The Ulcer of Walter Flowers

The name Walter Flowers has vanished from historical memory. He was a conservative Democrat from Tuscaloosa, Alabama, who served five almost entirely forgettable terms in Congress. He was first elected to the House in 1968 as an ally of George Wallace. He hung a Confederate flag on the wall in his Washington office and pinned an American flag on his lapel and wore red, white, and blue saddle shoes. In 1972, Flowers voted, along with 80 or 90 percent of the white electorate in his district, to reelect Richard Nixon; a vote against Nixon, Flowers later said, would have been considered by his constituents to be a pro-black vote. He lost a Senate race in 1978 and died of a heart attack in 1984, while playing tennis on his 51st birthday. There’s nothing else to say about Flowers—except that, in the summer of 1974,