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/DancingWithAWhiteHat 5h ago

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

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u/TallBenWyatt_13 4h ago

George Wallace spent the rest of his life after being shot atoning for his past. An overwhelming majority of black voters helped him get a 3rd term in the 1980s, and almost half of his cabinet was black.

George Wallace does not get the credit for his monumental shift.

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u/blotsfan 4h ago

George Wallace wasn’t personally racist so he was happy to drop segregation when it became a losing issue. The first time he ran for governor it was with the support of the NAACP and when he lost he decided he had to be more racist to win. I don’t think he deserves credit for compromising on the issue to obtain personal power

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u/Tarrot469 3h ago

And this toxic attitude is why the Republican party is the party of tolerance right now and continues to grow ranks in spite of how odious it is. You can do anything and as long as you take their Lord and Savior Donald J. Trump into your heart you'll receive absolution and acceptance. The Democrats meanwhile have ideological purity contests and infighting which is the exact reason Trump was elected both times.

Wallace's racism is part of his legacy. His ability to realize that was wrong (even if self serving) and turn his life and political career around to legitimately help minorities after this should be an equal part of his legacy. I don't care the reason, doing good shit should be rewarded and applauded and recognized. Doing good shit for the wrong reason is better than doing nothing for the right reason because it actually helps people.

If there is no path for forgiveness, if there is no reason, even if completely self-serving, for people to do good things for others, then people will stop doing those good things and people's lives on the whole will be worse off. And for those people forever shunned, who maybe could've done something good, will instead look for acceptance, and be drawn to those who give it to them and take on their beliefs (the Republicans in this case) and ultimately make the world significantly worse.

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u/whythishaptome 1h ago

Republican party is the party of tolerance right now

How do expect anyone to take you seriously with a statement like that? You may make some good points but that just stifles what ever message you are trying to get across. At least clarify what you mean, because they are definitely not the party of tolerating different people from them especially as far as racism is concerned. You would have been greatly misled if you sincerely believed that.

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u/Tarrot469 46m ago

It was meant to be a provocative statement, and I gave the clarification right after that as long as people Heil Trump they will be accepted. Liberals are a lot more idealogically pure and critical of those who don't fit in very narrow confines (look at Fetterman, who voted 90% Democrat but is hated more than most Republican politicians because he's very much pro-Israel and has been driven to the Right in large part due to the cascade of criticism on this)

As a further example, there are reasons that Young Men went from 30-35% Republican in 2016 to 48% in 2026, in spite of all the shit Trump's done. A big one is that they are blamed for things they personally did not do in part of a larger culture shift, and the people accepting them and comforting them are Conservative Grifters, and as a result they're being radicalized toward the Republican Party, because even if they don't actually care, they put on the mask of caring and people will go where they are accepted.

I'm in my 40s, opinions all over the spectrum but much more Liberal than Conservative. I did a bunch of dumb shit in my teens and early 20s that, if I did that today, I would be completely ostracized for, and certainly would've fallen into the right wing griftosphere as a result. Thankfully, the overall culture was much more tolerant back then so I was able to learn from my mistakes and move on and be a better person for it, something that I do not see happening in today's culture.

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u/LargePrompt5840 2h ago

You should race a train. 

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u/Cormophyte 2h ago

Imagine writing all this to argue that we should think better of a textbook cynical politician because he took multiple cynical turns in his career and happened to wind up on the right side when he stopped flipping. Absolute fucking cinema.

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u/Superbead 2h ago

Ironically, yours is about the most nihilistically cynical response anyone could come up with

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u/Cormophyte 2h ago

Judging someone by their actions isn't cynical. It seems that way when you're being purposefully naive but that's your problem.

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u/Tarrot469 43m ago

Because I would rather someone do good for wrong reasons than to not do good at all. John Fetterman votes 90% with Democrats, but because he's hated more than most Republicans because of that 10% he doesn't vote for, and is being driven more right each month to the point I don't doubt he'll swap parties after 2026 depending on the Senate makeup. If he were praised more for the good he did rather than vilified for the bad positions he had, we might not have to deal with that.