George Wallace, Jr. said he knows he cannot change people’s perceptions of his father. But he has chronicled his father’s life in what he thinks should be the correct historical narrative in a book released earlier this year.

“I didn’t intend to write a book, Wallace said. Instead, he started writing about the opinions in so much of the public’s thoughts that were not correct.

Speaking before the Pell City Kiwanis Club, Wallace told those gathered that he’d like to think his father’s total journey—in family, politics and faith—has been chronicled in the book.

Born in 1919, George Wallace, Sr. was what his son calls “the product of Barber County, Ala. and the rural, depressed South.”

Always willing to help others, his son said his father had a passion instilled at an early age to help both the people and the state of Alabama.

“My name is George Wallace. Let me know if I can help you,” was the greeting commonly heard from the mouth of the six-year-old George Wallace, Sr.

He was an engineer on a B-29 bomber in WWII on the Island of Tinian, Japan, and flew 19 missions.

He served in the state legislature at age 27 and was dubbed “The Father of the Two-Year College System” for his work in helping education in the state.

He served as a circuit judge and, according to his son, was highly respected by African American members of the bar association.

It was in 1962 that his father “made a move against everything he had done up to that point” by making a stance for segregation, the younger Wallace said.

“My conscience told me to be wrong that day,” the son said of his father later recalling his now-infamous inaugural speech.

He had similar regrets about his stance in the schoolhouse door when the University of Alabama was to be integrated. “I was young and brash, I shouldn’t have done that,” he said later in life. “I hurt my image and I hurt Alabama’s image.”

He said his father “finally got it right” in 1979 when he visited Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.’s church and asked for atonement.

Another moment that history got wrong—the son wrote in his book—was the perception that Governor Wallace ordered state troopers to stop the demonstrators on the Edmond Pettus Bridge in Selma. Bob Ingram wrote that he never saw the governor so enraged as when the he heard the news that violence had broken out on Bloody Sunday.

He ran for the presidency several times, falling short as a third-party candidate in 1968. An assassination attempt in 1972 ended his political career.

“He always thought he might be shot,” Wallace said of his father’s recollections. “He always thought it would be a head wound and would probably die from that.”

But he endured much pain throughout the rest of his life from his injuries fired from Arthur Bremer’s gun. He later forgave the man who shot him. “Son, if I can’t forgive him, the Lord won’t forgive me,” the elder Wallace said.

His greatest victory was truly his faith,” Wallace said. “He used to tell me on more than one occasion, ‘Son, I used to think politics was the most important thing in life. It’s clearly helped the quality of people’s lives. But It’s your relationship with Jesus Christ that really matters. He was very devout. He was devout before being shot, but after he had been so close to death he understood how fragile life was and that had a profound impact on his heart and soul.”