Wow. This is an amazing and inspiring story about overcoming hatred and racism. ABC reports:
Nearly half a century ago, in a very different America, Elwin Wilson and John Lewis met under a veil of violence and race-inspired hate. Wilson, a young, white, Southern man, attacked Lewis, a freedom rider for Martin Luther King, in the “white” waiting room of a South Carolina bus station.
The men had not seen each other again until Tuesday when, with “Good Morning America’s” help, Wilson approached Lewis again — this time offering an apology and a chance to relieve a burden he’d carried for more than four decades.
“I’m so sorry about what happened back then,” Wilson said breathlessly. “It’s OK. I forgive you,” Lewis responded before a long-awaited hug.
[snip]
The change, one Wilson said was a long time coming, was sparked by Barack Obama’s presidential victory. “I like Barack Obama,” he said. “I didn’t vote for him, but I’m glad he’s there, and I’ve prayed for him.”Since then, Wilson has been on his own freedom march in search of forgiveness. He went back to the diner where he threw eggs. He went all around town, apologizing to anyone he may have wronged. Pretty soon, he found out that one of the men he wanted to apologize to was a U.S. representative.
“I think it’s a day of history,” Wilson said when he met Lewis. “I want to love people regardless of what color.” “For you to come here today, it’s amazing to me,” Lewis said. “It’s unreal. It’s unbelievable. Maybe, just maybe, others will come forward because there needs to be this healing.” “Good to see you, my friend. Good to see you,” Lewis added.
For his courage in acknowledging the mistakes of the past and in asking forgiveness from those he has wronged, Wilson is, to us here at Famewatcher, also a hero.
UPDATE:
The video below which we initially published as a separate blog entry focuses on a great man who also fought against racism and is a model for healing and forgiveness.
Desmond Tutu on Craig Ferguson – Video
07 March 2009
This interview made our day. We didn’t know that Archbishop Desmond Dudu has such a great sense of humor and that Craig Ferguson could also talk about serious and “weighty” stuff. It is a powerful combination, these two. We are wowed. Too bad they ran out of time.
Go, Archbishop! Go, Craig! We love ya!
Anybody who believes this apology is sincere has been been hoodwinked. The only reason Elwin Wilson is repenting and apologizing is because he believes he can still save his soul. In other words, this latest action on his part is as self-interested and selfish as the the ideology of white superiority that dominated his thinking and his behavior for decades.
Some people are calling him a hero. What they forget is that Elwin Wilson always had choices. He chose to be a racist. He chose to act on that racism by assaulting, both verbally and physically, people he disagreed with or simply didn’t like. True heroism would have been to choose otherwise. What he’s doing now is driven by fear. Maybe if our society had been more just, more truly democratic, he might have had something to fear from his townsfolk, from the local authorities, from his state, or from his country. He felt no fear then, and chose to act accordingly. He feels fear now, and is acting accordingly. Hero? This man is nothing but a coward, through and through.
May his quest fail, and his soul burn in the fires of Hell for all eternity.
I hold a strong belief that the apologies are within the framework of sincerity. This is on the ground that it takes two to tango and hence ‘since it takes two (or more) to make war, it takes the same number to make peace’. Elwin Wilson has done something that we totally need in our world today. Some of the problems we continue facing is based on the fact that people are full of anger and feelings of revenge. We must take note that no matter how much we revenge, it will not address, with conclusive remedy, yesterday’s injustices and wrongs. In this case, our past bad experiences and relations can only be corrected by us being part of acknowledging the wrongs, committing ourselves to correcting them, even if we were not part of their causes and move ahead. As someone deeply involved in and fully passionate about promotion of honest interfaith constructive relations as infrastructural means of addressing perennial conflicts in the world today, I have always advocated for ‘open-ended forgiveness and reconciliation’. This is a concept whereby all people of faith in our contemporary world today, should, in full glare of honest and void of blame-game attitude, acknowledge the wrongs and misdeeds done by those before them and take responsibility of on their behalf and ask for forgiveness from each other. From this stage, and after forgiving one another, then commit themselves to address both communal and structural causes of those injustices and misdeeds. Finally they append their commitment not to commit those mistakes and hence start living as human beings. If there is not religion that can’t allow this to happen, then that is not a religion. What Elwin Wilson has done is simply a demonstration of ‘we wronged one another and hence no matter how much anger and feelings of revenge we hold against each other, we shall not correct the situation, so let us understand and appreciate our past so that we live and operate in peace’. We should not condemn Elwin Wilson but rather encourage that spirit as a solution to our contemporary global challenges of reconciliation. Thanks.
With your kindness, I would like to get in touch with Elwin Wilson and his counterpart. Do you have their contacts?