The Baptist State Convention of South Carolina and desegregation, 1954-1971.

In the Civil Rights era, leaders of the Baptist State Convention of South Carolina, the state's largest white denomination, sought to persuade Baptists to accept desegregation, but they were frequently forced to retreat by vocal, black-belt segregationists. Denominational leaders appealed to the primary commitments Southern Baptists held to Scripture, evangelism, law and order, and education to convince them to accede to racial change. Most Southern Baptists were moderate segregationists, but they reluctantly adjusted to the demise of Jim Crow in the 1960s as its maintenance became incompatible with their primary commitments. Although few Baptists sought integration, in the 1970s a growing number of Baptist churches rejected the principle of segregation by abolishing policies that barred blacks.

The vast majority of South Carolina's whites favored segregation in the postwar era. An opinion poll found that in 1956, 90 percent of the state's white population opposed school desegregation. Although most whites rejected change, they differed in the degree of their support for Jim Crow. In the 1950s, twenty-one of South Carolina's forty-six counties, nearly all located in the lower half of the state, had a majority black population. Outnumbered by the black population, whites in these counties comprised the bulk of South Carolina's hard-line segregationists. Outside the black belt and areas with substantial black populations, most whites took a moderate segregationist position. They supported Jim Crow, but not at the price of lawlessness and disorder. (1)

Southern Baptists shared the same opinions as their white neighbors. Most hard-line segregationists lived in the black belt and in urban areas with significant numbers of black inhabitants. They stoutly defended segregation in the sincere belief that it formed part of God's plan for the human race. Hardliners often cited biblical verses, which they claimed, sanctioned racial separation. A larger proportion of Baptists, located mainly in the Piedmont and Pee Dee regions, were moderate segregationists. Although they favored segregation, moderates did not invest it with biblical justification. Consequently, they were able to accept, albeit grudgingly, the demise of Jim Crow as it was overturned by the federal courts and Congress. Confronted with a choice between maintaining segregation illegally and compliance, Baptists chose the latter. Moderate segregationists were also influenced by Baptist progressives, who argued that segregation and racism denied biblical teachings and undermined missions abroad. (2)

Progressive Baptists included some denominational leaders, and a small number of pastors and laypeople. They presented their message at meetings of the Baptist State Convention and in sermons and public pronouncements. Progressives served on the Convention's Social Service Commission that provided guidance on ethical issues. The Commission presented reports and recommendations at the Convention's annual meetings for the approval of the messengers. Adopted reports and recommendations did not bind churches, but they indicated predominant Baptist thought on social issues. (3)

Hard-line segregationists offered progressives stiff resistance at convention meetings and in the churches. Both groups sought to sway the ranks of moderate segregationists. The Convention passed through three stages between 1954 and the early 1970s. In its first stage, the Convention appealed to Baptists to accept school desegregation mandated by the U.S. Supreme Court in Brown v. Board of Education (May 1954). During the Convention's second stage between 1955 and 1960, mounting opposition to desegregation among Baptists and other white Carolinians drove progressives and the Convention into public silence on racial issues. The Convention entered its third stage in 1961 during which progressives urged Baptists to support desegregation of its colleges and the public schools. Opposed to desegregation in the early 1960s, many Baptists reluctantly adjusted to its demise when its maintenance threatened the missionary enterprise, law and order, and public education.

The Baptist Response to the Brown Decision

The Brown decision had special resonance for South Carolina because its five cases included Clarendon County in the heart of the state's black belt. In response to the filing of Briggs v. Elliott, the Clarendon case, Governor James F. Byrnes had tried to dissuade the Supreme Court from ruling against segregation by launching a statewide school equalization program. He had also proposed, and the voters overwhelmingly approved, deletion of the state's constitutional obligation to provide public education. When the Court made its ruling, South Carolina's leading politicians protested. Governor Byrnes declared himself "shocked to learn that the Court had reversed itself," but he urged Carolinians "to exercise restraint and preserve order." (4)

S. H. Jones, editor of The Baptist Courier, the state Convention's 88,500circulation weekly newspaper, echoed Byrnes's call for calm. Aware of Baptist support for segregation, Jones refused to address the merits of the ruling. Declaring himself "deeply interested in the public schools," he urged Carolinians to respect "the rights of all people" and to respond "in a Christian spirit and with clear thinking." The Southern Baptist Convention [SBC] took a more positive position by adopting the recommendations of its Christian Life Commission that Baptists should accept Brown as Christian and constitutional. (5)

Despite the pronouncements of their denominations, the segregation issue divided South Carolina's pastors. Many black-belt pastors spoke out in Jim Crow's defense. E. E. Colvin, pastor of the Immanuel Baptist Church, Orangeburg, urged blacks to observe voluntary segregation. Colvin claimed biblical justification for his position. He explained: "The Old Testament scriptures recognize the existence of things as they are. We find that also in the New Testament." A few pastors, located mainly in the Piedmont and Pee Dee regions, called on Baptists to comply with the Brown decision. Edward L. Byrd, pastor of First Baptist Church, Florence, rejected the use of the Bible to justify segregation. He declared: "Anyone who seeks shelter in the Bible for his racial prejudice or his defense of segregation ... takes a position that cannot be soundly defended." Byrd praised the Brown ruling as "fundamentally right." Most pastors remained silent for fear of alienating vocal segregationists who dominated their congregations. (6)

When the Baptist State Convention met in November, the Social Service Commission presented a report that urged Baptists to accept Brown by appealing to their primary commitments. The Commission argued that the public school system was essential to provide citizenship training and the literacy skills needed to read the Bible. It declared: "Every person should ... be able to read the Scriptures for himself, and thus the ability to read the Bible becomes basic to the individual's learning about God for himself." Baptists, the report insisted, had to respect members of all races. "We can act," the Commission announced, "upon our recognition of every person as an individual precious in the eyes of God." Christians had to "be law-abiding citizens," who sought "peaceful processes and a Christ-like spirit in the solution of our problem." Divided over the Supreme Court's ruling, the Convention did not vote on the report, but they only received it as information. However, the convention adopted the Commission's recommendation that "we work with other leaders in our communities to strengthen our public schools." (7)

Baptists and Desegregation, 1955-60

Public education remained intact in South Carolina, but the legislature passed a series of measures designed to protect segregation. They included abolition of the compulsory school attendance law, removal of teacher tenure and the automatic withdrawal of state funds to any school affected by a desegregation court order. In May 1955, the Supreme Court issued a second Brown ruling that called for desegregation to proceed "with all deliberate speed," but at a pace decided by federal district courts. In a manner akin to the position he had taken after the first ruling, S. H. Jones appealed for restraint. He declared: "Since the segregation issue is, for many people, one that involves deep convictions and strong feelings, we would caution against rash statements and actions. Calm, clear thinking is much-needed." By contrast, political leaders responded with defiance. Strom Thurmond, one of the state's U. S. senators, urged southern states to fight desegregation "with every legal weapon at their disposal." (8)

Blacks responded to the second Brown ruling by sending desegregation petitions to school boards. In response, hard-line segregationists formed Citizens' Councils in Orangeburg and surrounding black-belt counties. Council members employed economic boycotts against black petitioners, designed to force them to withdraw their names. (9)

Hard-line segregationists successfully exerted pressure on many churches and the Convention to end all discussion of race issues. Federal district judge George Bell Timmerman Sr., a biblical segregationist, father of the governor and chairman of the Board of Deacons of First Baptist Church, Batesburg, waged a one-man campaign to secure the removal of his pastor G. Jackson Stafford. Timmerman resented Stafford's vote in support of the Brown decision at the SBC's annual meeting in 1954. He feared it would embarrass the governor, who was also a church member. Although church deacons were reluctant to support him, Timmerman eventually won many of them over, while others stopped attending meetings. Stafford resigned in October 1955, rather than subject his congregation to an embarrassing debate. (10)

Stafford's case in Lexington County suggests that hard-line segregationist influence extended beyond its stronghold in the heart of the black belt. In Batesburg, a determined minority of hard-line segregationists intimidated First Baptist's majority of moderate segregationists and progressives into silent acquiescence. In a show of hands no more than twenty-five church members voted to accept Stafford's resignation. None voted against acceptance, but the remainder of the nearly three hundred members present abstained from voting. In subsequent conversations, over one hundred of the abstainers told Stafford that they had feared "social, financial, or political retaliation" if they had voted not to accept his resignation. Stafford commented: "I do not think ... that the action of the deacons in forcing my resignation represented the attitude of the church members at large as much as it represented the prevailing political atmosphere of South Carolina." In similar fashion, hard-line segregationist pressure dissuaded the Christian Life (formerly Social Service) Commission from discussing race relations in its reports between 1955 and 1960. (11)

Diehard segregationists dominated the public debate among Southern Baptists. In February 1956, they invited biblical segregationist W. A. Criswell, pastor of First Baptist Church, Dallas, Texas, to address the Convention's evangelism conference. Criswell vigorously defended segregation. Governor George Bell Timmerman Jr. responded by inviting Criswell to address a joint session of the General Assembly. Criswell told the legislators: "Let them integrate. Let them sit up there in their dirty shirts and make all their fine speeches. But they are all a bunch of infidels, dying from the neck up." (12)

South Carolina's politicians adopted an increasingly tough line against desegregation. In March, 101 southern congressmen signed the "Southern Manifesto," including the state's entire delegation in Washington. Drafted in large part by Strom Thurmond, the "Manifesto" denounced Brown as "a clear abuse of judicial power" and endorsed resistance to "forced integration by any lawful means." (13) The General Assembly approved an interposition resolution that claimed the Supreme Court had exceeded its authority and warned that South Carolina reserved the right "to protect its sovereignty and the rights of its people." The legislators also approved a resolution commending the Citizens' Councils, and political leaders spoke at Council meetings. Council membership peaked at between 25,000 and 40,000, but it remained overwhelmingly concentrated in the black belt, where some pastors endorsed the movement. (14)

Encouraged by the atmosphere of defiance and with progressives in the Baptist State Convention already silenced, hard-line segregationists turned their attention to the SBC and its Christian Life Commission. Blackbelt segregationists sent letters to the Commission protesting against the race relations literature it distributed across the South attacking the biblical defense of segregation. Upset by its pamphlet "Is Segregation Christian?" alarmed layman C. Doyle Burgess asked the Commission: "Are the leaders of our denomination intimating, suggesting, or projecting the idea that we as Baptist Churches should open our doors to our colored brother ...?" Segregationists frequently argued that desegregation would lead to interracial marriage, and that the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) served the cause of Communism. The Reverend Harry E. Dawkins wrote to G. Avery Lee, a Commission pamphleteer:

   It is an established fact that the Communist[s] are using the NAACP. The
   ultimate goal of the NAACP in America is to bring about one race which of
   coarse [sic] will be a Mongoleon [sic] race. Do you have any children that
   you can encourage in inter-marriage relationship[?] (15)

The Commission's efforts won praise from South Carolina's Baptist leaders. Chas F. Sims, the Convention's general secretary-treasurer, wrote to A. C. Miller, the Commission's executive secretary: "I think I could very well use here in the office 50 copies of the Christian Life Commissions' [sic] report to the Southern Baptist Convention." Some pastors also expressed their appreciation of the Commission's efforts. Florence pastor W. E. Mating wrote to Miller, "You are rendering a most helpful service.... God bless you and don't get discouraged by criticism." (16)

Segregationist criticism of the Commission mounted in the summer of 1957 after its annual report to the SBC criticized segregation. Black-belt churches inundated the Commission and denominational leaders with resolutions of protest. The Baptist Courier received so many resolutions that its trustees gave S. H. Jones permission to stop publishing them. The resolutions asserted that segregation was God's will and urged the Commission to desist from supporting the "Communist" goal of integration. Some churches withdrew, and others threatened to withdraw, their contributions to the SBC's budget, known as the Cooperative Program. Large churches, such as the 2,000-member First Baptist Church, Orangeburg, passed the first resolutions and smaller churches followed in their wake. Laymen, rather than pastors, initiated the resolutions. In some cases, laymen forced them through over the objections of their pastors. According to Chas F. Sims, the resolution of First Baptist, Orangeburg, was "the outgrowth of the leadership of a few extremists." Fred T. Laughton Jr., the church's pastor, felt powerless to stop them. He recalled: "I knew that it was hopeless to try to fight it. I figured then that the only thing, and the best thing, would be to take it as a matter of course with a minimum of fanfare. They were in no mood for reason or truth." Laughton later resigned his pastorate under segregationist pressure. (17)

Organized resistance was strongest in the Santee Association, where segregationists formed a Layman's Group in the summer of 1957. The laymen drew up a biblical segregationist resolution that condemned the Christian Life Commission and secured its adoption by many of the association's churches. Members of the Layman's Group sponsored a convention resolution in November 1957 that requested the Baptist State Convention to: "Appeal to the Southern Baptist Convention and particularly to its Christian Life Commission for understanding and help rather than pronouncements and criticisms." The messengers rejected the resolution in favor of a substitute that reaffirmed their faith in the Cooperative Program and the SBC. The substitute reminded Baptists that the Cooperative Program supported missions, the very purpose for which the state and regional conventions had been created. S. L. Touchberry, chairman of the Layman's Group, lamented that its "effort failed because of lack of support from the other associations of the state." Although hard-line segregationists failed to align the Convention with their views, they silenced its more progressive voices. (18)

Baptists and Desegregation, 1961-71

Direct action by the Civil Rights movement led to the beginning of the Baptist State Convention's third stage in 1961, when progressives again spoke out. The sit-in movement, begun by North Carolina students in February 1960 at lunch counters that refused them service, spread rapidly to every section of South Carolina. Governor Ernest F. Hollings condemned the sit-ins as designed "purely to create violence and not to promote anyone's rights." The protests continued over the next three years and widened into an attack on all forms of segregation. (19)

The Baptist State Convention ignored the sit-ins at its meeting in November 1960, but in 1961 the Christian Life Commission insisted that Baptists could no longer put their "head[s] in the sand." Although the Commission had "no specific solution to this problem," it did not condemn direct action. Instead, it expressed the hope that "God's will" would prevail, with neither "bitterness" nor "violence" occurring. The Convention adopted the report. (20) The protests encouraged some progressives to attack segregation. In a debate about its institutions of higher education, Hartsville pastor David J. Wells asked the Convention to "instruct all of our institutions to receive students irrespective of race, color, or creed." The segregationist majority defeated his motion. (21)

As civil rights demonstrations continued in 1962, the Christian Life Committee's report appealed to Baptists "to seek to know and thus present a correct `image' as Christians in this area." Concerned for the state's image, government officials and business leaders called for lawful obedience to the desegregation of Clemson College in January 1963 under federal court. Horace G. Hammett, general secretary-treasurer of the Baptist State Convention, joined the leaders of South Carolina's other major denominations in issuing a plea that the state "not ... be disgraced by violence." (22)

The Convention's Christian Life and Public Affairs Committee released a statement that commended public officials for "their wise and consistent efforts to preserve order," cautioned against violent resistance, and called for the preservation of public education. "Education," the Committee declared, "is essential to the highest interests of both religion and democracy." S. H. Jones welcomed the Committee's statement. Jones commented:

   There is not full agreement, even among Christians, on the question of race
   relations; however, there should certainly be agreement that law and order
   should prevail always. Also, Christians are motivated by good will toward
   all people and can never afford to approve violence.

In Columbia, eighteen Southern Baptist pastors and denominational officials joined over one hundred white ministers in calling for acceptance of racial equality. Clemson College admitted its first black student, Harvey Gantt, without incident. (23)

In September 1963, the University of South Carolina and Charleston's public schools peacefully desegregated under federal court order. Encouraged by their students and faculty, the trustees of Furman University, a Baptist institution in Greenville, voted in October 1963 to admit qualified black applicants. Although the trustees had independent authority, the General Board of the Baptist State Convention asked them to defer action until the Convention could study its implications and adopt a policy for all of its colleges. The Board presented its recommendation for further study to the Convention's annual meeting in November. (24)

At the Convention, progressives and hard-line segregationists clashed over the General Board's recommendation. The Florence Association presented a resolution in favor of letting Furman's trustees decide their admissions policy, but the Charleston Association proposed that the Convention direct, rather than request, trustees to delay action. A lengthy debate ensued in which segregationists and progressives hardened their positions. In a substitute motion Julian Cave Sr., urged the Convention to disapprove of any Baptist college desegregation. In reply, James Browder declared: "It is foolish to send missionaries to non-white areas if we pass this substitute motion which disapproves of integrating our colleges." The Convention's moderate segregationist majority adopted the middle ground of accepting the General Board's recommendation requesting a delay by Furman, pending further study and a report to the Convention's next meeting. Furman complied with the recommendation. (25)

The Convention also approved a Christian Life and Public Affairs Committee recommendation to convene an open conference on race relations. Held in April 1964 at First Baptist Church, Columbia, the conference attracted over nine hundred participants. As usual in public gatherings, segregationists dominated the proceedings. Forty-four of the fifty-three ministers and laymen who spoke opposed desegregation. (26)

The annual meeting of the Baptist State Convention in November presented a more accurate snapshot of Baptist opinion. By a narrow margin, 943 votes to 915, the messengers rejected the General Board's recommendation that they leave admissions policies to the discretion of Baptist college trustees. In a vote taken after "many of the messengers" had left, they expressed their disapproval of college integration by a margin of 905 votes to 575. Desegregation split Baptists decisively. (27)

Despite the Convention's decision, South Carolina's Baptist students voted to integrate Baptist Student Union activities on a state level. Impelled by their primary commitments, Furman trustees also defied the Convention by reaffirming their nondiscriminatory admissions policy. J. Wilbert Wood, chairman of the Board of Trustees, explained: "A nondiscriminatory admissions policy for Furman University is necessary because it is right, it is Christian, ... and it is in accord with our denomination's great worldwide program of missions." The university admitted black students in January 1965. (28)

Further evidence of Baptist division appeared in April 1965, when Furman signed the nondiscrimination pledge required under Title VI of the 1964 Civil Rights Act for students and their institutions to remain eligible for federal loans. Anderson [Junior] College refused to sign and North Greenville Junior College in Tigerville remained undecided. All of the state's public universities and colleges had desegregated by 1965. (29)

Surveys of white South Carolinians, many of whom were Baptist, indicate that the majority of whites accepted desegregation of public accommodations under the Civil Rights Act, but they did so without enthusiasm. A survey conducted in 1966 found that 20 percent of whites were hard-line segregationists, while 42 percent considered the pace of integration in the state "about right," and 57 percent believed it to be "too fast." (30) Letters to The Baptist Courier demonstrated that a growing number of Baptists rejected segregation. In March, an African student was refused admission to worship services at Tattnall Square Baptist church, in Macon, Georgia. Distressed by the incident, all but one reader argued that church admissions policies, as Easley layman Charles E. Holliday explained, had to reflect "the spirit of Christ." Nevertheless, many Baptist churches in South Carolina remained closed to blacks. (31)

South Carolina adjusted to desegregation without major incident until February 1968 when state patrolmen killed three black students at South Carolina State College in Orangeburg, during a round of protests sparked by the refusal of a bowling alley to desegregate. The Christian Life and Public Affairs Commission responded by calling for the creation of local biracial task forces across the state to improve communication between the races and defuse conflict. (32)

In April, the assassination of Martin Luther King Jr. in Memphis led to riots and confrontations across the state and nation. In response, Horace G. Hammett, A. Harold Cole, assistant general secretary of the Baptist State Convention, and John E. Roberts, editor of The Baptist Courier, joined nearly seventy other denominational leaders from across the South in signing "A Statement of Christian Concern." The statement, adopted by the SBC in June, supported open churches, and equal opportunities in education, housing, and employment. (33)

When the Baptist State Convention met in November, the Baptist Student Union presented a statement in support of open churches. It announced that:

      We do not see how a stand of racial prejudice or segregation can be
   derived from Christianity.

      Can we afford the vice of mental isolation that permits us to send
   missionaries to Kenya and Nigeria to establish Baptist churches among the
   black men there while we will not open membership in our churches to black
   men here?

Hard-line segregationist resistance led the messengers to receive the statement as "information only." (34)

A few churches, such as First Baptist, Charleston, adopted open admissions policies. Encouraged by breaches in church segregation, the Convention adopted a Christian Life and Public Affairs Committee report in 1969 that endorsed open churches, equal opportunities, and "a single-system of quality education for all children." By 1970, all of the Convention's colleges had abolished racial discrimination in admissions. (35)

Federal courts ordered South Carolina to move from tokenism to full school desegregation in 1970. The Christian Life and Public Affairs Committee pleaded for Baptists to support public education. It reminded them: "Our support of public education and our acceptance of every individual as a person to be treated with dignity are crucial steps toward ... [the] objective of world evangelism." Although Governor Robert E. McNair took a firm stand for law and order, school desegregation initially led to incidents of violence and school closings. Some Southern Baptists escaped segregation by sending their children to hastily--created church schools, but the vast majority kept faith with the public schools and accepted desegregation. By 1972, only 4 percent of South Carolina's school children attended private schools. (36)

A hard core of committed segregationists sought to ensure that blacks were not admitted to Southern Baptist churches. In September 1971 Due West Baptist Church voted to maintain its ban on black admissions by a margin of three to one, after its pastor Don Stevenson had invited the interracial Baptist Student Union to use church facilities for its meetings. The next month church deacons cancelled the service because a black student was present, and the congregation voted forty-seven to thirty-six to dismiss Stevenson. However, fear of adverse publicity also led the church to end its discriminatory admissions policy. (37)

In response to the Due West incident, the Baptist Student Union successfully called on the state Convention to adopt a resolution supporting a day of reconciliation and prayer by its churches, so that they might "re-examine their position on the racial issue." Adoption of the resolution indicated that by 1971, most South Carolina Baptists rejected segregation in principle. Although the vast majority of Baptist churches had made little effort to integrate and remained lily-white, it was significant that the weight of Baptist public opinion forced Due West to abandon its segregation policy. In subsequent years, more churches rejected exclusionary policies, leaving a core of hard-line, segregationist churches. As late as 1976 the Convention passed a resolution which acknowledged that "many" of its churches were still struggling with racial exclusion policies. Nevertheless, it also noted that "many have opened their membership to all races, ethnic, and minority groups" and commended their actions. (38)

Conclusion

Divided between hard-line segregationists, moderate segregationists and progressives who rejected segregation, most Southern Baptists reluctantly accepted the end of Jim Crow, as it was outlawed by the federal courts and the Civil Rights Act. Progressives encouraged Baptists to accept desegregation by appealing to their belief in law and order, and also to their commitments to scripture, evangelism and education. Racist resistance by southern whites, they argued, discredited Baptist missions abroad, and threatened the public education system on which American democracy and religion itself depended. Concentrated in the black-belt and purposeful in their defense of Jim Crow, hard-line segregationists exercised an influence beyond their numbers. They succeeded in silencing the Convention during the peak of the state's resistance to the Brown ruling in the second half of the 1950s. However, court-ordered desegregation and direct action by the Civil Rights movement led progressives to renew and intensify their efforts in support of desegregation in the early 1960s. A hard core of segregationists remained in the 1970s and few Baptists actively sought to integrate their churches. Yet, most Baptists rejected legal segregation and overt discrimination as unjust.

Endnotes

Mark Newman is lecturer in history, University of Derby, Derby, England.

(1.) Numan V. Bartley, The Rise of Massive Resistance: Race and Politics in the South During the 1950's (Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 1969), 13-14, 45, 92-94; Neil R. McMillen, The Citizens' Council: Organized Resistance to the Second Reconstruction, 1954-64 (Urbana, Ill.: University of Illinois Press, 1994 [1971]), 75-77; Jack Bass and Walter DeVries, The Transformation of Southern Politics: Social Change and Political Consequence Since 1945 (New York: Basic Books, 1976), 249; Chester W. Bain, "South Carolina: Partisan Prelude," in William C. Havard (ed.), The Changing Politics of the South (Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 1972), 590-93.

(2.) Resolutions in Christian Life Commission Papers and Brooks Hays Papers (Southern Baptist Historical Library and Archives); Minutes, Baptist State Convention of South Carolina, 1963, 3, 36, 39-42.

(3.) Ibid., 1971, 163-64.

(4.) William Bagwell, School Desegregation in the Carolinas: Two Case Studies (Columbia, S.C.: University of South Carolina Press, 1972), 126-29 (Byrnes quotation on p. 129); McMillen, 74; Nadine Cohodas, Strom Thurmond and the Politics of Southern Change (Macon, Ga.: Mercer University Press, 1993), 224-34, 238, 248-54.

(5.) S. H. Jones, "Segregation and the Schools," The Baptist Courier 86 (June 3, 1954): 2; Annual, Southern Baptist Convention, 1954, 55-56, 403.

(6.) Howard H. Quint, Profile in Black and White: A Frank Portrait of South Carolina (Washington, D.C.: Public Affairs Press, 1958), 59, 64-67 (Colvin quotation on p. 66; Byrd quotations on p. 64).

(7.) Minutes, Baptist State Convention of South Carolina, 1954, 15, 21, 126-29 (quotations on pp. 126-28).

(8.) Bagwell, 88 (first quotation), 138-39 (third quotation on p. 139); S. H. Jones, "The Segregation Issue," The Baptist Courier 87 (June 16, 1955): 2 (second quotation); Quint, 25-28.

(9.) McMillen, 74-77, 210-13; Bartley, 92-93.

(10.) Letter from G. Jackson Stafford to Porter Routh, August 26, September 27, 1955 and G. Jackson Stafford, "It Happened in a Baptist Church," January 1, 1956 (Southern Baptist Historical Library and Archives).

(11.) Ibid.; Minutes, Baptist State Convention of South Carolina, 1955, 23-24; 1956, 18, 141-42; 1957, 144-46; 1958, 160-62; 1959, 157-62; 1960, 152-54.

(12.) Criswell quoted in "Dallas Pastor Stirs Controversy With Statements On Integration," The Baptist Message 73 (March 1, 1956): 1; Quint, 60-61.

(13.) Cohodas, 283-86 (quotations on pp. 284-85); Bagwell, 143.

(14.) Bartley, 93-94, 131, 136-37, 198; Quint, 46-50, 64-65, 104-109 (quotation on p. 108).

(15.) Letters from C. Doyle Burgess to the Christian Life Commission, April 24, 1956 and Harry E. Dawkins to G. Avery Lee, September 21, 1956 (Southern Baptist Historical Library and Archives).

(16.) Letters from Chas F. Sims to A. C. Miller, July 17, 1957 and from W. E. Maring to A. C. Miller, November 21, 1957 (Southern Baptist Historical Library and Archives).

(17.) Annual, Southern Baptist Convention, 1957, 366-68; resolutions in The Baptist Courier 89 (July 18, August 22, September 12, October 31, 1957); resolutions in the SBC Christian Life Commission Papers and Brooks Hays Papers, letters from Chas F. Sims to A. C. Miller, July 5, 1957, R. E. Lattimore to A. C. Miller, September 20, 1957, George Lovell to C. C. Warren, November 7, 1957, and Fred T. Laughton Jr., to A. C. Miller, June 25, 1957 (Southern Baptist Historical Library and Archives).

(18.) Minutes, Baptist State Convention of South Carolina, 1957, 23-24 (first quotation on p. 23); resolutions in the SBC Christian Life Commission Papers and letter from S. L. Touchberry, Laymen's Group, Santee Association to "Fellow Baptists", February 25, 1958 (Southern Baptist Historical Library and Archives).

(19.) I. A. Newby, Black Carolinians: A History of Blacks in South Carolina from 1895 to 1968 (Columbia, S. C.: University of South Carolina Press, 1973), 314-27, 348-49 (quotation on p. 321).

(20.) Minutes, Baptist State Convention of South Carolina, 1960, 34, 152-54; 1961, 52, 166 (quotations).

(21.) Ibid., 44-45, 192 (quotation on p. 45).

(22.) Ibid., 1962, 42-43, 153-54 (first quotation on p. 154); Bagwell, 164-70; "Prepare For Orderly Desegregation," The Alabama Baptist 128 (January 31, 1963): 4 (second quotation).

(23.) "Christian Life And Public Affairs Committee Issues Statement," The Baptist Courier 95 (January 31, 1963): 19 (first quotation); S. H. Jones, "For Law And Order," The Baptist Courier 95 (January 31, 1963): 2 (second quotation); "Prepare For Orderly Desegregation," The Alabama Baptist 128 (January 31, 1963): 4; Bagwell, 164-70. The General Board had authorized the merger of the Christian Life Commission and the Public Affairs Committee in 1962. Minutes, Baptist State Convention of South Carolina, 1971, 163-64.

(24.) Bagwell, 171; "Furman Trustees Adopt Policy on Applications," The Baptist Courier 95 (October 17, 1963): 5; "Board Asks Delay," The Christian Index 142 (October 24, 1963): 3; S. H. Jones, "General Board Meets," The Baptist Courier 95 (October 24, 1963): 2.

(25.) Minutes, Baptist State Convention of South Carolina, 1963, 3, 36, 40-42 (quotation on p. 41), 51, 89-91.

(26.) Ibid., 1963, 45, 161-62; "Conference, Columbia April 30," The Baptist Courier 96 (April 23, 1964): 16; Douglas P. Blackwell, "Conference on Race Relations," The Baptist Courier 96 (May 7, 1964): 18.

(27.) Minutes, Baptist State Convention of South Carolina, 1964, 3, 42-44, 96 (quotation on p. 44).

(28.) Wood quoted in Erwin L. McDonald, "Courageous Furman," Arkansas Baptist Newsmagazine 64 (February 18, 1965): 3; "South Carolina college admits Negro applicants," Baptist Standard 77 (February 17, 1965): 14; "S. C. Baptist Student Union Votes `State Level' Desegregation," Religious News Service, December 9, 1964, 2.

(29.) "Most Schools Sign U.S. Compliance," The Baptist Record 86 (April 15, 1965): 1-2; Newby, 332.

(30.) Jack Bass and Jack Nelson, The Orangeburg Massacre rev. ed. (Macon, Ga.: Mercer University Press, 1984), 131 (quotations); Bagwell, 133-34.

(31.) Letter from Charles E. Holliday to The Baptist Courier 98 (November 3, 1966): 4; letters to The Baptist Courier 98 (October 13, 20, November 3, 10, 1966); "South Carolina Pastor Fired; Race, Authority Reasons Cited," Baptist Press, November 8, 1971, 1-2.

(32.) "Biracial Task Force Urged by South Carolina Baptists," The Alabama Baptist 133 (April 18, 1968): 6.

(33.) John E. Roberts, "A Look at the Statement on National Crisis," The Baptist Courier 100 (May 30, 1968): 3; Annual, Southern Baptist Convention, 1968, 67-69, 73; Walter B. Edgar, South Carolina in the Modern Age (Columbia, S.C.: University of South Carolina Press, 1992), 135-36.

(34.) Minutes, Baptist State Convention of South Carolina, 1968, 36-37.

(35.) Ibid., 1969, 70, 175 (quotation); Robert A. Baker and Paul J. Craven Jr., Adventure in Faith: The First 300 Years of First Baptist Church, Charleston, South Carolina (Nashville: Broadman Press, 1982), 387-88; W. T. Moore, His Heart is Black (Atlanta: Home Mission Board of the Southern Baptist Convention, 1978), 80.

(36.) "Christian Life Committee Calls For Calm in the Face of Integration," The Baptist Courier 102 (January 29, 1970): 2 (quotation); Edgar, 124-28; Neal R. Peirce, The Deep South States of America: People, Politics, and Power in the Seven Deep South States (New York: W. W. Norton, 1974), 395-96.

(37.) John Roberts, "Due West Church Fires Pastor; Opens Doors," The Baptist Courier 103 (November 4, 1971): 4.

(38.) Minutes, Baptist State Convention of South Carolina, 1971, 65; 1976, 54.