Defying the Assassin’s Veto: Grace in a Time of Violence

Summary

Podcast Summary: Breaking History – “Defying the Assassin’s Veto: Grace in a Time of Violence” (September 17, 2025)

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Overview

This episode of Breaking History, hosted by The Free Press, explores the dangerous recent rise in American political violence—framed as a return of the “assassin’s veto,” where decisions are shaped not by argument but by force. Through historical parallels, especially the 1972 shooting of segregationist governor George Wallace and the unexpected forgiveness shown by Congresswoman Shirley Chisholm, the episode considers the urgent need for empathy, civility, and mutual respect in sustaining democracy during times of crisis.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. Political Violence: A Resurgent Threat

• Violence in the News: The host sets the stage by referencing the recent murder of conservative figure Charlie Kirk and other high-profile assassination attempts and acts of aggression from 2017 onward (Capitol riot, attempts on Trump, etc.) ([03:00]–[08:30]).
• Cycles & Patterns: Political violence is contextualized as cyclical in American history—flaring every few decades, often connected to ideological, not just personal, motives ([03:00], Noah Rothman).
• Notable distinction: Current acts are mostly “crimes of individuals,” not the organized campaign-style killings seen in 1970s groups like the Weather Underground ([08:08]).

2. Dangerous Rhetoric and Demonization

• Leaders' Language: The episode highlights how leaders on both sides stoke anger and delegitimize the opposition, feeding an atmosphere ripe for violence ([09:35], montage of political insults and accusations).
• Quote (H. Rap Brown): “Violence is a part of America's culture. It is as American as cherry pie.” ([11:01]) This underscores the temptation—and danger—of accepting violence as a political norm.

3. Looking Back: The 1970s and the Assassin’s Veto

• Historical Parallels: The 1960s and 1970s were rife with high-profile shootings (JFK, MLK, RFK, Wallace) and political tumult—reminding listeners these current troubles are not unprecedented ([11:15]–[13:52]).
• The Shooting of George Wallace (1972): Wallace, a segregationist running for president, is critically injured by Arthur Bremer, raising questions of empathy for a political antagonist ([13:35]–[14:29]).

4. Shirley Chisholm’s Radical Empathy

• Background: Chisholm is introduced as a trailblazing Black Congresswoman from Brooklyn, known for being independent and principled ([21:32]–[24:19]).
• Her Courageous Visit: After Wallace's shooting, Chisholm visits him in the hospital—a move that angers her own constituents but stems from her belief in compassion ([27:42]–[29:45]).
  • Quote (Chisholm): “I said, this is not the way we do it. … I wouldn't want this to happen to anybody.” ([28:17])
  • Memorable moment: Wallace, heavily medicated and wounded, tells her, “You shouldn't be here,” yet clings to her hand and asks her to stay.

5. Transformation and Redemption

• Wallace’s Change: Chisholm’s act marks a turning point for Wallace. Over the next years, he softens his stance, seeks forgiveness from Black leaders (including John Lewis), and campaigns as a reformed figure—eventually receiving support from those he once opposed ([31:58]–[35:25]).
  • Quote (John Lewis): “He was very candid, very frank… It was almost like a confession, like I was his priest.” ([34:02])
• Coda: Wallace is re-elected in 1982 with overwhelming Black support; whether his change was sincere or strategic is left a question, but the outcome is instructive ([35:15]–[35:25]).

6. Mutual Respect: The Foundation of Democracy

• Learning from Adversaries: Chisholm reflects how, even opposing Wallace, she recognized his voters’ legitimate grievances—underscoring the need to listen across lines ([40:14]).
  • Quote (Chisholm): “Belief in the right of another to hold and publicly advocate the contrary point of view… seems to me to be a fundamental tenet of our political system. This tolerance and mutual respect is fundamental to democracy’s survival.” ([41:30])
• Application to Today: The episode encourages Americans to reject cycles of vengeance and demonization, invoking both the Chisholm/Wallace story and the tragic silencing of Charlie Kirk as caution and call to grace ([38:32]–[41:55]).

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• On the breakdown of civil discourse ([02:29], Documentary Narrator):

  “When people stop talking, really bad stuff starts. … What we as a culture have to get back to is being able to have reasonable disagreement where violence is not an option.”

• On empathy in action ([28:17], Shirley Chisholm):

  “When I visited him… I had to lecture to them and let them know that I wouldn't want this to happen to anybody.”

• On Wallace’s attempted atonement ([34:02], John Lewis):

  “It was almost like a confession, like I was his priest. He was telling me everything… that he was not proud of. He kept saying to me, ‘John, I don’t hate anybody.’”

• On the moral of the story ([41:30], Shirley Chisholm):

  “This tolerance and mutual respect is fundamental to democracy’s survival.”

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Timestamps for Important Segments

• Discussion of recent and historical political violence – [03:00]–[10:43]
• 1970s cycle of assassinations, George Wallace shooting – [11:15]–[14:29]
• Shirley Chisholm’s background and ethos – [21:32]–[24:19]
• Chisholm visits Wallace; personal risk and principle – [27:42]–[29:45]
• Wallace’s subsequent repentance & alliances with Black leaders – [31:58]–[35:25]
• Chisholm’s later reflections on political tolerance – [40:14]–[41:55]

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Final Thought

The episode closes with a potent warning and encouragement: true democracy relies on our willingness to see, and act on, the shared humanity of those we most stridently oppose. The story of Chisholm and Wallace, invoked against the backdrop of today’s unrest, becomes both a caution and a call—reminding us “the survival of our own republic depends on tolerance and mutual respect.” ([41:55])

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Transcript

[Narrator/Host]

In a week where Americans are wondering how to restore civility in this new era of political violence, we look at the last epoch of the assassin's veto, the 1970s. We tell the story of a near murder of a racist governor and how a black woman came to see his humanity and lit a spark that saved his soul. What can we learn from the time Shirley Chisholm visited political rival George Wallace after he was nearly killed by another lone gunman.

[News Reporter]

Irving Berlin? What happened once happens again when news.

[Historical/Documentary Narrator]

Of is a mystery.

[Narrator/Host]

Introducing the Isabel Brown Show. Conservative media just got a brand new voice you don't want to miss. Isabel Brown isn't here to recycle headlines. She's here to bring a fresh Gen Z perspective to the biggest stage in conservative media, the Daily Wire. Millions already follow Isabel online for her bold, unapologetic takes on culture, politics, science, faith, and more. Every weekday, Isabel takes on the tough fights, the loud debates, and the conversations that actually move culture forward with the unapologetic voice her generation has been waiting for. She's a new voice for the next generation of conservatives because saving the west starts with Gen Z. So don't miss it. Watch the Isabelle Brown show every weekday on Daily Wire plus or listen wherever you get your podcasts. Again, that's the Isabel Brown Show. Every weekday, Saving the West starts with Gen Z and Isabel Brown is leading the charge. It's been a week since Charlie Kirk was silenced with a sniper rifle. I choose that word, silenced because the victim was murdered as he engaged in public argument, literally debating all comers at Utah Valley University under a banner that said prove me wrong, here is the man himself.

[Historical/Documentary Narrator]

When people stop talking, really bad stuff starts. When marriages stop talking, divorce happens. When church starts happening, they fall apart. When civilization stops talking, civil war ensues. When you stop having a human connection with someone, you disagree with it. When it becomes a lot easier to want to commit violence against that group, whether it be the great genocide, the horrible genocide of the last 100 years. People stop talking with each other if they lose their humanities. What we as a culture have to get back to is being able to have reasonable disagreement where violence is not an option.

[Narrator/Host]

That clip is haunting today because so many of us have stopped talking to the other tribe. Charlie is right. The mutual enmity of of our republic threatens to unravel it. We are supposed to settle our differences through ballots, not bullets. Through speech, not violence. But recently, the assassin has had his say. There are multiple cycles of violence in this country, political violence. And what I focus on is left wing violence in particular. This is National Review editor Noah Rothman. I do put the current cycle of left wing political violence in this country beginning roughly in about 1999 with the anti WTO riots in Seattle. And in that sense you see threads that go back to the left leaning violence in this country in the 1960s, 70s and early 80s. In the 1910s and 1920s, every 50 years there seems to be an explosion of violence like this, most of which adheres to an ideological current.

[News Reporter]

Shots were fired this morning into a group of Republicans playing baseball and five were taken to area hospitals.

[Narrator/Host]

You could argue the current wave of political Violence began on June 14, 2017, when James Hodgkinson, a Bernie Sanders supporter and MSNBC viewer, shot up a Republican congressional baseball practice and in Alexandria, Virginia, grievously wounding Representative Steve Scalise.

[Historical/Documentary Narrator]

Violent clashes broke out in Charlottesville as thousands of white nationalists took to the streets.

[Narrator/Host]

Then there was the Unite the Right rally in the summer of 2017 when white supremacists marched with tiki torches on demonstrators in Charlottesville, Virginia, and one crazed loser killed counter protester Heather Heyer when he ran his car into a scrum of human bodies.

[Historical/Documentary Narrator]

The attack apparently came out of nowhere, said Senator Rand Paul was reportedly on his riding mower trimming his lawn when he was assaulted.

[Narrator/Host]

Later that year, Senator Rand Paul's ribs were broken after he was assaulted by his neighbor in Kentucky.

[News Reporter]

Minneapolis in flames. The police station was evacuated after crowds forcibly entered the building and set it ablaze.

[Narrator/Host]

There were of course, the riots after the police killing of George Floyd in 2020.

[Historical/Documentary Narrator]

Vengeance is ours, saith the mob. And they're still saying days after Mega Mania rampage through an American sanctuary.

[Narrator/Host]

Following that, there was the riot at the capitol following the 2020 election on January 6, 2021, carrying a knife, a.

[Historical/Documentary Narrator]

Glock ammunition, pepper spray and zip ties.

[Narrator/Host]

In June of 2022, a mentally disturbed man called into the police to report himself as he was in the final stages of a kidnapping or murder attempt of Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh after a draft decision had leaked that would overturn Roe v. Wade.

[Historical/Documentary Narrator]

The suspect used a hammer when they broke into the property.

[Narrator/Host]

A few months later in October, another disturbed man broke into the home of then House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and bludgeoned her husband Paul with a hammer.

[Historical/Documentary Narrator]

A disturbing pattern of communication failures and negligence led to this moment in Butler, Pennsylvania. Take a look at what happened.

[Narrator/Host]

2024 saw two assassination attempts on Donald Trump. The first on July 13th in Butler, Pennsylvania, where a sniper barely missed the future and former president raising his ear at a rally.

[Historical/Documentary Narrator]

We were able to locate a witness that came to us and said, hey, I saw the guy running out of the bushes. He jumped into a black Nissan. And I took a picture of the vehicle and the tank, which was great.

[Narrator/Host]

The second two months later, on September 14, when a man with a rifle was arrested waiting in the bushes at one of Trump's golf courses in Florida.

[Historical/Documentary Narrator]

At this very moment, there is a manhunt for the person who shot and.

[News Reporter]

Killed the CEO of a leading health insurer.

[Narrator/Host]

On December 4, 2024, Luigi Mangione shot United Healthcare CEO Brian Thompson in the back as he was leaving his hotel in midtown Manhattan.

[Historical/Documentary Narrator]

The attack burned and blackened rooms, blew out windows and left walls covered in ash.

[Narrator/Host]

On April 13 this year, a man enraged by the war in Gaza threw a Molotov cocktail into the governor's mansion in Pennsylvania. Most of the mansion burned after the attack, and the attack occurred only hours after the Jewish governor, Josh Shapiro, had hosted a Seder with his family and friends.

[Historical/Documentary Narrator]

The suspect who got away was reportedly dressed as a police officer, complete with badge, vest and a taser.

[Narrator/Host]

On July 14th of this year, a man dressed as a police officer killed two Democratic state legislators in Minnesota.

[Historical/Documentary Narrator]

Authorities say they found a hit list inside the suspect's vehicle, which included dozens of Democratic Minnesota lawmakers.

[Narrator/Host]

He was found with a list of other prominent Democrats in the state after he was arrested. Notice that these are the crimes of individuals. We are not in Lebanon in the late 1970s and 1980s when political parties are engaged in tit for tat killings. This is disorganized violence. And as menacing as antifa and other groups are, it's a stretch to compare them to the domestic Terrorists of the 1970s, like the weather Underground, the Symbionese Liberation Army. Nonetheless, there is a temptation for some political leaders to excuse the inexcusable, as Senator Elizabeth Warren did here, at least at first, for Luigi Mangiotti, we'll say.

[News Reporter]

It over and over. Violence is never the answer. This guy gets a trial who's allegedly killed the CEO of UnitedHealth. But you can only push people so far and then they start to take matters into their own hands.

[Narrator/Host]

More recently, we've seen a few radicals even celebrating the murder of Charlie Kirk. Here is a British musical mediocrity named Bob Villain at a concert last weekend in Amsterdam. To an absolute piece of shit of a human being, the pronouns was were.

[Historical/Documentary Narrator]

Because if you touch it, you will get band. Rest in peace, Charlie.

[Narrator/Host]

And in a sense, this is not Surprising. Listen to the way our leaders describe their opposition.

[Historical/Documentary Narrator]

Would you sh. Listen. Are you in favor of law and order? I'm in favor of law. You follow law and order. Go. 78 year old billionaire who has not stopped whining about his problems. When you report fake news, which CNN does a lot, you are the enemy of the people. Go ahead. Well, Donald, I know you live in your own reality, but that is not the fact. No wonder you've been fighting ISIS your entire adult life. And it's where the mayor will use their power to reject Donald Trump's fascism.

[Narrator/Host]

Well, it would be a mistake to think that this cycle of political violence in America is unprecedented. Unprecedented violence is as American as cherry pie. To quote the radical Black Panther leader, H. Rap Brown, now known as Jameel Abdullah Al Amin, who once served as chairman of the Student Non Violent Coordinating committee in the 1960s and is currently serving a life sentence for murder.

[Historical/Documentary Narrator]

We say to these leaders, how can you tell black people to be nonviolently and at the same time condone the same of white killers into the black communities? It's something wrong. We are going to control our communities by any means necessary. We built the country up.

[Narrator/Host]

We'll burn it down.

[Historical/Documentary Narrator]

Can quote that? I say violence is necessary. Violence is a part of America's culture. It is as American as cherry pie.

[Narrator/Host]

The last epoch of American violence began in 1963 when Lee Harvey Oswald murdered President John F. Kennedy. It largely ended after John Hinckley's failed assassination attempt of President Ronald Reagan. In between, the prospect of violence snuffing out our leaders was very real. There was the killing of Martin Luther King in the spring of 1968. Bobby Kennedy announced it to a crowd of people.

[Historical/Documentary Narrator]

I have some very sad news for all of you, and that is that Martin Luther King was shot and was killed tonight in Memphis. Martin Luther King dedicated his life.

[News Reporter]

To love and to justice between fellow human beings.

[Historical/Documentary Narrator]

He died in the cause of that effort. In this difficult day, in this difficult time for the United States, it's perhaps well to ask what kind of a nation we are and what direction we want to move in.

[Narrator/Host]

RFK would be assassinated himself just two months later. There were two attempts on President Gerald Ford within a few weeks of each other. In 1975, I saw a hand come through the crowd in the first row.

[Historical/Documentary Narrator]

And that was the only active gesture that I saw. But in the hand was a weapon.

[Narrator/Host]

In 1978, a disgruntled San Francisco City Commissioner walked into City hall and killed Mayor George Moscone. And gay rights icon Harvey Milk.

[News Reporter]

Both Mayor Moscone and Supervisor Harvey Milk have been shot and killed.

[Historical/Documentary Narrator]

Jesus Christ. The quiet, quiet, quiet.

[News Reporter]

The suspect is Supervisor Dan White.

[Narrator/Host]

In the middle of that last cycle of lethal politics in 1972, a loner from Milwaukee named Arthur Bremer shot Alabama Governor George Wallace five times and paralyzed him at a shopping mall in Laurel, Maryland. He was running in the Democratic primary that year.

[Historical/Documentary Narrator]

George Wallace was shot down this afternoon as he campaigned in Maryland, not far from Washington. We are dispensing with our normal format to bring you that story. Howard. At last report, Governor Wallace's condition was described as critical but stable at Holy Cross Hospital in Silver Spring, Maryland, just outside Washington. Police were reported holding one suspect in the shooting. He was described by an eyewitness as a blond youth in his 20s or early 30s. The 52 year old Wallace had just finished talking to a crowd at a shopping center in Laurel, Maryland, and had stepped from behind a bulletproof podium when the shots rang out.

[Narrator/Host]

The shooting of George Wallace tested the limits of empathy for many Americans. He was the last national politician to make the case against civil rights. But one black woman, Shirley Chisholm, insisted on seeing the humanity in someone who refused to see the humanity in her. After the break. What our rattled republic can learn from the aftermath of a tragedy many people saw. It's the only thing that there's just too little of.

[News Reporter]

What the world needs now is love, sweet love. No, not just for some, but for everyone. This is a real good story about.

[Historical/Documentary Narrator]

Bronx and his dad, Ryan, Real United Airlines customers.

[Narrator/Host]

We were returning home and one of.

[Historical/Documentary Narrator]

The flight attendants asked, asked Bronx if he wanted to see the flight deck.

[Narrator/Host]

And meet Captain Andrew.

[News Reporter]

I got to sit in the driver's seat.

[Narrator/Host]

I grew up in an aviation family and seeing Bronx kind of reminded me.

[Historical/Documentary Narrator]

Of myself when I was that age.

[Narrator/Host]

That's Andrew, a real United pilot.

[Historical/Documentary Narrator]

These small interactions can shape a kid's future.

[News Reporter]

It felt like I was the captain.

[Narrator/Host]

Allowing my son to see the flight deck will stick with us forever.

[Historical/Documentary Narrator]

That's how good leads the way.

[Narrator/Host]

Before we get into the shooting of George Wallace, I want to make clear what I am not doing. I am in no way suggesting that Charlie Kirk or Donald Trump are the political heirs of the segregationists in the last century. And not just because they are not Democrats. On the contrary, Charlie Kirk spoke on campuses where his views were not merely underrepresented, but often had no representation at all in the curriculum or among the faculty. I am interested in the distance traveled between the two figures I am about to tell you about not in making an analogy between one of them from the past and anyone in the present. I have no interest in scoring such a cheap political point. Rather, today's episode offers a parable about the power of empathy and civility in a democratic society, even when the stakes seem existential.

[Historical/Documentary Narrator]

Born in a southern town in Alabama, came up the ranks like any other man. Scholar, attorney, governor too. Now he's ready for 72.

[Narrator/Host]

We are now listening to the campaign theme song of an unlikely candidate in the 1972 Democratic primary. This was a year when the party of Roosevelt and Kennedy were in the political wilderness.

[Historical/Documentary Narrator]

We've had Democrats, Republicans too. It's time for independence for me and you.

[Narrator/Host]

The last national election, in 1968, was a disaster for the democratic party. It was the year that assassins silenced Martin Luther King and Bobby Kennedy. And it was also the year that George Wallace was a spoiler. He ran as an independent regional candidate on a platform opposed to civil rights. This ate into the traditional southern base of the party, but the Democrats were cooked either way. They owned the Vietnam war. Their convention in Chicago was marred by riots and a heavy police crackdown. Fist fights broke out on the floor between the peace camp and the pro Vietnam war camp. George Wallace was a small town judge from rural Alabama, a populist with big ambitions and a deep understanding of southern resentment. Born in 1919 in Clio, Alabama, Wallace grew up during the great depression, worked his way through law school, and entered politics with a knack for retail campaigning and sharp, plain spoken rhetoric. Early in his career, Wall Wallace was seen as a moderate on race, even endorsed by the NAACP in his first run for governor. But after losing that race in 1958 to a more openly segregationist opponent, Wallace made a fateful turn. George Wallace, in this respect, was a throwback candidate for a party that, until the civil rights and voting Rights act of 1964, counted the segregationists as part of its national coalition. He made national news in 1963 when he stood at the entrance of the University of Alabama to block the first black students from attending, even after a federal judge ordered the university to end its policy of not admitting students of color. This was from his inaugural address that year.

[Historical/Documentary Narrator]

In the name of the greatest people that have ever trod this earth, I draw the line in the dust and toss the gauntlet before the feet of tyranny. And I say segregation now, segregation tomorrow, and segregation forever.

[Narrator/Host]

By 1972, the Democrats were evolving into the progressive coastal party we recognize today. This is the year they nominated George McGovern, identified as the candidate of, quote, acid amnesty and abortion by his own running mate. In an anonymous quip to the colonists Robert Novak and Roland Evans. This was another era of political violence too. 1972 was a peak for the Weather Underground, the breakaway faction of Students for a Democratic Society that bombed the Pentagon, Congress, the State Department, as well as banks, corporate buildings and other symbols of capitalism. These guys, if you want to find.

[News Reporter]

Us, this is where we are. In every tribe, commune, dormitory, farmhouse, barracks and townhouse, where kids are making love, smoking dope and loading guns. Fugitives from American justice are free to go. Within the next 14 days, we will attack a symbol or institution of American injustice.

[Narrator/Host]

In this context, a reactionary like George Wallace was again an anachronism. And yet he did well in many of the early primaries, particularly in Florida, a state that he won. He ran against a recent Supreme Court ruling that permitted states and cities to integrate schools through busing. That's when a school district would bring black students to white majority schools and vice versa, usually meaning that there would be fairly long commutes in these cities and townships.

[Historical/Documentary Narrator]

And I'll bet you that when he was in Red China, he and Mao Zed Tongue talked more about bussing than anything else. If you want to know.

[Narrator/Host]

George Wallace predicted that if he won Florida, Nixon would propose legislation to end busing. And that is exactly what happened. Wallace won Florida and Nixon proposed anti bussing legislation. Now, to get a sense of how much Wallace's party had changed, let's introduce one of his opponents that year. A Brooklyn school teacher who became the first black woman to win a seat in Congress in 1968. Shirley Chisholm. She was one of a kind. Shirley Chisholm was born Shirley Anita St. Hill on November 30, 1924 in Brooklyn, New York. Her parents were immigrants from the Caribbean, her father from Guyana and her mother from Barbados. When she was a child, she spent several years living with her grandmother in Barbados, where she received a strict British style education before returning to New York at age 10. Chisholm excelled in school and went on to earn a bachelor's degree in sociology from Brooklyn College in 1946. After graduating, she worked as a nursery school teacher and later earned a master's degree in in early childhood education from Columbia University. Before entering politics, Chisum worked for nearly two decades in education and social services. Even as a freshman congresswoman, she didn't toe the line of her party leaders. But when they tried to stick her on the Agricultural Committee, which she thought was Irrelevant to her constituents, none of whom were farmers. She figured out a way to turn lemons into lemonade. I love this little anecdote from her political career. After getting her committee assignment, she sought counsel from one of her constituents. The spiritual leader of the Lubavitch movement or Chabad Rabbi Menachem Mendel Schneerson, who was based in Crown Heights. She explained her dilemma, but the rebbe told her this was a great opportunity. Why don't you use your position on the committee to funnel the surplus food from the farm states to the anti poverty programs designed to provide relief to the urban poor. Chisum agreed and worked out a compromise after that meeting with first term Republican senator Bob Dole from Kansas. Together they helped create a special supplemental nutrition program for women, Infants and children known as WIC. In her last year in Congress, in 1983, she praised Rabbi Schneerson on the floor of the House.

[Shirley Chisholm (archival audio)]

A rabbi who is an optimist taught me that what you may think is a challenge is a gift from God. And if poor babies have milk and poor children have food, it's because this rabbi in Crown Heights had vision.

[Narrator/Host]

This outsider decided in 1972 to become the first black woman to run for president.

[News Reporter]

I stand before you today as a candidate for the Democratic nomination for the presidency of the United States of America. I am not the candidate of black America, although I am black and proud. I am not the candidate of the women's movement of this country, although I am a woman and I'm equally proud of that. I am not the candidate of any political bosses or fat cats or special interests. I stand here now without endorsements from many big name politicians or celebrities or any other kind of prop. I do not intend to offer to you the tired and glibly cliches which for too long have been accepted part of our political life. I am the candidate of the people of America.

[Narrator/Host]

This was the tenor of her campaign. Her slogan was unbought and unbossed. She knew she was a long shot. But at the same time, she considered her campaign an opportunity to show America that a president need not be a white man. Here she is explaining this to Meet the Press on the eve of the Democratic convention in 1972.

[News Reporter]

I think you have to recognize, first of all, gentlemen, you have to really recognize that I'm doing something this country that's never really been done before. It's a question of inculcation, reorientation, education. Never before in this country, ever since the inception of the Republic, have you had a woman seriously Running for the presidency. I'm not talking about someone nominating someone at the convention. As a mere gesture of symbolism and tokenism. I'm talking about someone that has been going out on the highways and byways. For the past seven and a half months. And saying to the American people that if indeed this is a multifaceted society. That Mrs. Chisholm also can be considered a person that can run for the presidency of this country. I was breaking a tradition. A tradition in which only white males have only been the gentlemen in this country. That have guided the ship of space. So you don't expect people, black, white men or women. To suddenly overcome a tradition that has been steeped ever since the inception of this republic. So I understand that I've broken the ice.

[Narrator/Host]

It's hard to imagine any two politicians more opposite. Than George Wallace and Shirley Chisholm. Which is why the next chapter in this tale is so remarkable. On May 15, Wallace was a viable candidate for for the Democratic nomination. He was campaigning strong in Maryland. And then the assassin's veto intervened.

[Historical/Documentary Narrator]

As always seems to be the case with this kind of tragedy. There was no inkling of trouble. Governor Wallace had encountered heckling earlier in the day. As he toured the Maryland suburbs of Washington. But the crowd at Laurel seemed receptive and friendly. Governor Wallace had just finished speaking. And had taken off his coat. Was shaking hands. When four or five shots were were fired. Two of them recorded in this film By ABC News cameraman Charlie Jones.

[Narrator/Host]

Wallace survived the five shots, but he would never walk again. A number of political leaders from both parties visited him in the hospital. From Spiro Agnew to Ted Kennedy. But among those who visited his bedside was also Shirley Chisum. I should say, for her, it was an act of extraordinary political courage. Her own district was furious. One of her campaign aides, a young future congresswoman Barbara Lee. Nearly quit her campaign. But Shirley Chisholm believed it was the right thing to do. Here she is at the end of her life, explaining her decision.

[News Reporter]

When I visited him and he was shot, I almost lost my seat. I went to the hospital to visit him. And all of us who were running for president at that time. Jackson and Wilbur Mills, John Lindsay. There were 13 of us who were out there in the race in 1972. And I went to see him. Oh, my gosh. I knew that I was going to be throwing out of office. The people in my district came down on me like anything. And I had two big public forums. And I said, this is not the way we do it. And I had to lecture to them and let them know that I wouldn't want this to happen to anybody. So I kind of brought them around. But that was one time that I almost lost my seat, even though I was still holding it because I went to visit George Wallace. And when I went to visit George Wallace, he was in the bed. I'll never forget this. All the tubes were coming through his nostrils, his throat. And he was lying in the bed and he was propped up and I was coming through the door and he said, sir, what you doing here? You should be here. I said, I'm here because you are ill and you are ill for a good reason. God guides us. And he looked at and I couldn't stay long because he was very ill. And the doctors told me, congresswoman, you have to leave him. And he held onto my hand so tightly, he didn't want me to go.

[Narrator/Host]

After the break. How an act of kindness can turn the hardest of hearts. Mike and Alyssa are always trying to outdo each other. When Alyssa got a small water bottle, Mike showed up with a 4 liter jug. When Mike started gardening, Alyssa started beekeeping. Oh, come on. They called it truce for their holiday and used Expedia trip planner to collaborate on all the details of their trip. Once there, Mike still did more laps around the pool.

[Historical/Documentary Narrator]

Whatever.

[Narrator/Host]

You were made to outdo your holidays. We were made to help organize the competition. Expedia made to travel. At this point in the story, I want to anticipate an objection. Since the killing of Charlie Kirk, a number of politicians and influencers on the right had have ruled out the prospect of unifying with progressives who have demonized the MAGA movement now for a decade. There is no unity with people who.

[Historical/Documentary Narrator]

Scream at children over their parents politics. There is no unity with someone who lies about what Charlie Kirk said in order to excuse his murder. There is no unity with someone who.

[Narrator/Host]

Harasses an innocent family the day after the father of that family lost a dear friend.

[Historical/Documentary Narrator]

There is no unity with the people who celebrate Charlie Kirk's assassination.

[Narrator/Host]

I understand the sentiment. The left tried everything to stop Trump, from lawfare to politicizing the FBI. After the January 6th riots, Trump supporters were kicked off of social media. The Lincoln Project tried to pressure law firms to blacklist anyone who worked for the Trump administration. There was a very ugly social war against the right during the Biden years. So why not let the left taste its own medicine, if only to establish deterrence going forward? Well, there is another way. The Shirley Chisholm way. Her visit back in 1972 had a profound effect on George Wallace. At his lowest moment, he was going through the beginnings of a metamorphosis. Here is his daughter, Peggy Wallace kennedy, Talking about Chisholm's visit in 2020 on the podcast reckon.

[News Reporter]

She said, listen, this is what I'm going to do because it's the right thing to do. And it was not long after congresswoman Shirley chisholm left. Other people came and saw him. Ethel kennedy came and sat and prayed with him. I could just see something in my father's eyes that changed. I think that while they were talking, he said, what are your people going to think? And she said, I don't care what my people think. I would not want this to happen to anyone else.

[Narrator/Host]

So that began a process. A few years later, Chisum asked wallace to help her win over southern democrats for one of her welfare bills in congress. And governor wallace obliged. The first black woman to win a seat in congress Was now a kind of political ally of the last major segregationist in the South. By 1979, Wallace really began to see the error of his past. He started calling some of the very civil rights leaders and activists that were once his bitter opponents, Including John Lewis, the future congressman and one of the marchers. On bloody Sunday at the Edmund pettus bridge In Selma, Alabama, 1965, the Alabama state troopers ordered there by Governor Wallace unloaded on the peaceful marchers. They beat them with batons and whipped them. Lewis suffered a serious skull fracture. Here is what Wallace said in the aftermath of the police riot on the CBS television program face the nation.

[Historical/Documentary Narrator]

Was it the minimum required that matter at the present time as a result of the charges of police brutality and is under investigation. But I'm not going to be stampeded or blackjacked, as Mr. Johnson said, into making any accusations against the police because some outside agitators themselves have accused us of police brutality.

[Narrator/Host]

The same man, 14 years later, asked John lewis to forgive him. And here is Lewis from the 2000 documentary set in the woods on fire.

[Historical/Documentary Narrator]

He was very candid, very frank.

[Narrator/Host]

I thought he literally poured out his.

[Historical/Documentary Narrator]

Soul and heart to me.

[Narrator/Host]

It was almost like a confession, Like.

[Historical/Documentary Narrator]

I was his priest. He was telling me everything that he did some things that was wrong and.

[Narrator/Host]

That he was not proud of. He kept saying to me, john, I don't hate anybody.

[Historical/Documentary Narrator]

I don't hate anybody. In 1982. In 1992, Wallace returned to politics, running for governor for the fifth time.

[Narrator/Host]

Think about that. When Shirley chisholm looked past her opposition to everything that George Wallace stood for to see his humanity after an assassin nearly killed him. It was a spark. It set him on a path that led him to repent. The end of the story is surprising. In 1982, Wallace ran again for governor of Alabama, but this time he did so as a changed man. He campaigned for the black vote.

[Historical/Documentary Narrator]

Whether or not you've agreed with me at everything that I used to do and agreed to, I know that you do not. I too, see the mistakes that all of us made in years past.

[Narrator/Host]

And he won that election with 90% of the black vote and with endorsements from the same civil rights leaders in the state who once would have done anything to prevent him from returning to the governor's mansion after their unlikely encounter in 1972. George Wallace would go on to survive an assassination attempt that left him paralyzed from the waist down. As we've heard in the years that followed, he publicly recanted his segregationist views, sought forgiveness from civil rights leaders and even regained support from some black voters in Alabama. He served as governor one final time and died in 1998 at the age of 79. Whether his transformation was sincere or strategic remains debated. Chisum never stopped being herself principled, unpredictable and unwilling to fit neatly into anyone else's narrative. She remained in Congress until 1983, though she never became president. She redefined who could run and why it mattered. She died in 2005 at the age of 80, after a series of strokes after the break. Where we might Go from here this episode is brought to you by LifeLock. Between two factor authentication, strong passwords and a VPN, you try to be in control of how your info is protected. But many other places also have it, and they might not be as careful. That's why LifeLock monitors hundreds of millions of data points a second for threats. If your identity is stolen, they'll fix it, guaranteed, or your money back. Save up to 40% your first year. Visit lifelock.com podcast for 40% off. Terms apply.

[Historical/Documentary Narrator]

Long past time for all Americans and the media to confront the fact that violence and murder are the tragic consequence of demonizing those with whom you disagree, day after day, year after year, in the most hateful and despicable way possible. For years, those on the radical left have compared wonderful Americans like Charlie Toon, Nazis and the world's worst mass murderers and criminals. This kind of rhetoric is directly responsible for the terrorism that we're seeing in our country today, and it must stop right now.

[Narrator/Host]

That was President Donald Trump calling for lowering the temperature while significantly raising it. I'm of two minds about Trump's initial response. On the one hand, I understand his frustration.

[Historical/Documentary Narrator]

Donald Trump and the MAGA Republicans represent an extremism that threatens the very foundations of our republic. Are they a threat to democracy? Yes. Are they going to take our rights away? Yes. Are they going to put people's lives in danger? Yes. Are they going to endanger the planet by not using climate change? Yes. People need to start taking to the streets.

[Narrator/Host]

As I said earlier, Democrats have demonized Trump and his followers for a decade now. I don't hold Joe Biden or Tim Waltz responsible for Charlie Kirk's assassination. And yet, if you keep saying your opponent is a threat to the republic itself, a deranged individual is bound to take you literally. On the other hand, isn't that a version of what Trump is doing or runs the risk of doing now? The radical left did not pulled the trigger last week at Utah Valley University, just as the MAGA right is not responsible for the assassination earlier this summer of Democratic Minnesota state legislators. All of our political leaders are addicted to nursing the grievances of their tribe, and the algorithms of social media make sure that there is an infinite supply of fresh grievances to exploit. They see them against us and us against them. Well, there is another way. Instead, we can choose to see the humanity in our political rivals and hold out the hope that persuasion and grace can change hearts and minds. It's happened before. Look at George Wallace and Shirley Chisholm. And this process also goes both ways, because Shirley Chisholm herself evolved. Here she is explaining what she learned about George Wallace voters from the 1972 campaign in her memoir, the Good Fight.

[Shirley Chisholm (archival audio)]

Many people were supporting Wallace because he talked about issues with that were important to them. The unresponsiveness of the government to the people, the unfairness of the tax structure, and the dominance of huge corporate institutions. These are also basic themes in my campaign. To that extent, we were both political mavericks and both people's candidates. There, of course, the similarity ended. But I learned during the campaign that not all Wallace supporters were racist. There are many decent, average individuals in America who have been abandoned by politics as usual and relegated to powerless positions, and who have found what they believe to be a spokesman for their cause. In George Wallace there are, I am sad to say, many bigots who are Wallaceites. And this is because some of the views he upholds are those agreeable to racists. I am fiercely opposed to some of his positions. For instance, I support school busing as a means, limited and makeshift though it may be. To start correcting the effects of race prejudice and segregated housing patterns on equality of educational opportunity. But belief in the right of another to hold and publicly advocate the contrary point of view without having his motives impugned and his character maligned seems to me to be a fundamental tenant of our political system. This tolerance and mutual respect is fundamental to democracy's survival.

[Narrator/Host]

I hope our political leaders can relearn this lesson, because Shirley Chisum was right. The survival of our own republic depends on tolerance and mutual respect. As she said, it is fundamental to our democracy's survival. That was what Charlie Kirk was telling us too, before an assassin silenced him forever. If you like this episode, please be so kind as to head over to our Apple or Spotify and give us a five star review. It really helps new listeners to find us. You can also find more great stories at the Free Press, so head on over to the fp.com.