Defying the Assassin's Veto

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In a week when America is grappling with the consequences of political violence, this episode confronts the hard truth: We are at risk of letting bullets replace ballots.

Just days after Charlie Kirk was gunned down while engaging in public debate, under a banner that read “Prove Me Wrong,” we’re reminded of another volatile chapter in American life: the 1970s. It was a time marked by bombings, assassinations, and ideological warfare.

Yet from that era comes an extraordinary story of moral courage and empathy.

In 1972, segregationist Alabama governor George Wallace was nearly killed by an assassin’s bullets in 1972. He was badly injured, paralyzed and left in a hospital bed. Many celebrated. But not Shirley Chisholm. The first black woman elected to Congress, and a presidential candidate running against Wallace, she visited him in the hospital. Her act of compassion defied politics, expectations, and history. And in doing so, she helped save not just a man’s soul, but something of the nation’s own.

This week, we look at how the assassin's veto threatens our republic, and what we can learn from a time when courage didn’t lead to violence but to unexpected grace.