Former Alabama Gov. John Patterson, who entered politics as a reformer after his father’s assassination but was criticized for failing to protect the Freedom Riders from angry white mobs, has died. He was 99.
He died Friday, his daughter, Barbara Patterson Scholl, confirmed. She said funeral arrangements are pending. "He died very peacefully at home. His family and friends were with him,” she said.
Patterson was born on his grandparents’ farm in the tiny Tallapoosa County community of Goldville, but finished high school in Phenix City, where his father, Albert Patterson, was a lawyer. After serving on Gen. Dwight Eisenhower’s staff during World War II, Patterson returned home, got his law degree from the University of Alabama and went into practice with his father, Albert Patterson.
Patterson ran for governor in 1958, beating Wallace in a Democratic primary that focused largely on Patterson’s pro-segregation stand.Four years later, Wallace successfully claimed the segregationist banner to begin his dynasty. “It took a lot of nerve and guts to do what they did,” Patterson said. In a 2009 interview, Sam Webb, co-editor of the book “Alabama Governors,” said Patterson was “a brave and courageous” governor on many fronts, but those accomplishments were overshadowed by race issues.
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