We shall continue to maintain segregation in Alabama completely and absolutely without violence or ill-will. ... I advocate hatred of no man, because hate will only compound the problems facing the South. ... We ask for patience and tolerance and make an earnest request that we be allowed to handle state and local affairs without outside interference.

I want to tell the good people of this state as a judge of the 3rd Judicial Circuit, if I didn’t have what it took to treat a man fair regardless of his color, then I don’t have what it takes to be the governor of your great state.

I was outsegged (segregated) by John Patterson. And I’ll tell you here and now, I will never be outsegged again.

As your governor, I shall resist any illegal federal court order, even to the point of standing at the schoolhouse door in person, if necessary.

The unwelcomed, unwanted, unwarranted, and force-induced intrusion upon the campus of the University of Alabama today of the might of the central government offers frightful example of the oppression of the rights, privileges and sovereignty of this state by officers of the federal government.

Sure, I look like a white man. But my heart is as black as anyone's here.

Why does the Air Force need expensive new bombers? Have the people we've been bombing over the years been complaining?

I tried to talk about good roads and good schools and all these things that have been part of my career, and nobody listened. And then I began talking about niggers, and they stomped the floor.

Being governor don't mean a thing anymore in this country. We're nothing. Just high-paid ornaments is all. I'm thinking of running for president myself.