“What Might Have Been?” This is what many Alabama residents and historians have said about one of the state’s closest and, at least on one side, nastiest election campaigns for governor—the 1970 contest between Albert Preston Brewer and George Wallace, the infamous failed presidential contender. Brewer is the 2009 recipient of the American Inns of Court Professionalism Award for the Eleventh Circuit.
Brewer recalls the slow trip accompanying Alabama Governor Lurleen Wallace’s body to lie in state in the rotunda of the Alabama State Capitol. The grief he witnessed along the route is one of Albert Brewer’s most vivid memories of the events of May 1968, which culminated with him taking the oath of office as Alabama’s 49th governor. Lurleen Wallace, the state’s first and only female governor, had finally lost a much publicized battle with cancer, and Lieutenant Governor Brewer had just become the only man in the twentieth century to assume the governor’s office due to the untimely death of his predecessor.
Certainly, Albert Brewer was ready for the job. Prior to being elected Lieutenant Governor in 1996, the 39-year-old Decatur lawyer, a graduate of the University of Alabama Law School, served for more than a decade as a state legislator—having been elected in 1963 as one of the youngest Speakers of the Alabama House of Representatives in history. At the time, the speaker had tremendous power. When he was elected in 1954, he was in a group of young, progressive legislators, “interested in education and economic development and in doing good things for the state.” Succeeding the popular Lurleen Wallace was not an easy task, especially because her husband George had been, as he coyly called himself, her chief advisor.
As Governor, Brewer served for only 33 months; however, historians write that “Albert Brewer… did more for Alabama education than most of his predecessors or successors. That Brewer accomplished as much in a short period of time makes his term all the more remarkable.” Typically modest, Brewer downplayed his accomplishments: “I just saw all of these things that needed to be done and tried to get them done.” “We had some initiatives that my advisors would say that I shouldn’t try to do because it would hurt my chances of winning a full term in 1970. I would tell them that it might be our last chance to get it done, and I guess it was kind of prophetic.”
As the 1970 election approached, George Wallace decided to enter the race for Alabama governor. Against all odds, Governor Brewer shocked the nation when he beat Wallace in the democratic primary. Unfortunately, he didn’t win an outright majority, which led to a runoff. While Governor Brewer stayed above the fray, the Wallace campaign orchestrated a vicious smear campaign with leaflets making personal attacks on the Governor’s wife and family.
As we know from history, Wallace narrowly won the election. Historian Wayne Flint noted, “Governor Albert Brewer could well have been the first ‘New South’ governor had he been elected in 1970. His platform of biracialism in politics, education, tax, and constitutional reform fit squarely within the bipartisan effort of the New South governors. Most people, having suffered through the savage personal attacks and rejection at the polls, would have chosen to turn their backs on public service and return to the comfortable life of practicing law and raising a family. Albert Brewer, however, is not like most people. A humble a totally decent man, according to all of his colleagues, Governor Brewer is one of those rare individuals who believes that public service is a higher calling and that we owe it to our fellow citizens to try to leave this place better than we found it.
For more than two decades, he served on the faculty of Samford University’s Cumberland School of Law as Distinguished professor of Law and Government, teaching legal ethics and constitutional law. While at Samford, he was one of the founders and first director of the Public Affairs Research Council, the state’s only independent public policy research organization. As another writer observed, “it is almost impossible to find an award or honor that has not been bestowed on Governor Brewer.”
Albert Preston Brewer, a statesman, a “New South Governor,” a teacher, and a true leader received yet one more honor when the Honorable Susan H. Black, U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit, presented him with the 2009 the American Inns of Court Professionalism Award for the Eleventh Circuit on Law Day, 2009. No doubt that many in attendance at the ceremony in Birmingham, Alabama, thought to themselves: “What might have been.”
Much of the material for this profile comes from “What Might Have Been”, written by Barry Ragsdale from Portico Magazine, November 2006.