G. Thomas Turnipseed Papers

“If I can change, anyone can change.”

~ Tom Turnipseed, 1997

The story of Tom Turnipseed’s life is a journey from willful ignorance to self-realization and a true change of heart. Turnipseed went from being the executive director of George Wallace’s 1968 Presidential campaign to successfully suing the Ku Klux Klan for damages to a church in South Carolina thirty years later. As a child, he was taught to revere the Old South and the Ku Klux Klan, of which his grandfather was a member. This environment molded him to be complacent with the status quo like many in the Deep South.

On August 27, 1936, George Thomas Turnipseed was born in Mobile, Alabama, to George and Ruby Turnipseed. Turnipseed attended the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, for both his undergraduate and law degrees. Here he met his wife Judith. The couple was married in 1963 and went on to have two children, Jefferson Davis Turnipseed and Jennifer Belle Turnipseed (now Mathis). In 1965, Turnipseed became the Executive Director of the South Carolina Independent School Association, where he was instrumental in finding the legal loopholes to create white-only private schools in the post Brown vs. Board era. While in this position he met Jack Wallace, brother of Alabama Governor George Wallace, who convinced Turnipseed to work for his brother. In 1967, Turnipseed and his wife began to work for Governor Wallace’s 1968 Presidential campaign. Turnipseed was soon made the Executive Director of the campaign and managed a political feat that has not been duplicated since. He was able to get a third-party candidate on the ballot in all fifty states.

Wallace carried five states in his bid for the Presidency. After the campaign, Turnipseed remained on Wallace’s staff but also began to practice law in Columbia, South Carolina. In 1971, Turnipseed stepped down as National Campaign Director to focus on his family and law practice, even though Wallace was again running in the 1972 election. An assassination attempt on May 5, 1972 left Wallace paralyzed, effectively ending his campaign. After this incident, Turnipseed officially resigned from Wallace’s personal staff.

Then a change began to occur; Turnipseed has been quoted as saying “I persecuted liberals so long that all of a sudden I am one.” The next year he was speaking at the South Carolina NAACP convention on economic issues, in particular electric utility rates, an issue Turnipseed would use as a platform when he ran successfully for the South Carolina State Senate in 1976.

Turnipseed campaigned for a number of offices over the years, chiefly to bring attention to a variety of issues. He ran for Attorney General in 1974 against Daniel McLeod and again in 1998 against Charlie Condon. In 1976, he defeated incumbent state senator A.J. Dooley; then in 1978, ran for Governor, a campaign he truncated due to health issues. In 1980, he was the Democratic nominee opposing incumbent Congressman Floyd Spence. During this campaign, Lee Atwater launched a vicious smear campaign attacking Turnipseed’s past mental health issues. In 1982, Turnipseed ran for Lt. Governor against Michael Daniel.

While his electoral endeavors were not always successful, Turnipseed was active in various social issues including homelessness and racial equality, saying “If I don’t do another thing in my life I’m going to work for racial justice.” In 1998, Turnipseed was co-counsel on the case the Macedonia Baptist Church brought against the Ku Klux Klan for burning their church. The church was awarded thirty-seven million dollars for damages. In later years, Tom and Judy Turnipseed focused on the homeless and were involved with Homeless Helping Homeless, Food Not Bombs, the Center for Democratic Renewal (formerly known as the National Anti-Klan Network), the South Carolina Taxpayers Association, the South Carolina Trial Lawyers Association, and the Executive Council and Executive Committee of the South Carolina Democratic Party.

Turnipseed reached out using his radio and television program The Seed Show, where he interviewed politicians, activists, community leaders and others. It took many forms and fostered discussion of important and divisive issues from its inception in 1994. Turnipseed was also a prolific writer of political pieces which were published in The Atlanta Constitution, The New York Times, The Washington Post, The Charlotte Observer, and others, including local South Carolina newspapers.

Until he passed away in 2020, Tom Turnipseed continued to practice law in Columbia and with his wife Judy continued to champion social causes — “We must understand the strength of our diversity and the worth and dignity of people everywhere and work harder for peace and justice in the democratic process.”