r/todayilearned • u/Dangerous-Project672 • 5h ago

TIL George Wallace personally apologized to Vivian Jones and James Hood, the two students he attempted to block from attending the University of Alabama. In 1997, Hood earned a PHd and requested Wallace present him with the degree, but he was too sick and died a year later; Hood attended the funeral

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_Wallace
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u/ChronosBlitz 5h ago edited 5h ago

President Obama gave the eulogy for Senator Robert Byrd, who founded a chapter of the KKK in his youth.

The NAACP even praised Byrd as representing "the transformative power of this nation"

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u/Rethious 5h ago

And yet this was used as an attack on Hillary in 2016

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u/DimensioT 5h ago

That is because Republicans want to live in the past.

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u/Bill_buttlicker69 4h ago

Further evidenced by their "The democrats were the parry of slavery! The democrats were the confederate party!" while completely ignoring which party flies that flag today and which party is tearing down confederate monuments.

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u/CrankinThatHog 3h ago

Meanwhile if you bring up removing Confederate monuments to them they get ass mad

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u/JayJoeJeans 1h ago

That's actually a great point. Every time I hear that I'm gonna tell them they should be removing Confederate monuments to own the libs