Tyrone N. Butts
APE Reporter
Wallace memorabilia searches for home
MONTGOMERY, Ala.-AP) February 14 -- Contributions haven't come in for a Wallace museum. So wooden boxes filled with the personal papers and memorabilia of former Governor George C. Wallace still sit in an Atlanta warehouse as efforts to memorialize him have gone nowhere since his death in 1998.
There are no funds for a museum or research center for Wallace who made four bids for president.
His son, George Wallace Junior, says the family wants to give the artifacts to Alabama's Department of Archives and History for preservation and display. Wal
lace's family hoped to build a museum and research center along Montgomery's riverfront.
State Archivist Ed
Bridges says he'd like to have the collection, but lacks the money to do it justice.
The chairman of a legislative budget committee said the state must make sure the items wind up being preserved. Senator Roger Bedford of Russellville says the state -- quote -- "can't let those artifacts rot."
Margaret Armbrester and Sam Webb, historians at UAB and co-editors of the book "Alabama Governors," said the unsettled nature of the Wallace artifacts is not the result of people's views of him, but rather the size of the collection and the cost of processing it.
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Shameful!
T.N.B.