2009 International Forgiveness Day

2009 Champion of Forgiveness, Reconciliation and Peace

Marianne Williamson

Marianne Williamson, an internationally acclaimed spiritual activist, author, lecturer and founder of The Peace Alliance, a grass roots campaign supporting legislation currently before Congress to establish a United States Department of Peace, will be one of the featured guests at the 13th Annual International Forgiveness Day Awards Ceremony.
 
There she will be presented with the Champion of Forgiveness, Reconciliation and Peace Award. Champions of Forgiveness are those who dedicate their lives and work to expanding awareness and knowledge about the regenerative power of forgiveness and reconciliation as well as to help others experience it.

Ms Williamson is also the founder of Project Angel Food, a meals-on-wheels program that serves homebound people with AIDS in the Los Angeles area. She has published nine books, including four New York Times #1 bestsellers, including "A Return to Love", considered a must-read of the new spirituality movement. It is from this book that Nelson Mandela took his famous 1994 Inauguration Speech quote that begins with the words, "Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate. Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure..." Ms. Williamson also has been a popular guest on numerous television programs such as The Oprah Winfrey Show, Larry King Live, Good Morning America and Charlie Rose.

2009 Hero of Forgiveness, Reconciliation and Peace

Rep. John Lewis    

U.S. Representative John R. Lewis of Georgia, an International Leader of Peace, is often called "One of the most courageous persons the Civil Rights Movement produced."  In 1961, he was a leader of the Freedom Riders, a group of young, college students seeking to end segregation in the "Jim Crow" South. During a demonstration at a "whites only" bus station in South Caroline, he and his group were attacked by an angry mob led by the Ku Klux Klan. John Lewis was mercilessly beaten and hospitalized. In 1965, as the Chairman of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee, he participated in the "Selma to Montgomery" marches led by Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. There he endured brutal beatings and suffered a fractured skull at the hands of Alabama State police. His head wounds are still visible today.

Yet, recently, former Ku Klux Klan member Elwin Wilson, who led the 1961 mob of Ku Klux Klansmen and was personally involved in the beating of Lewis, confronted John Lewis. After 48 years, Wilson sought out Congressman Lewis to apologize for what he had done. "I'm so sorry about what happened back then," Wilson said breathlessly. "It's OK," Lewis responded,  "I forgive you." John Lewis says he never believed that such a thing would happen and attributes this amazing reconciliation to the power of Love, Grace and the power of people to say, "I'm sorry".

This year, at the 13th Annual International Forgiveness Day Awards Ceremony, U.S. Representative John R. Lewis of Georgia will be honored as a Hero of Forgiveness, Reconciliation and Peace Award for dedicating his life to securing civil liberties, protecting human rights and for building what is known as "The Beloved Community" in America.

2009 Hero of Forgiveness, Reconciliation and Peace

Elwin Wilson   

Elwin Wilson was an unabashed racist, the sort who once hung a black doll from a noose outside his home. John Lewis was a young civil rights leader bent on changing laws, if not hearts and minds, even if it cost him his life.

They faced each other at a South Carolina bus station during a protest in 1961. Wilson joined a white gang that jeered Lewis, attacked him and left him bloodied on the ground.

Forty-eight years later, the men met again - this time so Wilson could apologize to Lewis and express regret for his hatred. Lewis, now a congressman from Atlanta, greeted his former tormentor at his Capitol Hill office.

Lewis said Wilson is the first person involved in the dozens of attacks against him during the civil rights era to step forward and apologize. When they finally met in person, Lewis offered forgiveness without hesitation.

Since then, Wilson has been on his own freedom march in search of forgiveness.

This year, at the 13th Annual International Forgiveness Day Awards Ceremony, Elwin Wilson will be honored as a Hero of Forgiveness, Reconciliation and Peace Award for coming to contrition and forgiveness for himself and for having the courage to ask for forgiveness from those who he had harmed.

Christopher Rodriguez, a 12-year-old boy paralyzed by a robber's stray bullet as he was taking a piano lesson in Oakland last year, had a message for the gunman who shot him, "I forgive you."

Christopher delivered his words after rolling in his wheelchair to the front of the Oakland courtroom on Tuesday June 16, 2009 where the shooter Jared Adams, 26, had just been sentenced to 70 years to life in prison. Then he shook the convicted man's hand. Adams received a stiff sentence for wounding Christopher and committing other crimes 18 months ago that left him with a dozen felony convictions. The crime binge included the carjacking at gunpoint of then-state Senate leader and current Oakland mayoral candidate Don Perata.

"I know it wasn't your intention to shoot me, but remember - actions always have consequences," Christopher said. "Two of the bullets almost hit my mom. You could have killed my piano teacher, other students, yourself, your girlfriend and just normal people nearby."

During a gas station robbery Jan. 10, 2008, a drunken Adams fired three shots. Two of his shots went across the street to the Harmony Road Music School which is located along Oakland's busy and normally safe Piedmont Avenue corridor. One of the shots penetrated the school's wall and severed Christopher's spine.

Because of his powerful act of forgiveness, Christopher Rodriquez, will be awarded the Hero of Forgiveness, Reconciliation and Peace Award at the 13th Annual International Forgiveness Day Awards Ceremony.