Wallace was known for stirring crowds with his oratory . '' The Huntsville Times '' interviewed Bill Jones , Wallace 's first press secretary , who recounted " a particularly fiery speech in Cincinnati , Ohio in 1964 that scared even Wallace , where he angrily shouted to a crowd of 1,000 people that ' little pinkos ' were ' running around outside ' protesting his visit , and continued , after thunderous applause , saying , ' When you and I start marching and demonstrating and carrying signs , we will close every highway in the country . ' The audience leaped to its feet and headed for the exit , " Jones said , " It shook Wallace . He quickly moved to calm them down . " At graduation exercises in the spring of 1964 at Bob Jones University in Greenville , South Carolina , Wallace received an honorary doctorate . At the commencement , Bob Jones Jr. , read the following citation as a tribute to Wallace : In 1964 , Alabama Republicans stood to benefit from the unintended consequences of two developments : ( 1 ) Governor Wallace vacating the race for the Democratic presidential nomination against President Johnson , and ( 2 ) the designation of unpledged Democratic electors in Alabama , in effect removing President Johnson from the general election ballot . Prior to the 1964 Republican National Convention in San Francisco , Wallace and his aides Bill Jones and Seymore Trammell met in the Jefferson Davis Hotel in Montgomery with Alabama Republican leader James D. Martin , who had narrowly lost the U.S. Senate election in 1962 to J. Lister Hill . Wallace and his aides sought to determine if Barry M. Goldwater , the forthcoming Republican presidential nominee who as a senator from Arizona had voted against the Civil Rights Act of 1964 on libertarian and constitutional grounds , would advocate repeal of the law , particularly the public accommodations and equal employment sections . Bill Jones indicated that Wallace agreed with Goldwater 's anti-communist stance but opposed the Republican 's proposal to make Social Security a voluntary program . Jones stressed that Wallace had sacrificed his own presidential aspirations that year to allow a direct Republican challenge to President Johnson . It was later disclosed that Wallace proposed at the meeting with Martin to switch parties if he could be named as Goldwater 's running-mate , a designation later given to U.S. Representative William E. Miller of New York . Goldwater reportedly rejected the overture because of Wallace 's lack of strength outside the Deep South
1964 Republican National Convention
1964 Republican National Convention
George Wallace