State Auditor Jim Zeigler is still trying to get Alabama Gov. Robert Bentley to return portraits of former governors George and Lurleen Wallace to the Capitol’s rotunda.

He told The News Courier Wednesday the paintings were removed two months before former President Barrack Obama, media proprietor Oprah Winfrey and national media arrived in Montgomery in 2015 for two civil rights commemorations.

He said Bentley replaced the two portraits with his own portrait and he believes the Wallace portraits should be “returned to their rightful place in the rotunda,” along with portraits of Bentley, Bob Riley, Don Siegelman and Fob James.

Bentley’s office did not return a request for comment on the matter Thursday.

Part of history

Zeigler said state lawmakers passed a joint resolution at the time the Wallace portraits were hung requiring they be kept in the rotunda in “perpetuity.”

“They are part of Alabama’s history and should be returned to the rotunda,” he said.

Typically a governor waits until after he is out of office to have his portrait hung, which means Bentley’s was hung “prematurely,” Zeigler said. He believes there are several reasons why Bentley had the Wallace portraits removed.

“I think it provided a place to put up his own portrait and that it was a case of ego; he wanted it put up,” Zeigler said. “The national media and Oprah and the president were coming to town two months later for the 50th anniversary of Bloody Sunday and the Selma-to-Montgomery March over the Edmund Pettus Bridge. He thought it would be nice to have them out of the rotunda for that but it makes no sense. It’s part of our history …”

Changing tunes

He noted George Wallace was the only four-time governor in the state and he ran for president (and lost) four times — in 1964, ’68, ’72 and ’76. He said Lurleen was Alabama’s only female governor.

Zeigler said the Wallace portraits were “relegated” to the secretary of state’s office, which neither of the two Wallaces had any connection to. He said despite George Wallace’s history of segregationist views, he later changed.

“In the latter part of his career, after he was shot, he really changed,” Zeigler said. “The last time he was elected governor, the black vote elected him.”

Some political historians say Wallace was simply a master politician — saying and doing whatever curried favor with voters. But, his actions and rhetoric were divisive, hurtful and shocking to the world. Later in life, after becoming a born-again Christian, Wallace said his segregationist and racist comments and actions were wrong and he apologized for his conduct. Some believed he had changed; some thought he was just tying to get into heaven.