Trick-or-Treating at the Wallace House

George C. Wallace and family at his first inauguration in Alabama, 1963

I grew up in, and around, Montgomery, Alabama. My mother worked for George Wallace, Jr., when he was a government official and, for a while, she and I lived down the street from George Wallace, Sr.’s mother, Mozelle. Yes, Grandma Wallace.

Race was always an issue growing up. I remember my mother chastising her brother for using the “n-word” once, even though it was out of character for him. She didn’t want me growing up thinking that we were any different than anyone else — which is in line with our  family’s history. (My grandparents are from Nebraska and retired from the Air Force in Alabama. My great-great-grandmother’s uncle is Levi Coffin, the Quaker Abolitionist sometimes called the President of the Underground Railroad.)

Though my mother was good about introducing me to friends of every color, when she re-married she chose a man born in L.A. (lower Alabama) who was raised in Montgomery during the Civil Rights Movement. His mother drove her maid across town during the Montgomery Bus Boycott, much like in the movie “The Long Walk Home.”

It was an odd combination — mild mannered Midwestern grandparents on one side and a debutante, new-rich southern belle grandmother on the other with a well-traveled, liberal mother who married a man I am, to this day, convinced belongs to a militia.

My super-southern-belle-step-grandma thought the fact that we lived down the street from Grandma Wallace was exciting and special, something to really be proud of. I didn’t understand. Growing up in Montgomery, we learned Montgomery was the home of the Confederacy and the Civil Right’s Movement, the Little White House of the Confederacy and Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.’s church.

Many of my classmates were also taught segregation, even if not officially condoned, was the way things were, the way things should be and the way they always would be. Every year of my junior high and high school career someone would come to school with a giant rebel flag flying from his monster truck. The rest of the day would be full of tension and fighting. Mind you, I graduated in 1995.

The only time I remember even thinking about Grandma Wallace as a child was during Halloween. We, the kids in the neighborhood, decided she must be rich — what with the famous family and giant house and all — so we always made a point to ring her bell for candy. We never actually saw her, only her maid, a middle-aged black woman dressed in a French maid’s outfit. She only ever gave us peppermints. Every year, the same: Old lady peppermints. Though, the image of the maid lent itself to our imaginings that Grandma Wallace was loaded, so the peppermints were a real downer.

I didn’t wonder about the maid too much until later in life. But, I’d heard my super-southern-belle-step-grandmother telling her own stories about the Bus Boycott, talking about those days as if they were a real burden. “I had to drive all the way across town … I don’t know why I did that.”

Of course, we all know why she did that — having a black maid was a status symbol and she was too busy with her social activities to clean her own house or care for her own children.

When I went with her to see “The Long Walk Home,” the movie where actresses Whoopi Goldberg and Sissy Spacek bond during the Bus Boycott, she said — with her super-southern-accent, “Well. I would neva letta nigga ride in the front seat with me.”

We were at the 99 cent movies. Everyone turned to look. To this day I am convinced the crowd realized she was an old lady who didn’t understand  times had changed. I was 13 and thought we were going to die.

Even today, my super-southern-step-grandma, and her whole family, feel they are top-crust in Alabama. After all, her brother is a millionaire and her son is, too, and they (the women) all have sharp red fingernails, frosted big hair, drive crazy-expensive cars and wear giant rocks. It’s not just that they think they’re better than black people, though, they think they are better than anyone who isn’t like them which, as we all know, is everyone.

Though I never met Grandma Wallace my memory wants to superimpose my super-step on her. That’s the only way I can make sense of the French maid outfit, something I now find completely degrading. But, we know, sometimes a job is a job– right?– and we do what we have to do to pay the bills.

Although I was only a little girl, I sometimes remember those days — running, laughing to the Wallace’s front door for candy — with shame. If I had known more I would have said something. If I had known more I wouldn’t have complained about the cheap candy. If I had known more I probably wouldn’t have gone there at all.

Now 32, I am no longer — and thankfully so — in touch with my super-steps. I don’t care how many planes they own or how big their houses are, I can’t stand to be surrounded by bigotry.

Sometimes it feels like a loosing battle, standing up for what is right and good in this world, but it’s a stance I will continue to take because, the bottom line, my friends, is that we are all equal — so says the Constitution, so says most religions, so says any thinking, fair-minded human.

Read this: My father, George Wallace, and Barack Obama, by Peggy Wallace Kennedy (CNN)

And this: AG, Wallace’s daughter observe Selma anniversary (AP)