One of the roles that comes with the office of governor is serving on the board of trustees of the state schools.

In 1976 George Wallace was in his third term as governor of Alabama. He'd been shot and paralyzed in Maryland a few years before, and was now confined to a chair and coping with chronic pain.

The governor and the state education superintendent each served on the board as non-voting members. The governor appoints board members, who must be approved by the state senate. When approved, the board members serve a 12 year term. There is a loophole in the law that has allowed some especially powerful members of the modern era to stay on longer than the stated law.

For whatever reason the board members aren't named here. There are seven photographs in a right angle collage, all taken from the same board meeting. There appears to be one, maybe two women on the board at this moment in history, the rest are elderly and middle aged white men. I suspect that students and faculty opinions of the board never really change on a college campus, so if you want to know how those opinions work you could ask anyone you know.

The text doesn't say what the topic was here, but I'm guessing that the microphone was meant for a larger audience than just board members. It appears that Gov. Wallace was sitting in front of a stage so we'll assume that he's either in historic Langdon Hall or in the Foy Student Union.

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