Former Vice President Joe Biden, who has been emphasizing his civil rights record as he considers a 2020 White House bid, once praised notorious segregationist George Wallace and later claimed to have received an award from him.

“I think the Democratic Party could stand a liberal George Wallace — someone who’s not afraid to stand up and offend people, someone who wouldn’t pander but would say what the American people know in their gut is right,” Biden told the Philadelphia Enquirer on Oct. 12, 1975, referring to the racist then-Alabama governor.