Lester Maddox Quotes

Honest businessmen should be protected from the unscrupulous consumer. -Lester Maddox, governor of Georgia, arguing against the creation of a state consumer protection agency

Lester Maddox, when Governor of Georgia, was criticized regarding the state’s abysmal prison system. ‘The solution’, he said, ‘is simple. All we need is a better class of prisoners.

At a patio party recently in New Orleans' French Quarter, an oil millionaire from Dallas allowed, “I'd vote for him in a minute, and give him all the money I could, if I just felt I could trust him-if he wouldn't wind up getting tamed by Washington like Lester Maddox over there in Georgia. I'm a Republican, but I'd love to support him, and every one of my friends-oilmen, fellows in wheat-feel the same way.

Lester Maddox, later elected Governor of Georgia, was one of the protesting restaurateurs. After closing his fried chicken outlets, he opened a memorial to the death of freedom, featuring a copy of the Bill of Rights resting in a black-draped coffin. To support himself he sold clubs and ax handles in three different sizes—Daddy, Mama, and Junior—replicas of the clubs used to beat black civil rights demonstrators. I bought one of those ax handles with money earned from my paper route. Lester Maddox sometimes attended my church (his sister was a member), and it was there I learned a twisted theological basis for my racism.