OPINION:
Anyone who watched TV coverage of mid-20th-century Alabama would be pleasantly surprised at the political changes that have occurred there in the 60 years since George Wallace brazenly declared “Segregation now, segregation tomorrow, segregation forever” at his Jan. 14, 1963, inauguration.
Today, the mayors of Birmingham, Montgomery and Selma, battlegrounds of the civil rights movement, are African American. A Black Alabamian is in Congress, African Americans hold leadership positions in both houses of the Alabama Legislature, and many African Americans serve in government positions or hold jobs from which they would have barred just a few generations ago.
As we celebrate the birthday of Martin Luther King Jr. and recall the bitter words of Wallace, let us remember that in 1995, the latter appeared at Montgomery’s St. Jude’s Church asking for forgiveness. After it was granted, Wallace joined in singing “We Shall Overcome” during the congregation’s commemoration of the 30th anniversary of the Selma-to-Montgomery march, which Wallace had sworn to stop.
The truth of King’s words that “the arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends toward justice” can now be found in Alabama.
PAUL L. NEWMAN
Merion Station, Pennsylvania
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