How and why did George Wallace changed his mind?

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George Wallace resembles something rare and even beautiful in American politics. Someone with a staunch opposition to segregation having a change of heart. But how did it happen?

He got shot. A near death experience changes people. Maybe he was treated by black doctors and nurses. He was visited in the hospital by Shirley Chisholm an African-American congresswoman. It might have been just pure politics, public opinion was changing.

It's also true that Wallace had started his political career as a liberal - - and failed miserably. He only achieved political success when he switched to being a race baiting conservative. I've often wondered if Wallace's devotion to segregation was 100% legitimate considering his original political stance. Maybe, realizing not only was his career at an end, but that it had been ended because of his ugly public racism, he returned to who and what he had really been.

Simple. The tide was turning. It wasn't quite as fashionable to be a segregationalist in 1972 as it was in the early 60s.

It would be interesting to know how he viewed race in the privacy of his own home.