Article March 31, 1997 Issue

God: universal Love meeting individual needs

David C. Driver

An African-American teenager had been murdered—lynched at the instigation of a white supremacist hate group. See Jesse Kornbluth, "The Woman Who Beat the Klan," The Ku Klux Klan: A History of Racism and Violence, 4th ed. (Montgomery, AL: Southern Poverty Law Center, 1991) . The two men responsible were convicted of murder and imprisoned for their crime. But then the Southern Poverty Law Center, a legal organization dedicated to bringing justice to the victims of racism and prejudice, brought a suit against the hate group itself, seeking a judgment in behalf of the mother of the murdered man.

Near the end of the trial, when the arguments for the prosecution and the defense had been completed, one of the defendants stood up and asked the judge if he could make a statement. He told the jury that everything he had done had been at the instigation of the members of the hate group. He said, "I do hope you decide a judgment against me and everyone else involved." Then he turned to the mother of the young man he'd murdered and asked if this woman could find it in her heart to forgive him. She replied without hesitation, "I do forgive you. From the day I found out who you all was, I asked God to take care of y'all, and He has."

At this point, people were openly weeping. This woman, who'd lost her son to a vicious hate crime, was able to reach out to that young murderer and forgive him. The prosecuting attorney who described this incident in a video produced by the law center said, "It was a love that we hear so much about but know so little of." And he commented that "her words in that courtroom that day [represented] a higher justice" than the severe monetary judgment that was finally made against the defendants—a judgment that effectively crippled the activities of that hate group.

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