: Josey Wales (1972), a Western novel that led to a 1976 film featuring Clint Eastwood that was adopted into the National Film Registry, and The Education of Little Tree (1976), a best-selling, award-winning book which was marketed as a memoir but which turned out to be fiction. In 1976, following the success of The Rebel Outlaw and its film adaptation, The Outlaw Josey Wales (1976), The New York Times revealed Forrest Carter was actually Southerner Asa Carter. His background became national news again in 1991 after his purported memoir, The Education of Little Tree (1976), was re-issued in paperback, topped the Times paperback best-seller lists (both non-fiction and fiction), and won the American Booksellers Book of the Year (ABBY) award. Prior to his literary career as "Forrest", Carter was politically active for years in Alabama as an opponent of the civil rights movement: he worked as a speech writer for segregationist Governor George Wallace of Alabama, founded the North Alabama Citizens Council (NACC) – an independent offshoot of the White Citizens' Council movement – and an independent Ku Klux Klan group, and started a pro-segregation monthly titled The Southerner. Early life Asa Carter was born in Anniston, Alabama in 1925, the second eldest of four children. Despite later claims (as author "Forrest" Carter) that he was orphaned, he was raised by his parents Hermione and Ralph Carter in nearby Oxford, Alabama. Both parents lived into Carter's adulthood. Carter served in the United States Navy during World War II and for a year studied journalism at the University of Colorado on the G.I. Bill. After the war, he married India Thelma Walker. The couple settled in Birmingham, Alabama and had four children. Career Carter worked for several area radio stations before ending up at station WILD in Birmingham, where he worked from 1953 to 1955. Carter's broadcasts from WILD, sponsored by the American States Rights Association, were syndicated to more than 20 radio stations before the show was cancelled. Carter was fired following community outrage about