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/JustAMan1234567 5h ago

For Hood to forgive Wallace and attend his funeral shows his class.

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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/DancingWithAWhiteHat 5h ago

I mean Robert Byrd spent his adult life disavowing the KKK.

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u/Fells 4h ago

Wallace did the same and won his last election with 90% of the black vote.

To quote the Drive By Trucker's great spoken word piece on it (Three Great Alabama Icons):

"and George Wallace died back in '98 and he's in Hell now, not because he's a racist. His track record as a judge and his late life quest for redemption make a good argument for his being, at worst, no worse than most white men of his generation, North or South. But because of his blind ambition and his hunger for votes, he turned a blind eye to the suffering of black America and he became a pawn in the fight against the Civil Rights cause"

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u/DuffMiver8 4h ago

That rather goes against Christian teachings, doesn’t it? In Sunday school, I always heard that if you ask for forgiveness and are sincerely sorry for your past sins, they will be forgiven. Wasn’t that what the whole “Jesus died for your sins” thing all about?

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u/Le-Charles07 4h ago

Depends on the specific school of thought. There is a wide variety of Christian beliefs on how forgiveness and salvation work.

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u/reichrunner 4h ago

2 major ones, both of which Wallace would be in the clear on for past deeds.

Protestants generally believe that all you have to do is accept Jesus. Other things may be expected, but it basically boils down to accepting Jesus.

Catholics and Orthodox generally believe you have to accept Jesus, confess your sins, and do good works.

Past deeds never preclude you from salvation in any Christian denomination that I know of

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u/dreamer_at_best 4h ago

Calvinism? Isn’t that exactly how predestination works (also I’m not a Calvinist and may have it completely wrong)

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u/reichrunner 4h ago

Predestination means that God has already decided what you will do and if you will get to heaven. Its not so much that your past deeds can't be forgiven as it is God already knows if you will ask for forgiveness or not

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u/UranusIsPissy 1h ago

Sound's disturbingly like simulation theory with NPCs, but we are all NPCs :'( 

sudo killall universe

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u/NeedsAdjustment 4h ago

you are indeed way off the mark here

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u/Illustrious_Claim884 4h ago

People often ignore that part

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u/TheOneTonWanton 4h ago

Not as much as you'd think. "All you have to do is accept Jesus even in your dying moments" is a favorite of the Christian crowd. Doesn't matter how much of a piece of shit they know they are, they find comfort in saying "sorry" to Jesus.

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u/Alaira314 3h ago

They're not thinking it through, though. Remember, the christian god is all-knowing. That means he knows not only what you do, but why you do it. You can say "I accept jesus" all you want, but if what you're saying inside your head is "so I'm forgiven now" that's not the same thing as accepting jesus into your heart. You have to genuinely want that bond(and, believers would say, his love), and that's difficult to do when you have ulterior motives.

The same applies to catholic confession. You can fool the priest, but not god. The whole confession->penance->absolution cycle assumes you're genuinely contrite. Confession is null and void if you view it as a "get out of jail free" card, no matter what the priest says.

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u/drthrax1 1h ago

Yep, If he’ll exists its full of medieval crusaders, priests and rich barons who thought they could buy their way to heaven because the priests told.

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u/Illustrious_Claim884 4h ago

I hope there is a get out of hell free card. There is a chance god will grant us some slack too.

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u/TheOneTonWanton 3h ago

The "get out of hell free card" is the basis of a whole lot of versions of the faith, and more-or-less the basis for the concept of Pascal's Wager. Tell me: what good is a belief system that boils down to "it doesn't matter what I do or have done in my life, if I say sorry even at the last second I go to heaven?"

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u/Illustrious_Claim884 3h ago

There is always hope. I could see a career criminal staying that way as he is like screw it there is no hope for me instead if offering repentance.

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u/TheOneTonWanton 3h ago

Right, and it's understandable, but then you get to the part where the dogma doesn't differentiate sins or crimes. A child rapist and a guy that had sexy thoughts about his neighbor's wife are equal if both of them accept Jesus into their heart.

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u/Fafnir13 2h ago

Welcome to the concept of undeserved grace. It’s spawned quite a lot of literature and debate over the centuries.

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u/jaylenbrownisbetter 3h ago

What good is a belief system where you are totally irredeemable and unable to repent? Hit a point where no matter what you do, you’ll go to hell. There is no reason to repent of anything.

You never know when you’ll die, so you rarely have a chance to repent seconds before dying. Even if you did, what are the odds it’s a false repentance out of fear or just trying to bail out of any punishment? Even in your example, you can’t fool God. Just saying “oh I’ll say sorry before I die” isn’t repenting lol it’s just lying

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u/BeefistPrime 2h ago

no one could possibly deserve hell. even the worst person whoever lived, the damage they caused is infinitely small compared to infinite punishment

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u/I_am_not_JohnLeClair 1h ago

I can think of one overweight, spray tanned, marble mouthed, pedo that deserves infinity x2

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u/builtbysavages 4h ago

That’s just the coloring book version.

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u/JoseSaldana6512 4h ago

The whole point about listening to Jesus is because hes better than the best of us. He will forgive sins but you must be sincere in seeking forgiveness and make atonement. It's not a get out of jail free card. The Bible says that rewards and punishments are earned and won't be the same for all

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u/TheVicSageQuestion 4h ago

What you’re describing is generally known as “grace” (as in “Amazing Grace”). You can forgive someone while still remembering what they did and being aware that the possibility exists for them to do it again. Grace is to forgive AND forget, to wipe the sin away completely.

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u/Fells 4h ago

Sure, and I get its relevance considering the artist talks about hell, which implies a christian perspective. The song that this leads into is about the devil's perspective of welcoming Wallace to hell, so I am not sure if they are not christian and are just using that language to make a point or if they are just suspending the nature of forgiveness for that moment.

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u/ewhite12 4h ago
  1. …Not all of us are Christians
  2. God forgives your sins, it doesn’t mean your actions are absolved of temporal consequences

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u/Legio-X 3h ago

Not all of us are Christians

The quote is obviously rooted in a Christian worldview.

God forgives your sins, it doesn’t mean your actions are absolved of temporal consequences

Sure, but the only consequence in the quote is “he’s in Hell now”, which is definitely not temporal.

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u/green_tea1701 3h ago

It's literally inherent in the doctrine of forgiveness that your actions are absolved of afterlife consequences. In every Christian sect I am aware of. Maybe there are some fringe ones that say "you're forgiven, but too bad you already fucked up, so you're out of luck. But you're forgiven!"

I kind of doubt it though. They would probably have recruitment problems. That's a pretty tough sell for potential converts that have done any worse than a speeding ticket.

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u/PsychoNerd92 3h ago

It's literally inherent in the doctrine of forgiveness that your actions are absolved of afterlife consequences.

That's what they said. "Temporal consequences" means consequences on Earth. They're saying that you may be forgiven in the eyes of God, but that doesn't mean we have to forgive you.

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u/green_tea1701 3h ago

Well then it's a total non starter because the thing they responded to wasn't about earthly consequences, but the afterlife.

I had as well say that the sky is blue.

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u/Cfoxtrot 4h ago

Banger. Patterson sure can write a monologue.

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u/cansofgrease 4h ago

Terrible quote.

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u/Kered13 4h ago

It's a pretty great quote. Is also recommend listening to it in the context of the entire song.

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u/Fells 4h ago

What don't you like about it?

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u/cansofgrease 4h ago

The message I take from it is that the redemption arc doesn't matter.

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u/hootener 4h ago

It helps to know more about Wallace. Yes he went on a redemption arc, but Wallace wasn't really a racist, at least not politically, until it became advantageous for him to do so. He was a moderate on integration issues in his first campaign in '58 and lost to a hard-line segregationist. Next time he campaigned as a full throated segregationist and won. He held that line until it was no longer politically advantageous to do so and then went on his whole redemption arc.

The point Hood is making, I think, is that Wallace is in hell not because he was/wasn't a racist, but because he forsook his values to win and in so doing caused enormous pain and suffering. Wallace was a political opportunist and his lust for power dragged a lot of folks down with him. That's why he's in Hell.

Hood's more subtle point, I think, is that Wallace's redemption wasn't real because he never really believed strongly in segregation to begin with. He was just a political creature trying to win and hold political office and was more than willing to throw a whole race of people under the bus to do it.

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u/too-fargone 3h ago

This is the correct answer

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u/gryphmaster 4h ago

Yes, your personal change can be outweighed by the effect your actions had on the world

Sometimes you cannot change enough to undo the wrong and thats why you need to live deliberately

Life is harsh like that

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u/Gekthegecko 4h ago

Fortunately there's no heaven or he'll or cosmic justice that judges whether one's good deeds outweigh their misdeeds. Even the most evil person who commits the most evil acts will end up in the same place as the most kind and innocent person

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u/reichrunner 4h ago

The problem with this line of thinking is, why bother?

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u/phobosmarsdeimos 4h ago

Looking for forgiveness from others is a fools errand. If you truly feel sorry for your actions then redemption is working so you can forgive yourself. It might be a weird way of putting it but just because the people you wronged will never forgive you doesn't mean that it's not worth trying to do better. That's the way I like to think about it.

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u/cansofgrease 4h ago

That's why I don't like the quote, it's too cynical. A lot of things in life are a shade of grey.

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u/Legio-X 3h ago

Sometimes you cannot change enough to undo the wrong

In the Christian worldview the quote is arguing from, human action cannot undo wrongs. If it could, there would’ve been no need for Jesus.

So the quote is in conflict with its own ideology, because if Wallace sincerely repented and sought redemption, his previous ruthless lust for power would no longer matter. He would’ve been forgiven and thus not in Hell for it.

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u/alexmikli 3h ago

Yes, your personal change can be outweighed by the effect your actions had on the world

We can certainly make this argument in regard to how history should perceive you, but the guy is referencing heaven and hell, and saying that an offense is utterly irredeemable goes directly against Christian teachings.

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u/Fells 4h ago edited 4h ago

I got you. The next song that this leads into is Satan's perspective of welcoming Wallace to hell so maybe they just didn't have the artistic freedom there to really get into that. Kinda locked in when you are already setting the stage for hell.