Dying from the neck up": Southern Baptist resistance to the civil rights movement

Baptist History and Heritage, Wntr, 1999 by Andrew M. Manis

(4.) See Wayne Flynt, Alabama Baptists: Southern Baptists in the Heart of Dixie (Tuscaloosa: University of Alabama Press, 1998), 459.

(5.) For a fuller elaboration of this argument, see Andrew M. Manis, Southern Civil Religions in Conflict: Black and White Baptists and Civil Rights, 1947-1957 (Athens: University of Georgia Press, 1987).

(6.) S. H. Jones, "Segregation and the Schools," Baptist Courier (June 3, 1954), 2; "Segregation's Problems," Baptist Standard (June 10, 1954), 2.

(7.) Flynt, 456.

(8.) Annual, Southern Baptist Convention, 1954, 55-56, 407; Baptist Record (June 10 and 17), 1954.

(9.) "Pastor Fired Again," Baptist Standard (January 1,1955), 6-7 (Interestingly, the story was not covered in Georgia's Baptist newspaper, the Christian Index); Merrill M. Hawkins Jr., Will Campbell: Radical Prophet of the South (Macon: Mercer University Press, 1997), 29.

(10.) "Justice, Calmness Keynote Plea of Commission on Racial Issues," Christian Index (November 25, 1954), 19; Len G. Cleveland, "Georgia Baptists and the 1954 Supreme Court Desegregation Decision," Georgia Historical Quarterly 59 (Supplement, 1975), 107-08. Talmadge was listed as a Baptist in Who's Who in the South and Southwest (Chicago: A. N. Marquis Co., 1950), 729-30; James Wesberry, telephone interview with author, May 4, 1985.

(11.) Herman E. Talmadge, You and Segregation (Birmingham: Vulcan Press, 1955), 75.

(12.) Information on Brady's church involvement comes from the following personal correspondence: letter to author from Robert E. Self, pastor of First Baptist Church, Brookhaven, Mississippi, April 24, 1984; letter to author from Talmadge E. Smith, director of missions, Lincoln Baptist Association, Brookhaven, Mississippi, May 1, 1984; Thomas E Brady, Black Monday (Winona, Miss.: Association of Citizens Counsels), foreword.

(13.) On Lyons's radio program and prominence among Alabama Baptists, see Flynt, 466-69.

(14.) See DeWitte Holland, Sermons in American History: Selected Issues in the American Pulpit, 1630-1967 (Nashville: Abingdon Press, 1971), 513-22. On the myth of Ham, see Thomas Virgil Peterson, Ham and Japheth: The Mythic World of Whites in the Antebellum South (Metuchen, N. J.: Scarecrow Press, 1978); on black usage of Acts 17:26, see William H. Ballew's editorial in American Baptist, June 11, 1954, 2.

(15.) Flynt, 459-61.

(16.) Personal papers of Henlee Barnette; Letter from Allen Graves to Martin Luther King Jr., March 30, 1961, SCLC files, Martin Luther King Jr. Papers, Mugar Library, Boston University; author's conversation with Barnette. On Southern Baptist criticism of the visit, see Alabama Baptist, August 10, 1961, 1; Flynt, 461.

(17.) Flynt, 461, citing Macon's personal papers.

(18.) Author's personal conversation with Norman C. Jimerson, Washington, D. C., June 13, 1989.

(19.) Stallings was named as one of the original recipients of King's letter Jonathan Bass has uncovered the careers of the eight ministers before and after their letter to King. Stallings was a racial moderate who in reality sought to move his Birmingham congregation toward more openness on racial issues. For his trouble he was called a "nigger-lover" and eventually pressured to leave his pastorate at First Baptist Church. Nonetheless he believed the timing of the Birmingham demonstrations to be unfortunate, and though he himself took a more liberal view of the civil rights movement, the actions of his congregation indicate a strong level of resistance. See S. Jonathan Bass, "Eyes on the Press: the Media, the Ministers and the Letter from Birmingham Jail," paper presented to the Southern Historical Association, Birmingham, Ala., November 12, 1998. See King, Why We Can't Wait (New York: Harper and Row, 1964); On Jackson's defense of Birmingham at the Southern Baptist Convention, see New York Times, May 9, 1963, 1, 17; May 10, 1963, 1, 14.