Negro Vote Crucial For Segregationist

Press, Volume CV, Issue 31052, 6 May 1966, Page 13

Negro Vote Crucial For Segregationist

(N.Z.P.A. Reuter —Copi/riphtl SELMA (Alabama) May 5. Sheriff Jim Clark, whose deputies attacked civil rights marchers last year, today found his political future depending on six Negro ballot boxes.

in a judge’s office last night after Sheriff Clark challenged them. They contain enough votes to thwart his bid for the Democratic nomination for sheriff in next November’s elections.

The sheriff protested that he had found two or three of

the boxes unattended. Vote counting was halted until the dispute could be settled by the Democratic committee. With 74 out of 80 ballot boxes counted, the last six could give the nomination to Mr Wilson Baker, a racial moderate and Selma's former public safety director. Mr Baker had 7537 votes and Sheriff Clark 7455 when counting was stopped. Landslide Victory In nominations for governor, the extent of Mrs Lurleen Wallace’s landslide victory became known last night. Mrs Wallace, wife of the present segregationist governor, received nearly 400,000 votes. The State Attorney-General (Mr Flowers), who wooed the Negro vote, collected only 143,000.

Governor Wallace, barred by the constitution from seeking another term in November, hailed the result as endorsement of his conservative policies and said he would continue to rule through his wife.