May there be many more moments like this. Time is running out; I hope Mr. Elwin Wilson inspires courage among the countless others who also must come forward.
Elwin Wilson was an unabashed racist, the sort who once hung a black doll from a noose outside his home. John Lewis was a young civil rights leader bent on changing laws, if not hearts and minds, even if it cost him his life.
They faced each other at a South Carolina bus station during a protest in 1961. Wilson joined a white gang that jeered Lewis, attacked him and left him bloodied on the ground.
Forty-eight years later, the men met again — this time so Wilson could apologize to Lewis and express regret for his hatred. Lewis, now a congressman from Atlanta, greeted his former tormentor at his Capitol Hill office.
"I just told him that I was sorry," Wilson, 72, said in a telephone interview Wednesday as he traveled home to Rock Hill, S.C. For years, he said, he tried to block the incident out of his mind "and couldn't do it."
Lewis said Wilson is the first person involved in the dozens of attacks against him during the civil rights era to step forward and apologize. When they met Tuesday, Lewis offered forgiveness without hesitation.
"I was very moved," said Lewis. "He was very, very sincere, and I think it takes a lot of raw courage to be willing to come forward the way he did. ... I think it will lead to a great deal of healing."
Wilson said he had felt an urge to voice his remorse for years. He talked about his past activities a few weeks ago with a friend, and the friend asked him where he thought he might go if he died.
"I said probably hell," Wilson said. "He said, 'Well, you don't have to.'" (Source)
Before he apologized to Representative Lewis, Mr. Elwin did something perhaps even more difficult: he faced some of the people he had harmed in his own community.
Wilson's apology was first reported by The (Rock Hill, S.C.) Herald. After reading an article about local black civil rights leaders reacting to President Barack Obama's inauguration, he and another former segregationist called the paper saying they wanted to apologize.
The paper aired their comments and documented an emotional meeting with the local activists at a former whites-only lunch counter in downtown Rock Hill, where Wilson had antagonized demonstrators during a 1961 sit-in.
After meeting with the local activists, Wilson realized that Lewis must have been the young black man he had attacked at the bus station that same year, when a bus carrying two Freedom Riders rolled into town.
If Mr. Elwin had only apologized to Lewis, I would be moved and impressed. But it is even more urgent that the people within communities where racist terror reigned find ways to face the truth and work towards reconciliation. Many perpetrators and victims and immediate family of victims have already died. Those who remain are aging, many elderly. As my friend Stanley Nelson at the Concordia Sentinel has put it, we can't do much about slavery, but we can do something about this.
May 24, 1961: With his head still bandaged from a previous beating, young John Lewis is arrested in Jackson, Mississippi, along with 26 other Freedom Riders, for the "crime" of riding in the "Whites Only" section of an interstate bus. (© Bettmann/CORBIS)
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Good for Mr. Elwin Wilson! If only all of the other racist people, and I mean all angles of racism, out there would realize what he has taken so long to realize. Hatred for someone based on their skin color is just plain ignorant. It is not good for your soul to harbor such hatred. Congratulations Mr. Wilson. I am happy for your life altering realization.
Ben, you've 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 neighbors, 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.
So this 72 yr old bigot now that he sick and frightened is counting on those whom he has always derided as weak minded
liberals to provide him with a Get Out of Hell Free card by apologizing for all is ugly actions of the past. Well f*** him, he was a violent and nasty racist and acted on it often he can now reap what he has sown.
Sure enough though, with tons of newspapers having picked up this “feel good” story, the religious hypocrites are out in force telling Wilson how wonderful he is for apologizing to those he hurt in the past.
Talk about a lack of critical thinking skills. I am astounded that people don't see through charades like this.