A life-long Klansman asks for forgiveness from his victims

Just read about the fascinating and inspiring case of a former Klansman who recently sought forgiveness for a half century of violence, harassment and intimidation against black people.

One man’s ambivalent retreat from his racist past – Associated Press

Wilson doesn’t have answers for much of how he has lived his life — not for all the black people he beat up, not for all the venom he spewed, not for all the time wasted in hate.

Now 72 and ailing, his body swollen by diabetes, his eyes degenerating, Wilson is spending as many hours pondering his past as he is his mortality.

The former Ku Klux Klan supporter says he wants to atone for the cross burnings on Hollis Lake Road. He wants to apologize for hanging a black doll in a noose at the end of his drive, for flinging cantaloupes at black men walking down Main Street, for hurling a jack handle at the black kid jiggling the soda machine in his father’s service station, for brutally beating a 21-year-old seminary student at the bus station in 1961.

In the final chapter of his life, Wilson is seeking forgiveness. The burly clock collector wants to be saved before he hears his last chime.

The details in the account are so vivid. You really get a sense of how viscerally (and inexplicably) this man once hated black people.

One striking and beautiful detail: Part of what prompted this dramatic change of heart was his realization that he would not go to heaven unless he renounced his hate and made amends with his victims.