In a livestreamed video on Monday night, Alabama Democrat and former U.S. Senator Doug Jones compared the 1972 shooting of then-Governor George Wallace as he reacted to the political assassination of conservative activist legend Charlie Kirk.
“I want you to remember George Wallace in leading up to 1963 and then somewhat beyond, when he was elected, continued this violent rhetoric, continued this hateful rhetoric. And guess what? George Wallace was ultimately shot in Baltimore, in Laurel, Maryland in 1972 as he was running for President of the United States — the Democratic nominee for President of the United States. Rhetoric like this has consequences that you can’t control. Once it’s out, once that genie is out of the bottle, once that genie is out, for God’s sakes you cannot control where the violence is going to come from.”
Jones delivered the remarks during a livestream Monday night, less than a week after Kirk, 31, was fatally shot while speaking at Utah Valley University by an assassin who has been found to have “hate” toward he and his political views.
He framed his remarks around the 1963 Birmingham church terror attack, a case he later helped prosecute as U.S. attorney, before pivoting to last week’s on-campus killing of Kirk at Utah Valley University and a broader indictment of “reckless…hateful rhetoric.”
Jones’ Wallace comparison invoked one of Alabama’s most infamous episodes of political violence.
Wallace was shot and left permanently paralyzed during a May 15, 1972 presidential campaign stop. His attacker, Arthur Bremer, was later convicted and imprisoned.
Jones explicitly tied his warning to Kirk’s murder.
“As we remember those four little girls… we need to do so with some clarity about what caused their deaths… there’s a direct connection with those deaths and the rhetoric of the segregationists like George Wallace and Bull Connor. We have got to meet the dangers we have in today’s society with that same clarity — that hateful rhetoric leads to violent acts.”
Invoking George Wallace and Bull Connor, Jones argued their “us versus them” language “didn’t make violence possible, it made violence inevitable.”
He then tied that era to the present, arguing modern “us-versus-them” talk on the right normalizes violence.
“Repetition radicalizes… when dangerous, mostly false narratives are repeated over and over, they become a reality for some people,” Jones said, blaming Kirk.
Grayson Everett is the editor in chief of Yellowhammer News. You can follow him on X @Grayson270.
