Civil Rights Figure. Flowers attracted national attention when he began challenging Alabama Governor George C. Wallace's segregationist stands in the 1960's. Elected to office in 1962, the same year as his old friend, Wallace; he ran as an avowed segregationist himself. He soon started parting ways with Wallace, however, following Wallace's "stand in the schoolhouse door" attempt to prevent the integration of the University of Alabama, where the two had graduated from law school. Not publicly opposing segregation at the time, his position was merely that federal law required that the school be integrated. Over time, however, he took a more active role in the process of integration. In 1965, he issued a report naming the Ku Klux Klan, Klan members, or associates as being responsible for the majority of bombings that had taken place in Birmingham since 1961. In it, he accused Wallace of not standing up to the Klan. After a series of killings of civil rights workers, an outraged Flowers took over from local prosecutors some of the cases himself. During this period, crosses were burned in his yard and bricks were thrown through his windows. In 1966, Wallace, who could not, by law, succeed himself as governor, campaigned for his wife, Lurleen, to follow him in office. Flowers challenged Mrs. Wallace in the Democratic primary, but lost by a wide margin. In the general election, Mrs. Wallace defeated the Republican candidate, James Martin. While Attorney General, he successfully argued two landmark voting cases, Baker v. Carr and Reynolds v. Sims, before the United States Supreme Court. He also was instrumental in making the change that would allow women to serve on juries in Alabama. Three years after leaving office, Flowers was convicted of extortion and sentenced to eight years in prison, a prosecution and conviction that some saw as retribution. After serving 16 months in federal prison, he was paroled, and was eventually pardoned by President Jimmy Carter in 1978.