Southern White Ministers and the Civil Rights Movement

Abstract

How did southern white ministers who believed that racial segregation was against God’s teachings attempt to convince people in their churches and their communities to abandon fears of integration and overcome prejudices? This book is about important episodes in United States history, southern history, church history, and the power of faith. Southern white ministers who aligned with the Civil Rights Movement experienced harassment, vilification, jailing, beating, and psychological pain. Their sermons, efforts, and sacrifices on behalf of school integration and the Civil Rights Movement are chronicled in this book. Did their efforts help change southern society? Scholars differ in opinions. Most argue that black leaders and organizations brought an end to segregation, Others contend that the federal government speeded the process, but this book shows that southern white ministers were also influential, sometimes only locally, sometimes only personally, but counted together their actions become significant. Clinton High in Tennessee and Central High in Little Rock where ministers accompanied African American students amid angry and jeering mobs, today, are good functioning schools with interracial student bodies. The University of Mississippi, where an Episcopal vicar was knocked off a pedestal while trying to quell a bloody riot, has made great strides towards racial reconciliation. These ministers welcomed black people into their churches in spite of closed-door policies. A Baptist minister established an interracial farm that has endured for seventy-six years, a farm that birthed Habitat for Humanity. The sacrifices of these ministers showed African Americans that not all white people were enemies.