American Evita: Lurleen Wallace: Lurleen Wallace

Governor Lurleen Wallace of Alabama and Evita Perón, First Lady of Argentina were women in their time but were not women of their time. Born in the same era, both First Ladys emerged as charismatic leaders-the trajectory of their high profile achievements paralleling in astonishing chrysalis patterns, eclipsing the political Suns of the steely-eyed men they married. When a white woman, Alabama Governor Lurleen Wallace, died of cancer in 1968 in the violent years of Civil Rights confrontations, Rev. Dr. Ralph Abernathy, a top Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. lieutenant, issued a public statement: "A dark shadow has been cast across the horizon of America by the death of the Honorable Governor Lurleen Wallace." Her husband George C. Wallace, famously vowed: "Segregation forever." Public admiration of a black leader for the wife of an avowed segregationist was unimaginable in 1968 America. But it did happen. First Lady Evita Perón's mere presence on a dais attracted two million people, demanding in en-masse voice that she run for Vice President of Argentina-a job no female ever held in 1951. Neither woman graduated from high school. Their husbands kept from each, the identical life-threatening medical secret.