George Wallace, Martin Luther King Jr., and the power of forgiveness

As this year’s Martin Luther King Jr. Day approached, my thoughts turned to George Wallace, who for years as governor of Alabama opposed King at every turn – and then apologized.

The pathos of Wallace’s full-circle story took me away from weighing and measuring whether one deserves forgiveness to the artesian dimensions of the heart, where only unconditional love flows.

Questions like “How much should I forgive?” or “How many times can I forgive?” became totally useless. And in the absence of questions, came the answer: Love is the only path toward a sustainable world. Forgiveness controls the future.

Bending 1950s-era injustices

As a young man, King learned from his father, the pastor of Ebenezer Baptist Church in Atlanta, about the power of the Black church as an unending source of faith to drive social change.

And that’s exactly what King did at Dexter Avenue Baptist Church, in Montgomery, Alabama, where he began as pastor in September 1954.

While preaching a theology of true freedom, he facilitated nonviolent protests like the Montgomery Bus Boycott, bending 1950s-era injustices toward the nation’s ideal that “all men are created equal.”

Even George Wallace knew the power of the Dexter church. The current organist, Althea Thomas, who was hired by King in her 20s, remembers Wallace coming to the church to court Black voters during his first gubernatorial run in 1958, which he lost.

Four years later, he ran as a staunch segregationist, winning by a landslide.

“Segregation forever”

In his inaugural address at the Alabama Capitol in 1963, Wallace famously pledged, “Segregation now, segregation tomorrow, and segregation forever!” A rallying cry against racial equality, his words haunted him.

“I didn’t write those words about segregation now, tomorrow and forever,” Wallace told reporter Carl Rowan in 1991. “I saw them in the speech written for me and planned to skip over them. But the wind-chill factor was 5 below zero when I gave that speech. I started reading just to get it over and read those words without thinking. I have regretted it all my life.”

Despite those regrets, Wallace behaved as though he believed what he’d said. He forcefully opposed integrating Alabama’s schools and never punished the state troopers who, on March 7, 1965, turned a peaceful march across the Edmund Pettis Bridge into what came to be known as Bloody Sunday. Footage of troopers brutally beating voting rights marchers shocked the nation. 

King’s turn to speak at the Capitol 

A few weeks later, in the wake of that shock, marchers once again left Selma headed for Montgomery, having secured federal protection from the National Guard. By the time they reached the state Capitol four days later, their ranks had swelled to 25,000.  

Atop the white dome flew the Confederate flag, and to the left of the building stood an imposing statue of Jefferson Davis, president of the Confederacy. But King’s stature loomed larger than Davis’s statue. King had been chosen as Time’s Man of the Year for 1963, and in 1964 he became the youngest person ever to win the Nobel Peace Prize.

At a rally at the Capitol, King delivered his famous “How Long? Not Long.” speech. Less than five months later, President Lyndon Johnson signed the Voting Rights Act, giving King one of the pens as a memento.

An apology at Dexter

Dexter Avenue Baptist Church is less than half a mile from the Alabama Capitol, yet it took an attempted assassination that left Wallace paralyzed for him to visit Dexter again. In 1979, he entered in a wheelchair, unannounced, to apologize.

His words were simple and contrite: “I have learned what suffering means. In a way that was impossible [before the shooting], I think I can understand something of the pain black people have come to endure. I know I contributed to that pain, and I can only ask your forgiveness.” 

King was not there, of course, having been assassinated more than a decade earlier, but the congregation forgave Wallace.

When I imagine King’s response had he been present, part of his Christmas 1957 sermon comes to mind: “Forgiveness does not mean ignoring what has been done or putting a false label on an evil act. It means, rather, that the evil act no longer remains as a barrier to the relationship. ... While abhorring segregation, we shall love the segregationist. This is the only way to create the beloved community.”  

A hint of King’s dream come true

I never met King or Wallace, but I know Wallace’s older daughter, Peggy Wallace Kennedy. When I emailed to ask about her father’s change of heart, she responded, “Daddy’s acts of contrition were real and for the right reasons. For it was his own Journey to Jericho that led him home. … [I]t was his own suffering as a paraplegic that carried him to a higher ground of peace and understanding. I believe that Daddy’s transformation later in his life affected the hearts of both African Americans and Whites, in America.”  

At a 2015 event marking the 50th anniversary of the Selma to Montgomery march, Ms. Kennedy stood on the Alabama Capitol steps holding hands with King’s younger daughter, Bernice King, watching the marchers approach. Recalling that day and alluding to King’s “I Have a Dream” speech, Ms. Kennedy wrote in her book, “The Broken Road: George Wallace and a Daughter’s Journey to Reconciliation,” “I could not help but wonder how the course of history might have been changed if Martin Luther King and Daddy had known that one day, right down here in Alabama, that little black girl and that little white girl holding hands would be their own daughters.”

Wallace’s full-circle journey has taught me the truth of King’s words: “Love is the only force capable of transforming an enemy into a friend.”

No weighing or measuring needed.