A race relations laboratory.

Weaver, Doug

I grew up in Richmond, Virginia. I attended one public elementary school that was integrated; the other one wasn't.

That is how it was for neighborhood schools; some were still fully segregated. School segregation had already been addressed in the 1954 decision, Brown v. Board of Education, with its decree that "separate but equal" was unconstitutional. But the court's message to desegregate in "due speed" unsurprisingly advanced along a snail's pace.

As I was about to enter the ninth grade and attend the school from where my brother had recently graduated, federally mandated busing was implemented. I spent four years at one of the two historically black high schools in Richmond that had never had white students.

I have many memories, mostly good. Separate but equal was certainly a falsehood when it came to facilities. There was racial tension at the school at times; and the tragic shooting death of a friend was painted as racial by some--though it had to do with a boyfriend/girl-friend fight gone bad outside the school's front door.

One powerful memory dates back to my first semester. Playing basketball in gym class, I thought I was fouled. In typical "pick-up game" fashion I yelled, "You fouled me," after I had been hit on the arm shooting the ball. But play stopped and things got silent. I had not just said "You fouled me," but "You fouled me, boy."

I had no clue what I had done. But the African-American student who fouled me looked at me with anger in his eyes and said I was in trouble. I ran but he caught me at the other end of the gym. We were alone. He said: "You were disrespectful to me; I could hurt you, but I won't. Let me give you some advice. Don't ever again calla young black man a boy."

Years later, when I began to use Martin Luther King Jr.'s Letter from Birmingham Jail in my teaching, the real impact of that day in gym class bit me. For King wrote:

   Perhaps it is easy for those who have never felt the stinging dark
   of segregation to say, "Wait." But when you have seen vicious mobs
   lynch your mothers and fathers at will ... when your first name
   becomes "nigger," your middle name becomes "boy" (however old you
   are), and your last name becomes "John," ... then you will
   understand why we find it difficult to wait.

Racial reconciliation and Richmond have always been entwined for me. And thus this year's annual conference of the Baptist History & Heritage Society was extra special--the site: the University of Richmond; the topic: "Faith, Freedom, Forgiveness: Religion and the Civil War, Emancipation and Reconciliation in Our Time."

This issue of the journal includes some of the conference presentations that reveal the breadth of topics covered when examining religion and the Civil War, and how issues of race still need reconciliation. We are pleased to have the keynote address of Edward L. Ayers, president of the University of Richmond. His speech was a fascinating look at tensions in the ministry of Robert Ryland, who also was president of the University of Richmond and (white) pastor of the First African Baptist Church, Richmond, during the antebellum period. Another keynote address was delivered by Andrew Manis of Middle Georgia State College. Manis, a leading authority on the Civil Rights Movement, offered a sermonic-like challenge to more reconciliation forward today. Manis also reminded us that those who claim America has been a Christian nation have forgotten the story of race relations.

Other papers include different facets of the role of religion in the Civil War. Chris Moore offers a detailed examination of Baptist responses to reconciliation in the post-war era by examining the Biblical Recorder of North Carolina from 1865 to 1877. He reveals that the good words about reconciliation were betrayed by loyalty to the budding mythology of the southern Lost Cause. D. H. Dilbeck gives an in-depth analysis of the debate over slavery from two leading Baptists, northerner Francis Wayland and southerner Richard Fuller. The debate, contrary to most of that era, was an attempt at civil discourse. C. Edward Spann contends for the pivotal role of religious music in the Civil War. Mike Williams offers an in-depth look at a pro-Confederate Fast Day Sermon preached by I. T. Tichenor, later known for his leadership in home missions. Tichenor embodies the Old South (slavery)/New South (economics) approach of the late nineteenth century. Check out Williams' excellent book on Tichenor!

Last, but certainly not least, this issue includes several selections from the digital project, Baptists and the American Civil War: In Their Own Words, by our own Bruce Gourley. Check them out, and also the website.

Doug Weaver

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