The Japanese Journal of American Studies, No. 20 (2009)

Forgiving Is Fore-giving: Reaching out for Peace inInterpersonal Relations
Anri MORIMOTO*INTRODUCTION
Peace, if it deserves the name, must be “perpetual peace,” said ImmanuelKant.1 Any reservation, tacit or obvious, that may allow future wars would
only amount to making a truce, a temporary suspension of hostility. The term
“perpetual peace” itself smacks of pleonasm by this standard. Ever since thehuman race began living history east of Eden, there has never been peace inthis fullest sense. Peace demands our recognition by its absence, and evenmore acutely so today than ever before. It is not something we have in handto start with. Rather, it is something we crave, an ideal we never cease aspiring to create amid contrary situations.
Our stories thus begin with the recognition of the lack of peace. Inasmuch
as any nation or community in today’s tightly interwoven world could be either an aggressor or sufferer, so could any individual in today’s multilayered
society be on either side of injuries and wrongdoings, even without intention.
It is for this reason that the issues of forgiveness and reconciliation havecome to the attention of recent scholars from a range of disciplines, including
politics, law, philosophy, psychology, ethics, and religion. What I present
here is an analysis of the concept of forgiveness as it crystallizes in two legal
cases from contemporary America: one conclusive and the other inconclusive. Despite the apparent difference in their outcomes, they both help us
Copyright © 2009 Anri Morimoto. All rights reserved. This work may be used, withthis notice included, for noncommercial purposes. No copies of this work may be
distributed, electronically or otherwise, in whole or in part, without permission fromthe author.
*Professor, International Christian University

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understand the nature of forgiveness and explore possible pathways to movefrom past resentment toward future restoration in interpersonal relationships.
I.

“SON, I FORGAVE YOU A LONG TIME AGO.”

On a warm spring Friday night in March 1981, a nineteen-year-old African
American, Michael Donald, went out to buy a pack of cigarettes in Mobile,
Alabama. The town had just seen the trial of a black man accused of murdering a white policeman. The jury, composed of eleven blacks and one white,failed to agree on a verdict, resulting in the acquittal of the black defendant.2
When the verdict was reported on the ten o’clock television news, Bennie
Hays, second in the line of command of Unit 900 of the United Klans ofAmerica (UKA), reportedly grumbled, “If a black man could get away withkilling a white man, a white man should be able to get away with killing a
black man.”3 That Friday night, Bennie’s son Henry and his buddy James“Tiger” Knowles cruised the town streets in a car and found Michael walking
alone. They pretended to ask him for directions and, at gunpoint, forced him
into the car and drove to a desolate place just outside the residential area.
There they beat the pleading victim unconscious, strangled him, and, as ifthat had not been enough, slit his throat three times. They hauled his body
into the trunk of the car, drove back to the town, and hanged him from a tree
on Herndon Avenue.
A college student and part-time mailroom worker, Michael was Beulah
Mae Donald’s youngest son, her pride and joy. He lived with his mother, whoraised him and six other children almost by herself after a divorce. When acall came to her early the next morning, Michael’s body was still hanging
from the tree by a rope with a thirteen-coil noose, a procedure that suggested
a Ku Klux Klan lynching. Across the street, Bennie was standing on theporch and gloating, “A pretty sight. That’s gonna look good on the news.
Gonna look good for the Klan.”4 A perfunctory investigation was made, andthe local police authority announced that it was a murder over a drug dealgone awry.
They misjudged—not the culprits, though they were wrong about that, too,
but the victim’s mother. Unlike docile blacks of past generations, Beulah
Mae Donald was determined with all the power of her character to find out
the truth that had cost her dear son’s life. She knew her son had had no involvement in drug deals. She contacted Rev. Jesse Jackson to complain, whothen came to the town and staged a protest march, urging the Federal Bureau

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of Investigation to reopen the search for the perpetrators. Finally, the twomen were arrested.
In federal court Knowles confessed to the heinous murder he and Hays
committed that night. Knowles was informed that the state of Alabama wasgoing to file a murder case against him, and in an effort to avoid a likely sentence of death, he agreed to cooperate in the civil rights court, because it carried only a life sentence at the maximum with the possibility of parole.5
Knowles testified in a betrayal of his glaring accomplice Hays, and thatparted their destinies: life sentence for Knowles and capital penalty for Hays.
Knowles qualified for the federal witness protection program, thanks to his
testifying against Hays.6 Hays was executed in 1997 after appealing to the
Alabama Supreme Court in 1986, becoming the first white executed for murdering a black in Alabama since 1913.7
It might have been a thorough victory for a black woman in the 1980s at
this point. Beulah Mae Donald could have settled back to her deprived life
with the rest of her children, and racial violence and discrimination would
have continued as if nothing had ever happened to anybody. But she was determined, not to seek revenge or to receive reparation, but to put an end to thelife of intimidation and injustice.
It was Morris Dees, cofounder and chief trial lawyer of the Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC), who saw in the Knowles case a leverage opportunity to dismantle the Klan organization itself. Under its “Imperial Wizard,”
Robert Shelton, and “Titan,” Bennie Hays, the Mobile Klan chapter had been
implicated in the beating of Freedom Riders in 1961, in the bombing of Birmingham Baptist Church in 1963, and in the murder of Viola Liuzzo in 1965.
During his testimony, Knowles hinted that he was acting “to show thestrength of the Klan, to show that they were still here in Alabama.”8 Thesewords inspired Dees with the idea of convicting the UKA itself.
The life of Morris Dees is a showcase of the history of Alabama’s civilrights movement. He never dreamed of becoming a civil rights lawyer when
he was young: his first ambition was to become a farmer like his father. But
he decided to enroll in law school to pursue his second ambition of financial
success. Alabama was the heartland of the civil rights movement, startingwith the Montgomery Bus Boycott in 1955. Dees spent his freshman year at
the University of Alabama reading about the murder case of Emmett Louis
Till; he watched on the very site a crowd of angry white students shout “Nigger go home!” at the first black student, Autherine Lucy, as she entered thecampus with a federal court order in her hand. He stayed away from these
events, opened a law firm, and made a fortune. He even defended, much to196

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his later regret, a white man who had beaten Freedom Riders. Then, after asoul-searching night in 1967, he sold his entire business and founded SPLC
to help those suffering from racial injustice. In a sense, he did follow thespirit of his father, whom he remembered as always being respectful of the“hands” on his farm, drinking from the same bucket of water as they did.9
It was during the final session of the trial when something extraordinary
happened. From his conversations with defendant Knowles, Dees knew that
Knowles “truly regretted what he had done.”10 During a break in court proceedings Knowles contacted Dees and asked if he could say something incourt. When the court resumed, he began by saying, “Everything I said istrue. I was acting as a Klansman when I done this. And I hope that people
learn from my mistake.” A passage from the newspaper article describing thescene is worth quoting verbatim here:
Then Knowles turned to Beulah Mae Donald, and, as they locked eyes for the firsttime, begged for her forgiveness. “I can’t bring your son back,” he said, sobbing
and shaking. “God knows if I could trade places with him, I would. I can’t. Whatever it takes—I have nothing. But I will have to do it. And if it takes me the rest of
my life to pay it, any comfort it may bring, I hope it will.” By this time, jurors were
openly weeping. The judge wiped away a tear.
“I do forgive you,” Mrs. Donald said. “From the day I found out who you all
was, I asked God to take care of y’all, and He has.”11

Apology offered, and forgiveness granted—it was a rare moment of exchange. The guilty person sincerely confessed his past deeds, squarely faced
the gravity of the pain he caused the victim’s family, and expressed his willingness to accept full responsibility for his crime and the penalty imposed bylaw. I shall return to this scene for analysis later.
The all-white juries of the past had repeatedly failed to convict Klansmen,
but this time, after four and a half hours of deliberation, the jury came backwith a verdict that stunned the entire legal community and changed the history of racial justice in the United States: it found the Klan itself guilty for its
past misdeeds, with a damage award of seven million dollars to plaintiff Beulah Mae Donald. This meant that the Klan had to sell all its assets, including
its national headquarters in Tuscaloosa, Alabama, dissolve the organization,and go bankrupt.
They did not appeal. Six weeks later, the deed and the keys to the headquarters were sent to Beulah Mae Donald. The property was valued at$55,000, and, together with other liquidations, she was expected to collect a
total of $150,000.12 It certainly was far less than the seven million dollars to

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which she was entitled. But Dees and other lawyers who represented her said
they did not intend to pursue the matter further because “it made a point” andbecause the penalty dealt “pretty much a death blow” to the organization.13
Similar suits followed, putting a stop to Klan activities in other states aswell.14 Beulah Mae Donald sold the Klan property to buy a house of her
own—the first house she had owned in her life, and, shortly after moving into
it, she passed away.
To be sure, the verdict did not change much of the mother’s suffering.
“Money don’t mean a thing to me. It won’t bring my child back,” Beulah Mae
Donald said after the trial.15 With or without that money, she had to live withthe reality of her son’s death day and night. Nonetheless, the process of healing was on its way. At a news conference, she was quoted as saying, “I have
no hatred in my heart.”16 No one knows for sure what “forgiveness” meant forher during that court exchange, but it did help her overcome the acidity that
could have eaten away at her post-trauma welfare.
One may argue that it was Morris Dees and his legal team who won theverdict. But the jury would not have reached that conclusion without witnessing the exchange of apology and forgiveness that had taken place in front ofthem. Their verdict assured peace to the mother by sending a message different from those of past all-white juries, showing the community’s will to support her quiet fight to put an end to the long history of discrimination andterrorization. Given the legal deals that Dees brokered for Knowles, one may
also doubt the sincerity of the culprit’s confession. But when it came to thatcourtroom scene, it was exclusively and entirely Beulah Mae Donald’s callwhether to grant him forgiveness or not. How could such extraordinary forgiveness happen? How could she forgive the unforgivable? And why was her
forgiveness articulated in association with the past tense?
II.

“I DON’T KNOW WHAT FORGIVENESS IS.”In 1970 Katherine Ann Power was a straight A student at Brandeis University in Boston. She came from Denver, Colorado, where she had graduatedfrom her Catholic high school as class valedictorian. It was the heyday ofstudent movements in urban cities like Boston, and the susceptible young girlpredictably turned radical, joining protests against the Vietnam War. She developed a romantic involvement with an ex-convict who was enrolled in theinmate education program at her university. Somehow he managed to talk her
into believing that robbing a local bank to get money for their revolutionary
cause was a right way to end a wrong war in Southeast Asia.

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On the fatal morning of September 23, Power was waiting six blocks away
behind the wheel of a “switch” car and drove the robbery group to escapefrom the scene of the robbery. She did not know that during the act of thecrime a police officer had been shot and killed. According to Massachusetts
law, all who engaged in a felony are charged with the same crime, and thus
she became a fugitive wanted for murder.
She fled and was on the run for twenty-three years, changing names andmoving from one place to another. She was on the FBI’s “ten most wanted”
list for fourteen years, but gradually she began to feel safe, and she settled in
Oregon, on the other side of the continent. She gave birth to a son, lived witha local meat cutter, stole the alias “Alice Metzinger” from a dead infant,bought a house, and started a restaurant business. With diligence and deliberation, she earned a credible reputation and established herself as a decent
tax-paying citizen.
Inside this well-established comfortable family figure, however, there wasa growing struggle over suppressing her real self. The guilt and shame offeigning identity wore her out, and the desire to be her own self once again inclear conscience became difficult to contain. Suffering from deep depression,
Power asked for professional help from a psychiatrist and lawyers. Finally,on September 15, 1993, she turned herself in, waived her right to a trial, andpleaded guilty to a reduced charge of manslaughter. The judge sentenced her
to eight to twelve years in prison, and she began serving the time.
Prosecutors admitted that they had had no clue as to locating or identifying
her. Even if she had been found and arrested, they would have had a hard time
convicting her, since there remained hardly any evidence or credible witness
after all those years. A district attorney admitted that “she certainly deserves
credit for coming forward because we probably would never have caught
her.”17 Likewise, her lawyer wanted her to go to trial. “I was sure we’d win.
But she didn’t want the divisiveness of a trial that was sure to be politicized.
Katherine Power wanted to plead guilty, wanted to get her punishment and
get it over with.”18
In order to “get it over with,” however, Power knew that she had to comeout, face the consequences of her past actions, and accept her responsibility
in public. In her surrender statement, she wrote: “I am surrendering to authorities today to answer charges that arise from a series of acts 23 years ago.
I am here to plead guilty to these charges, and I am prepared to accept whatever consequences the legal system will impose. . . . Leaving my son, myhusband, and my friends to enter prison is not easy. But I know that I must
answer this accusation from the past, in order to live with full authenticity in

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the present.”19
It was a clear acknowledgment of guilt and a sincere desire to be accountable. Just as Knowles was in our first story, Power was ready to take full responsibility for her past deeds. She did not have to turn herself in, and she
could very well have walked out of a trial as a free person, but she chose to
face the charges and go to prison. The New York Times carried an editorial
with the headline “The Prodigal Daughter” and warmly welcomed her decision for societal return at the cost of a prison sentence.20
Again, it is possible at this point to question the real intent of her surrender.
Power surely wanted to “get it over with” and regain her authentic life. She
knew that counseling would not cure her of the chronic depression and thepsychic trauma of living a lie. She sounded apologetic when it came to acknowledging her involvement in the murder: “My intention was never todamage any human life by my acts, and there is no accusation that I was directly responsible for the death of Walter Schroeder.” Was she really offering
apologies to and asking forgiveness from the victim’s family? Or was she
simply seeking her own peace of mind?
Apparently, her statement did not quite impress the other party involved.
The victim of the armed robbery, Walter Schroeder, was a father of nine children. Four of them later became law-enforcement officers, following theirmuch-beloved and admired father. On the day of the sentencing, Boston police officer Clare Schroeder, the eldest daughter who was seventeen when her
father was killed, read a statement and vented her animosity: “Katherine
Power stands before you as a media celebrity. Her smiling photograph has
appeared on the cover of Newsweek magazine. She has been portrayed as ahero in newspapers from coast to coast.”21 The Schroeder family was indignant at the news media that treated her as a nostalgic reminder of the bygone
political subculture. In fact, the aforementioned New York Times editorial
portrayed Power essentially as a misguided romantic product of those politically turbulent days.22 A columnist described her as “our other self” that
embodied “the chasm between the ‘60s and ‘90s.”23 But to Sgt. Clare Schroeder, “murdering a policeman in Boston to bring peace to Southeast Asia wasutterly senseless then, and it is just as senseless now.”24
The victim’s family was also outraged by the press report that Power wasreceiving “book and movie offers worth millions of dollars.”25 The reportmust have informed Judge Robert Banks’s decision to impose on her an injunction not to profit from selling her story. Paul Schroeder, another son of
the victim and a Boston detective, also criticized Power for getting “undeserved sympathy in the nationwide media blitz . . . like the second coming of

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Mother Teresa.”26 In Denver, yet another Schroeder son of the victim, Edward, commented, “I just can’t forgive. I’m not happy with her attitude, theway she was smiling when she went into court.”27 To the Schroeder brood, it
was hard to comprehend how the Newsweek column could compare the tragedy that befell the perpetrator with the pain that she caused the victim’s family. Katherine Power may have succeeded in gathering public sympathy, but
she had clearly failed to secure sympathy, let alone forgiveness, from thevictim’s side. Clare’s anger eventually found an audible repercussion in a
Washington Post article that reminded the public that “she was an accomplice
to murder, and her crime destroyed more than one life.”28
The family sentiments did not improve after five years when Power firstbecame eligible for parole. In her statement to the parole board hearing, ClareSchroeder once again spoke against her. Parole should be granted, she argued, on the basis of the “unreserved and unqualified” expression of remorseand responsibility, which she did not find in Power’s court statement. Any
inmate would look penitent and remorseful when his or her chance of parolecomes close, but Power had not expressed those sentiments earlier. Schroeder also reminded the parole board members that Power surrendered only
after she had negotiated a deal to her advantage and that it took twenty-three
years for her to come out of hiding.29
It was this statement of Clare Schroeder’s that moved Power to an act thatno one in the courtroom expected. Asked if she deserved freedom, Poweranswered, “No”: she withdrew her parole request. The withdrawal was unprecedented in court procedures. Clare recalls the moment in the court: “Forat least five full seconds, this incredible silence covered the room. No one
said a word.”30
Power herself had something different in mind. She had planned for thisoccasion for three months. She knew that the occasion, excruciatingly painful
though it was, would be her only chance to be in the same room with the
Schroeder family.31 There she would be able to show her humanity apart fromthe media hoopla and convey her genuine remorse about the hurt she had inflicted on the family. After hearing Clare Schroeder’s reproof, however,Power realized that they did not really believe what she was saying because
it was attached to her request to be paroled. “It became really clear to me thatas long as those two things were joined, the communication that I intended tomake was not going to be complete,” she said.32 It is indeed difficult to thinkof anything an inmate would crave more than the personal freedom to go
home. Power relinquished that opportunity in order to convey her apologies.
How did the victim’s side react to Power’s unexpected and unusual appeal?

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Erin Schroeder, yet another police officer in Boston, commented that “I wasvery happy and I was very surprised. . . . It wasn’t what I expected. I have to
say I respect it.”33 Clare Schroeder was also impressed, though she remained
callous. She could admit that she “got a window on her personality that I
hadn’t seen before,” and through that window she could see that Power was
sincere. Schroeder even admitted that there was “an unqualified acceptanceof responsibility and apology” in Power’s withdrawal—a sine qua non forforgiveness according to her own earlier statement. Psychologist Janet Landman, who worked closely with Power, evaluated Schroeder’s comment as“not a full-fledged statement of forgiveness, but something close.”34
Perhaps so. Subsequent reports, however, do not quite uphold Landman’s
evaluation. It may be more accurate to say that Clare Schroeder was not readyto give absolution. On October 2, 1999, another year and a half later, Powerwas finally released from prison, but Schroeder’s remarks were just as bitteras six years before. “I’m satisfied in that she’s fulfilled what the state requiresof her. The length of time served is irrelevant. It doesn’t change anything.” It
is worth noting that the length of time was in fact the point of contention inher earlier statement. Asked for more comments, she confessed: “I don’tknow what forgiveness is in this circumstance. I’m not going to extract any
vengeance. I don’t wish her ill will. Other than that, she has no significancefor me.”35 Her refusal to treat the inmate’s release as a meaningful event may
well be an indication of her unresolved anger. It must end somewhere, sheknew, and so she resolved that Power’s release be “the end of a chapter.”
Bluntly put, forgiveness had not matured in her. It failed to ripen in her, evenafter admitting the sincerity of Power’s confession and apology. Clare Schroeder would not let her past sorrow and anger dominate her, but neither would
she equate this renunciation of resentment with forgiveness.
Power accepted Schroeder’s bitterness, and issued a statement that read:“Today marks the payment of my legal debt for my role in the murder ofWalter Schroeder. But I will always carry my human responsibility for thesorrow my actions have caused. . . . This is a time to acknowledge that a human life, once lost, is lost forever: that the death of a father, husband, andbrother is a terrible event, and one for which I will always be deeply sorry.”36
She was well aware of her accountability beyond the legal amends she had
made. She took on the gravity of the sorrow her actions had caused and expressed her penitence, while knowing that it might not reach or ease the heartof those who had suffered because of her.
Under probation until 2013, Power now lives in Boston, working as a development manager of an AIDS relief organization. She sometimes appears

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in that function as a public figure, but because of the stringent injunction not
to profit from selling her story, the only noticeable indications of her turbulent past are the bachelor’s degree she earned in the Boston University prison
education program and the title of her chapbook, Doing Time: Papers from
Framingham Prison.37
III.

FORGIVENESS AS A GIFT

For a long time, forgiveness has been a concept primarily in use within
religious communities. It was only during the past two decades that it cameout of those confines to a larger circle of discussion. At the same time, cautionary views have been advanced by psychologists, who point to the adverse
effects of premature forgiveness. But what does “maturing forgiveness”
mean?
In both of our stories, the exchange of apology and forgiveness was much
publicized, but there are elements that caution us not to rush for an optimistic
praise of forgiveness. Beulah Mae Donald’s forgiveness was offered in religious terms, reflecting her lifelong church affiliation. There is no way, however, to know whether she was under societal constraint in what she said, religious or secular. She might have been under the racial power play that still
held a strong grip on the psychology of the majority in the area. Underneaththe seemingly reconciliatory gestures, she might have been acting out herrole of a forgiving mother as required by societal norms. A well-meant advocacy of urging forgiveness based on Christian ethics can, in fact, further hurt
victims. Pressuring for forgiveness when it is not ready can lead to the suppression of lingering resentment that is natural and justifiable, canceling thechance to deal with it on one’s own terms.38
This is why our second story, with an inconclusive ending, is important inour discussion. Clare Schroeder did not want to remain captivated in the bitterness of past injuries, but she was not inclined to forgive the perpetrator.
The whole process of verbal exchange between the two articulate women,
despite their apparent failure to carve out a reconciliation, vividly illuminates
the nature of forgiveness as a gift.
Three points deserve underscoring here:(1) Forgiveness, in the first place, can only be granted on the victim’s own
terms and timing. No one can be forced to forgive. A forced forgiveness is amonstrous oxymoron. That is to say, forgiveness can be reserved for no reason. A gift is what it is only when there is a possibility of its being withheld.

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One can give it only when one can also refuse to give it. Perhaps it was in thissense that Hannah Arendt said, “Men are unable to forgive what they cannot
punish.”39 Only those in the position to punish, albeit by substitutional law,
can choose to forgive instead.
If it is a giving that depends entirely on the giver’s willingness, then it does
not depend on the fulfillment of justice. Justice is often a requisite for forgiveness, yet the wrongdoer cannot demand forgiveness even after justice isfully served and the damage fully recompensed, for it remains an exclusive
property of the wronged to give—or refuse. After all, forgiveness is a violation of justice. It was not a commendable practice at all in the classical period.40 Forgiveness was considered a violation of the established legal order,
associated more or less with a despot’s sovereign whim; only with the adventof Christianity did it begin to be viewed as a virtue.
Here is a twist. Justice calls for a sense of equilibrium between giving andreceiving. Under normal conditions, this equilibrium would require thatthose wronged be in the position to receive something in recompense. But
forgiveness is a gift that they give. Those who have suffered and lost theirprecious something are the ones that give. The wronged have already given
the wrongdoer enormously, and yet it is they who have the power to forgive,that is, give again. In the first giving they gave against their will; in the second
giving they give intentionally only at their own will. It is for this reason thatradical orthodoxy theologian John Milbank interprets the prefix for of theverb for-give as an intensifier.41 The same could also be said of the German
ver-geben and the French par-donner. These words indicate that “forgiving”
is a giving in the extreme. It is a “hyperbolic giving.”
Both of the guilty parties in our stories seem to understand that forgivenessis a gift. They knew that they had no right to ask for it. Knowles was acutely
aware of the insurmountable gap between the victimizer and the victim. He
acknowledged that whatever he might be able to offer Beulah Mae Donald
would not ease her pain and sorrow. According to a news report, he asked forforgiveness with much hesitation, cognizant of the patent gap: “I know I
don’t have the right to ask this of you, but I hope one day you’ll find it in yourheart to forgive me.”42 Power recognized Schroeder’s refusal and her right torefuse. Asked by Landman in an in-prison interview what she was hoping forfrom the Schroeder family, she responded without missing a beat that she hadno right to ask anything of them.
I felt obliged to offer restitution. I did, and I have their answer, a refusal. I will
always be open to any kind of reconciliation. But it would be out of line for me to204

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say to them that I need . . . anything; it would be out of line for me to say that theyshould . . . anything. I need to be respectful of them.43

She sought to “earn” forgiveness with sincere effort, but she also knew thatno amount of effort can earn it. Even with the best of whatever she could offer, she would not be entitled to it.
Forgiveness must remain a gift for yet another reason: it symbolizes thesense of control that victims regain after their suffering. Victims often feeldevastated by the fact that they have no control over the events that overwhelm them. They feel they are victimized not only by the perpetrator but
also by a fate that has assigned them their unfortunate lot. Their restoration
therefore must include regaining a sense of self-control over the course of
events that affect their lives. The decision to grant forgiveness or not offers
them a high point to experience that they are once again in control. Forcing
them to forgive, through religious pressures or otherwise, by counsel or intimidation, will therefore deprive them of this precious experience, and will
actually amount to revictimization.
(2) Forgiveness, secondly, is granted upon the victimizer’s sincere confession, repentance, and apology. They must formally confess their wrongdoingin public, willingly accept the penalty, and apologize directly and publicly tothe ones they have wronged. How do we know that their words come out of
genuine penitence? Psychologists propose to check it by seeing whether theirremorse is “other-oriented” or not.44 It must not be motivated by self-serving
interest.
How does the confession in our stories measure up in this scale? Knowles
struck a legal bargain to testify against his accomplice Hays in an effort toavoid the state’s death sentence. Was he sincere and other-oriented enough inoffering that tearful apology? It is difficult to judge for those not on the scene,
but at least to those in the court his remorse and apology seemed genuine, notself-serving; and that was how Beulah Mae Donald, the receiver of the apology and the granter of forgiveness, understood it. Our other defendant, Power,
clearly came to realize the self-serving note of her own statements, if only
after a face-to-face encounter with the victim’s family, and for that reason
dropped her request for parole. She was criticized for cutting a deal with authorities prior to her surrender. But in an interview with Landman, she statedthat her pleading guilty to the charge of manslaughter was not the result of
negotiation in exchange for surrender. It was rather “a literal description” ofher involvement in the crime according to her own understanding.45 She was

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implicated in the killing, but only unintentionally and away from the actual
scene of the crime.
The confession and apology play an important role here: not only do thewronged need them, but the wrongdoer needs them, too. Katherine Power
wanted to confess in order to reconcile her past with her present, to reunite
her outer self with her inner. Confession works both ways, for the victim andfor the perpetrator. She offered her apologies once again in 1998 after withdrawing her parole request, but this time it was not so much to receive forgiveness as to get her apologies across to the victim’s family: “I have seen
how my act tore a hole in the lives of a whole group of people, of family,
friends, neighbors and fellow officers . . . I know it is late, and far too little,
but today I offer again my sincere and humble apologies to those people.”46
She knew she would not be forgiven because of her apologies. Apologies
must be offered in order to receive forgiveness, but apologies cannot secureor procure the gift of forgiveness.
Landman compares Katherine Power with Robert McNamara, the former
secretary of defense who confessed his deep-harbored regret in his 1995
book In Retrospect: The Tragedy and Lessons of Vietnam. In both cases, theirconfessions were fatally belated and infinitely insufficient. Nonetheless,Landman argues, they showed “the ethical force of emotion” that has “theauthority to restore the wrongdoer to community.”47 Naturally, their confessions must bear scrutiny. Are they not trying to excuse or justify their deeds,
or avoid their responsibility? Are they not indulging in exhibitionism, under
the spotlight of unavoidable media attention? The records of Knowles andPower seem to stand up to these tests.
A cautious caveat is due here. If one made forgiveness dependent on theoffender’s confession and atonement, it would once again make the victims
dependent on the offender’s will, inflicting “a secondary offence” on them.48
Forgiveness must mature internally, but it does not hinge on any prior external condition. Those who want to forgive but cannot because the offender has
not confessed and atoned have already forgiven in their mind. The forgiveness must be announced publicly to take effect, but that is the offender’sbenefit perspective. Those in the position to forgive are in no way inhibitedfrom forgiving even prior to the offender’s confession. Neither are they inhibited to forgive prior to full atonement. Beulah Mae Donald did not receive hermonetary reparation in full. She was satisfied with the scathingly paltry
amount of money, because in her view “it made a point.”(3) This brings us to the third and last element: forgiveness is granted on

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the basis of the reality that is already established inside the forgiver. A citation variance must be noted here concerning the wording of the forgivenessuttered by Beulah Mae Donald in our first case. The New York Times article
quoted above has it as “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.” Two documentaryfilms that featured Dees and a speech he delivered at Penn State University
on March 16, 1999, quote her as saying, “I’ve already forgiven you.”49 A
former colleague of Dees at SPLC writes that it was “Son, I forgave you along time ago.”50 These quotations, though at variance, coincide in pointing
to the past or perfect tense of her wording.
Why past or perfect? It is because forgiveness, if given at all, is a gift thatis prepared within the forgiving person. One can grant forgiveness only when
ready inside. Beulah Mae Donald’s forgiveness had been ready before she
gave it to Knowles. In other words, the forgiveness that she granted him wasa reality inside her even before she was asked for it, and that prior forgivenesswas the basis on which she could give the actual and verbal forgiveness. The
inner readiness for forgiveness is expressed outwardly and completes theprospect of forgiveness. The outward expression is still necessary to perfectit, but she was already forgiving in the inside. Her forgiving does not dependon his asking for it. His asking did not initiate or generate forgiveness inside
her. It was there before his asking, waiting for the occasion to spring out. Thispreexisting inner reality of forgiveness constitutes the person’s readiness forforgiveness. The outward expression brings the cycle of offering and receiving to its completion—hence it is always in the past or perfect tense.
Clare Schroeder was not ready to grant forgiveness, because it had not
become a reality insider her. She would not have forgiven her had Power
asked for it. According to an interview with Landman, Power did not ask forforgiveness because she thought it would only add insult to the family she
had devastated.51 It may be closer to the truth to say that she did not ask because she knew Schroeder was not ready. Asking for forgiveness from those
not ready to grant it would indeed add insult to injury. Forgiveness needs tobe slowly leavened to maturity at its own pace and timing.
In view of this prevenient nature of forgiveness, one can also interpret theword forgive as “fore-give,” that is, “giving before.” Forgiveness is a gift thatis prepared prior to its actual giving. Offering apology cannot create the reality of forgiveness. Apology is indeed necessary for forgiveness, but it works
rather as an occasion than as a cause. To use the Aristotelian theory of causation, the apology is the efficient cause of forgiveness, while the materialcause is the prior reality of forgiveness that is within the person who forgives.

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If one continues in this causation theory, the formal cause of forgiveness iscontrition and remorse, and the final cause of forgiveness is peace and reconciliation.
Forgiveness in this last sense may be compared to entering a peace treaty.
A peace treaty finalizes the peace process, but it can be concluded only when
and where peace has in fact prevailed. There is no way of making a peace
treaty when and where battles are still raging. At the same time, the factual
reality of peace cannot be secure until the parties involved sign and ratify apeace treaty. The peace treaty caps and seals the state of peace. It legitimizes
de facto peace and turns it into de jure peace. Likewise, forgiveness turns defacto forgiveness that is a reality within the person into de jure forgivenessdeclared interpersonally. Declaring it without waiting for the maturation of aprior reality, however, would not create the reality. The outward expression of
forgiveness only perfects the inward reality of forgiveness. And it is for thisreason that forgiveness needs a form of public or at least formal statement.
The statement confirms and confers forgiveness on the basis of and in exchange for the apology clearly articulated.
CONCLUSION“To err is human, to forgive divine,” said Alexander Pope.52 Restoring
what has been damaged to the complete satisfaction of the wronged is often
beyond our human capacities. Demanding full justice in retribution would
make this world a difficult place to live, a place where we would be perpetually captivated by past and ever-increasing enmities. To compensate for thispainful inability to repair, human beings are endowed with the ability to forgive. In fact, it may be called “a power to change the past.”53 Experience canbe changed retrospectively. There is at least a way to break the spell, transcend past enmity, reenter human society, mend and recreate broken relationships.
After all, we may have to say to the venerable philosopher Kant that truce,
not perpetual peace, could very well be the best we can hope for on this sideof the eschaton.54
NOTES
1
Immanuel Kant, To Perpetual Peace: A Philosophical Sketch, trans. Ted Humphrey (Indianapolis: Hackett, 2003), 2.
2
See Carol Robinson, “Helping families find closure, justice drove him,” Birmingham
News, Feb. 10, 2008, for subsequent details.

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3
Morris Dees, A Lawyer’s Journey: The Morris Dees Story (Chicago: American Bar Association, 2001; originally published as A Season for Justice, 1991), 232, 315.
4
Jesse Kornbluth, “The woman who beat the Klan,” New York Times, Nov. 1, 1987.
5
Dees, Lawyer’s Journey, 213.
6
Ibid., 313.
7
Alex Duval Smith, “Electric chair closes case of KKK lyncher,” Guardian (Manchester),June 7, 1997.
8
Dees, Lawyer’s Journey, 214.
9
Ibid., 51–85.
10
Ibid., 316.
11
Kornbluth, New York Times, Nov. 1, 1987; “U.S. jurors award $7 million damages in slaying by Klan,” New York Times, Feb. 13, 1987.
12“Paying damages for a lynching,” New York Times, Feb. 21, 1988. The net amount she
actually received in total was $52,000. Alex Duval Smith, “Electric chair closes case of KKK
lyncher.”
13“Black is handed deed to offices of Klan group,” New York Times, May 20, 1987.
14
Obituary, “Robert Shelton, 73, leader of big Klan faction,” New York Times, Mar. 20,
2003.
15“Mother of Klan murder victim awarded $7 million from United Klans,” AssociatedPress, Feb. 13, 1987.
16
Ibid.
17
“DA quoted as saying state lacked evidence to convict Power,” Boston Globe, June 6,
1994.
18“Power’s confession a lucky break for prosecutors,” Oregonian, June 6, 1994.
19
Janet Landman, “Earning Forgiveness: The Story of a Perpetrator, Katherine Ann Power,”in Before Forgiving: Cautionary View of Forgiveness in Psychology, ed. Sharon Lamb andJeffrie G. Murphy (New York: Oxford University Press, 2002), 243–44. Landman deserves
special credit for her sustained effort to connect to the personality of Katherine Ann Power.
Since Power is under a twenty-year probation in which she is forbidden, with the threat of life
in prison, to profit by selling her story, no documentary or autobiography will be made available at least until 2013. Landman conducted audio-recorded interviews exclusively and extensively with Power in prison from 1995 through 1999. In addition to these and other personalcommunications, Landman made good use of Power’s media appearances, once in a cable
television program and another at Babson College, Massachusetts. Power had carefully obtained advance approval from the probation office for these speaking engagements (Landman,“Earning Forgiveness,” 233, 261). The present article owes much to these documents provided
in Landman’s articles.
20
Editorial, “The Prodigal Daughter,” New York Times, Sept. 18, 1993.
21
Clare Schroeder, “Remember My Father,” Atlanta Journal and Constitution, Oct. 8,
1993.
22
Editorial, New York Times, Sept. 18, 1993.
23
Anna Quindlen, Oregonian, Oct. 12, 1993 (originally “Our Radical, Ourselves,” New YorkTimes, Oct. 10, 1993).
24
Michael Cooper, “Victims don’t forget,” New York Times, Oct. 10, 1993.
25
Clare Schroeder, Atlanta Journal and Constitution, Oct. 8, 1993.
26
Susan Bickelhaupt, “Schroeder family confides to Brokaw,” Boston Globe, Oct. 6, 1993.
27
Barbara Kantrowitz et al., “The Fugitive,” Newsweek, Sept. 27, 1993.
28
Opinion editorial, “Katherine Ann Power’s Crime,” Washington Post, Oct. 11, 1993.
29
Clare Schroeder, “Statement to the Parole Board,” Boston Globe, Mar. 8, 1998. See Doris
Sue Wong and Bob Hohler, “16 months of talk and drama produced Power’s surrender,” Bos-FORGIVING IS FORE-GIVING

209

ton Globe, Sept. 17, 1993, for details of the negotiation.
30
Peter Gelzinis, “Encounter clarifies the price of freedom,” Boston Herald, Mar. 8, 1998.
31
Landman, “Earning Forgiveness,” 256.
32
Interview by Bob Ahearn, “the Murphy’s Law,” quoted in Landman, 257.
33
Landman, “Earning Forgiveness,” 257.
34
Ibid., 258.
35
Cindy Rodriguez, “Two sides of Power’s freedom,” Boston Globe, Oct. 2, 1999.
36
Ibid.
37
From a lecture announcement, Harvard University Memorial Church, Oct. 21, 2007,
http://www.memorialchurch.harvard.edu/ef/faithlife.shtml (accessed Apr. 2, 2008).
38
Jeffrie G. Murphy and Jean Hampton, Forgiveness and Mercy (Cambridge: Cambridge
University Press, 1988), 17, 35, 90, 92. Murphy and Hampton also concur on the nature of
forgiveness as a gift; see 154, 159, 161.
39
Hannah Arendt, The Human Condition (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1958),
241.
40John Milbank, Being Reconciled: Ontology and Pardon (London: Routledge, 2003), 48–
49.
41
Ibid., 44.
42
Pat Clark, “We welcomed him into the circle,” Fellowship (May-June 2004), http://www.
forusa.org/fellowship/may-june04/pclark.html (accessed Apr. 30, 2008).
43
Landman, “Earning Forgiveness,” 254 (ellipses in original).
44
Joanna North, “The ‘Ideal’ of Forgiveness: A Philosopher’s Exploration,” in Exploring
Forgiveness, ed. Robert D. Enright and Joanna North (Madison: University of Wisconsin
Press, 1998), 30.
45
Janet Landman, “The Confession of a War Maker and a War Resister,” Michigan Quarterly Review 38, no. 3 (1999): 409–10.
46“Power could be freed in ‘99 with good behavior,” Boston Herald, Mar. 7, 1998.
47
Landman, “The Confession,” 396.
48
Mona Gustafson Affinito, “Forgiveness in Counseling: Caution, Definition, and Application,” Before Forgiving, 109.
49
Cory Shindel, “Crusading against hate,” Daily Collegian Online, Mar. 17, 1999. The promotional video produced by the Southern Poverty Law Center is quoted in Mark L. Perlmutter,“Lawyers with Courage,” Proceedings of the 2004 Annual Conference of the International
Alliance of Holistic Lawyers 28; The History Channel, Ku Klux Klan: A Secret History (A&E
Home Video, 1998). See also “Only love will bridge racial divide, activist says,” Virginian
Pilot, Jan. 24, 1997.
50
Clark, “We welcomed him into the circle.” See also Tom Smith, “Klan’s Violent History
Traced: Beulah Mae Donald v. United Klans of America Inc. et al: 1987.”
http://law.jrank.org/pages/3408/Beaulah-Mae-Donald-v-United-Klans-America-Inc-et-al1987-Klan-s-Violent-History-Traced.html (accessed Jan. 10, 2008).
51
Landman, “Earning Forgiveness,” 260.
52
Alexander Pope, An Essay on Criticism, part 2, lines 322–25.
53
Michael D. Cohen and James G. March, Leadership and Ambiguity (Boston: Harvard
Business School Press, 1986), 227; quote from Donald W. Shriver Jr., An Ethic for Enemies:
Forgiveness in Politics (New York: Oxford University Press, 1995), 119.
54
For further discussion on the theological import of forgiveness, see my articles: “Toward
a Theology of Reconciliation: Forgiveness in Comparative Religion’s Perspective,” in A
Grand Design for Peace: Achieving Peace and Reconciliation for a Future World, ed. Yoichiro Murakami (Northampton, MA: Edward Elgar, 2008), chap. 10; and “To Forgive is Human:
A Theological Reflection on the Politics of Reconciliation,” in Building New Pathways to210

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Peace: Remapping of Peace, Security, and Kyosei as a Multidisciplinary Endeavor, ed. Shin
Chiba and Noriko Kawamura (Seattle: University of Washington Press, 2009), chap. 11.