Jan
14
2013
Segregation Defeated
No two men more extensively shaped life in Alabama during the 20th century. But Alabama didn't choose Martin Luther King Jr. Or at least not so many did---that honor belongs solely to those who called King to lead Dexter Avenue Baptist Church in Montgomery and those who followed him through the gauntlet of firehoses, dogs, and billy clubs on the streets of Birmingham in 1963. But Alabama chose George Corley Wallace Jr.---not everyone, of course, but enough to elect him governor in 1962. When term limits prevented him from seeking re-election in 1966, his wife, Lurleen,was elected. When she died unexpectedly in office, Alabamians re-elected her husband in 1970. Not even the assassin's bullets on the presidential campaign trail could keep Wallace down, and he served one final term as governor of Alabama from 1983 to 1987.
Fifty years ago, Wallace gave Alabama what we wanted: a full-throated, no-compromise defense of segregation between whites and blacks. King and his allies may have won the Montgomery bus boycott in the courts in 1956, but eight years later Wallace still won in the court of public opinion. He stood in Montgomery on January 14, 1963, and took the oath of office where Jefferson Davis once shouldered his duties as the first and only president of the Confederate States of America.
It is very appropriate that from this cradle of the Confederacy, this very heart of the great Anglo-Saxon Southland, that today we sound the drum for freedom as have our generations of forebears before us time and again down through history. Let us rise to the call for freedom-loving blood that is in us and send our answer to the tyranny that clanks its chains upon the South. In the name of the greatest people that have ever trod this earth, I draw the line in the dust and toss the gauntlet before the feet of tyranny, and I say segregation now, segregation tomorrow, segregation forever.
Wallace knew this line would invite boisterous applause in Montgomery. But he did not know this line would be a relic of history by the end of 1963. Forever didn't even last one year.
Stain of Segregation
No one will fault you, Christian, for being discouraged by trends in Western culture. You may feel like religious freedom has been trampled under the feet of tyranny. You may feel like biblical values have been lost forever. You may wonder how any culture devoted to individualism, consumerism, and relativism can long endure. But know this lesson from Scripture and history: no injustice survives the purifying fires of God forever.
Today it looks like marriage has been lost. Already crippled by divorce and cohabitation, marriage has been twisted beyond recognition by gay rights. We fear that now, tomorrow, and forever Christian voices will be silenced either by force or by social intimidation. We wonder how we became the enemy when we only want what's best for our neighbors. And we cannot foresee how this trend might reverse. Then again, neither could African Americans trapped in decades of Jim Crow oppression foresee how God would bring a sudden end to segregation during Wallace's tenure.
When King began leading freedom marches in Alabama's largest city, Birmingham, it appeared more likely that his career would end in failure and irrelevance than in a national holiday. Writing from Birmingham Jail to fellow clergymen in April 1963, King believed against evidence that history would tell a different story than his momentary troubles suggested.
One day the South will recognize its real heroes. . . . One day the South will know that when these disinherited children of God sat down at lunch counters, they were in reality standing up for what is best in the American dream and for the most sacred values in our Judeo-Christian heritage, thereby bringing our nation back to those great wells of democracy which were dug deep by the founding fathers.
Both sides read the same Bible and prayed to the same God. Both sides asked God to defeat the other. But God could not answer the prayers of both sides in the way they hoped. God had his own purposes. In this appointed time of 1963, God willed to remove the stain of segregation. For "the judgments of the Lord are true and righteous altogether" (Psalm 19:9, KJV). And God had decided to use the weak to shame the strong.
King's decision to march children through the streets of public safety commissioner Bull Connor's Birmingham reflected less of his organizational genius and more of his desperation. He had already gone to jail. He had pleaded for moderate white clergymen to join the cause. But so far King had little to show for the hardship. The great industrial city might never change, and "Birmingham's past would be his future, in which case he was finished," Pulitzer Prize-winning historian Taylor Branch observed.
Turning Point
The turning point came on Friday, May 3, 1963. More than 1,000 young people crammed inside Sixteenth Street Baptist Church and slowly emerged with the goal of marching through Birmingham's segregated downtown business district. Aiming to keep them away, Bull Connor's fire department unleashed water from monitor guns that could strip bark from trees 100 feet away. Almost all of the crowd fled for cover. Branch recounts:
Then the firemen advanced toward the holdouts, pounding them with water at close range. The holdouts sat down on the sidewalk to stabilize themselves. It was a moment of baptism for the civil rights movement, and Birmingham's last effort to wash away the stain of dissent against segregation.
The effect was immediate, though not in the way Connor, Wallace, and other defenders of segregation had hoped. Black businessmen, once fearful of pushing desegregation too quickly, joined King's cause when they saw little black girls tumbling down the street. Newspaper readers across the nation recoiled at the image of a white policeman unleashing a dog to bite the abdomen of a smartly dressed young black boy from a wealthy family. Nor could President John F. Kennedy, thus far ambivalent about civil rights, any longer ignore the television images putting a lie to democratic ideals at the height of the Cold War. One month later, after Wallace stood in the schoolhouse door to prevent black students from enrolling at the University of Alabama, Kennedy addressed the nation and proposed the Civil Rights Act. Passed in 1964 after Kennedy's death, this sweeping legislation, among many other provisions, barred cities like Birmingham and states like Alabama from enforcing segregation between races.
Nothing Impossible
We who call Alabama's largest city home live in full knowledge of our national reputation. In the Heart of Dixie, we're more likely to be remembered for Wallace's vow than for King's letter. The church where I belong meets in the education building constructed by the late Connor's church. I drive through his old neighborhood every Sunday afternoon and evening. As the great Southern writer William Faulkner once quipped, "The past is never dead. It's not even past."
No one knows better than us how much more we need to grow in grace and understanding toward one another across ethnic lines. We've solved government segregation but not poverty, not racism, not violence. But even as we wonder how God might intervene to do justice with these supposedly intractable problems, we remember 50 years ago when Wallace made a promise God would not allow him to keep. We remember King's civil rights movement, which battled Wallace with an impregnable combination of conviction, courage, compassion, and cooperation. And we take heart, because nothing will be impossible with God (Luke 1:37).
20 Comments
Great article, Collin. Interesting, however, that recent studies have shown that our public schools are resegregating rapidly: http://civilrightsproject.ucla.edu/research/k-12-education/integration-and-diversity/mlk-national
What would Dr. King do if he were alive today?
Just to be clear, Collin: You are associating Wallace and the segregationists of the 1960s South with those who are fighting for gay rights today? Because their long-standing cultural norms of gay marriage are being threatened?
What a bizarre association to make. It feels counter-intuitive to put those who wish to maintain the segregation of society by having a state marriage for heterosexual couples and a second class civil partnership for gay couples in the same camp as Martin Luther King Jr.
I guess it's no odder than putting Jesus in that camp too.
No. I'm saying it's easy to think cultures don't change. No one had reason to think segregation would fall in Alabama in 1963. And you'd have little reason to think today, 50 years later, that the traditional definition of marriage would endure. But cultures can and do change, for better and worse. I'm thankful that segregation ended. And I'm encouraged to know that even when we think all hope is lost, God is still at work.
No one will fault you, Christian, for being discouraged by trends in Western culture. You may feel like religious freedom has been trampled under the feet of tyranny. You may feel like biblical values have been lost forever. You may wonder how any culture devoted to individualism, consumerism, and relativism can long endure. But know this lesson from Scripture and history: no injustice survives the purifying fires of God forever.
This paragraph is over the top. There is no "tyranny" trampling religious freedom. Biblical values have not "been lost forever." Our culture is not any more "devoted to individualism, consumerism, and relativism" than it has been before. And I am not even sure what "purifying fires" means. Do we really want them? It sounds to me like a lot of people getting killed.
The Gospel Coalition has a large following. Please be a voice of reason. Not more craziness.
Hey Phil, it may only be a matter of perspective, but I would say that "public" religious rights, or at least tolerance, has gone way down in even the last 50 years. That isn't to say lots of good things haven't happened in 50 years, much like the article above tells us. And also, the article isn't saying that we are under tyranny or that biblical values have been lost forever, but I think this article is addressing the perception and emotion, which many Christians carry, that these things are indeed true. It can be said, very logically, that the country certainly isn't moving closer towards God on its own initiative. (Now, God may be working things out to a good which we cannot recognize, even in the midst of all of this.) And, although this is just my opinion and I hope I'm not coming off as argumentative here, God's purifying fire definitely seems to be biblical to me, especially in matters pertaining to justice and righteousness. You can read through the Old Testament to get an idea of God's desire to purify people and the nations. Please correct me if I'm wrong :)
Thanks for your reply. A couple thoughts:
the article isn't saying that we are under tyranny or that biblical values have been lost forever, but I think this article is addressing the perception and emotion, which many Christians carry, that these things are indeed true.
Are they true or not? It seems to me that the author is being cagey (by writing "you may feel") about these matters. I take him to mean (and I think most readers will take him to mean) that the author, in fact, believes these things to be true. At least the author is certainly identifying with those who believe these things to be true. My point is that they are not true. Given this, it is a mistake to say (or imply) that they are true.
It can be said, very logically, that the country certainly isn't moving closer towards God on its own initiative.
I guess you can say that same sex marriage means that this country isn't moving closer to the Christian Right's concept of God. But I think the Christian Left would disagree.
God's purifying fire definitely seems to be biblical to me, especially in matters pertaining to justice and righteousness. You can read through the Old Testament to get an idea of God's desire to purify people and the nations.
I agree that the author was looking for Biblical language. How does God purify people and the nations in the Old Testament? Do we want that? (And is that still relevant, given the New Testament?)
Populism is the discourse of American evangelicalism. That's why the tone of Wallace's speech sounds strangely familiar to modern ears. Especially for those of us living in the South, we tend to imagine ourselves under siege by "foreign" powers. But I don't believe this narrative, whether deeply felt or not, always reflects an accurate reading of the facts. Or in the case of Wallace, the narrative dare not to be used in defense of unrighteousness.
As for the purifying fires, this is imagery common to God's self-revelation in the Bible. The key word is "forever." Christians taking the example of Jesus pray, "God's will be done, on earth as it is heaven," because one day we believe this will be the case. All wrongs will be right, in this life or the next. Such was the hope of generations of African Americans who suffered without reprieve under slavery and Jim Crow.
Thanks for the comment.
This is a needed reminder of the division that can come between those who read the same Bible when the spirit of Christ is stifled.
Spurgeon notes that " it is a dangerous state of things if doctrine is made to drive out precept."
He was certainly clear about the issues of his day, unlike many of us evangelicals today. Compare his words http://spurgeonwarquotes.wordpress.com/
with Christian leaders described here: http://communities.washingtontimes.com/neighborhood/higher-things/2013/jan/9/christian-militarism-betrayal-christ/
Collin, while I appreciate your attempt to draw attention to the terrible injustice of America’s segregationist past… I honestly don’t know what to make of a post like this one.
This seems to me, at best, like a rather forced and tenuous analogy (as Darren alluded to above). Is it not the “traditional” view of marriage that has long enjoyed a place of ‘status quo’ in America? Are not those advocates of “marriage equality” precisely the ones arguing against what they perceive to be the discriminatory implications of America’s long-held moral and legal norms? I’m not suggesting that such arguments are sound or biblical… only that an argument by way of analogy to the civil rights movement clearly seems to favor those for, not against, “marriage equality.”
What’s more, doesn’t your argument from history risk an odd historicism that, once again, seems to hurt your cause more than it helps? You write: “Both sides read the same Bible and prayed to the same God. Both sides asked God to defeat the other. But God could not answer the prayers of both sides in the way they hoped. God had his own purposes. In this appointed time of 1963, God willed to remove the stain of segregation.” And yet, here we are fifty years later, both sides once more reading the same bible and claiming the authority of God, while the tide seems to be turning against your very cause! Again, I am not saying that this is evidence that God has in fact answered the prayers of those seeking “marriage equality” over and against those seeking to maintain the “traditional” view of marriage. I am simply worried that these sorts of historicist arguments can be (and historically, have been) used to baptize any given arrangement of power with the blessing of divine favor.
Finally, I worry that a post like this one may simply encourage what many already perceive to be a growing evangelical martyr complex… one in which the failure to garner public opinion for one’s cause in the Culture Wars could possibly be likened to the suffering of millions of African Americans under the tyranny of decades of institutionalized segregation.
Thank you for this reply, Jordan. You make some common points I anticipated in response to this article. The "martyr complex" was precisely what I hoped to undermine. Sympathizing with feelings of being besieged does not necessarily equate to endorsement. If some evangelicals feel marginalized, we meet them at this point, rather than condemning them as foolish. Yet from there we use history to show them how there is no simple and inevitable "traditional" or "progressive" narrative to cultural change. Whatever your take on the culture wars, you can't say everything's getting "worse and worse" or "better and better." In fact, such false narratives become bludgeons of injustice in the hands of interest groups when wielded against the enemies of their "progress" or "tradition." When such self-appointed martyrs become emperors convinced of the righteousness of their cause, they cannot always be trusted to treat their vanquished foes as worthy of respect, dignity, and even protection. History is littered with this tragic pattern. And these emperors tend also to forget that public opinion is an unreliable ally.
This history lesson would make great drama, except it's just not true. Neither in Alabama, nor anywhere else in the South, was there a "sudden end to segregation during Wallace's tenure." The "stain of segregation" wasn't "removed" by God or anyone else in 1963, nor did Wallace's pledge "become a relic of history by the end of 1963."
Yes, the 1963 Birmingham Campaign, and the sight of fire hoses and dogs turned on children and nonviolent protesters was a critical point in the fight, along with the bombing deaths of 4 little girls at Birmingham's Sixteenth Street Baptist church, and MLK's "I Have a Dream" speech at the March on Washington. All of these spurred enactment of the 1964 Civil Rights Act. But, at the end of 1963, not only were the schools still completely segregated, and private businesses still refusing to serve, sell to, or accommodate blacks, but it would be two more years until "Bloody Sunday" where "Alabama state troopers and Selma police on horseback used clubs and tear gas to turn back the [MLK and civil rights] marchers on the Edmund Pettus Bridge." "In Birmingham ... meaningful change came slowly. The process of desegregation and black political empowerment took several more years to accomplish." See Encyl. of Ala. at http://www.encyclopediaofalabama.org/face/Article.jsp?id=h-1426
In 1963, although Univ. of Alabama enrolled 2 black students, elementary and secondary schools were still completely segregated. According to a 1969 US Supreme Court decision, "neither Montgomery County nor any other area in Alabama [had] voluntarily [taken] ANY effective steps to integrate the public schools for about 10 years after" the 1954 Brown v. Board of Education decision. See US v. Montgomery County Board, 395 U.S. 225 (1969) (opinion available on FindLaw) (emphasis added). "In fact, the record makes clear that the state government and its school officials attempted in every way possible to continue the dual system of racially segregated schools in defiance of our repeated unanimous holdings that such a system violated the United States Constitution." Id. When black parents sued in 1964 to integrate the Montgomery schools, Montgomery County defended its segregated system. After a trial, the federal court ordered Montgomery County to BEGIN integration of certain grades in the fall of 1964. Montgomery schools admitted 8 (of 16,000) black students to white schools. YEARS of on-going proceedings in federal court ensued. The school board "did not see eye to eye with [the federal judge] on the speed with which segregation should be wiped out 'root and branch' as we [SCOTUS] have held it must be done." Id. "The school board, having to face the 'complexities arising from the transition to a system of public education freed of racial discrimination' ... was constantly sparring [with the federal judge] for more time." Id.
Yes, Wallace's segregation pledge didn't last "forever," but where I grew up in South Florida, segregated public schools did last for almost another decade, until I started 7th grade in 1972.
Then there were the segregated private schools, many opened by white churches specifically to avoid integration, which claimed religious freedom to defy the law and keep their tax exempt status. See Bob Jones Univ. v. Simon, 416 U.S. 725 (1974) ("One of [BJU's] beliefs is that God intended segregation of the races and that the Scriptures forbid interracial marriage. Accordingly, [BJU] refuses to admit Negroes as students."), and Bob Jones Univ. v. U.S., 461 U.S. 574 (1983).
Yes, the Civil Rights Act was passed in 1964, but legislation alone did not end actual segregation by private businesses. It would take more Supreme Court orders to make private businesses comply. See, e.g., Katzenbach v. McClung, 379 U.S. 294 (1964) (suit by Birmingham restaurant challenging the CRA). And, even then, everyone knew where blacks were still not welcome.
This article's revisionist history is deeply offensive. The idea that the end of segregation came "suddenly" denigrates the hard work of the civil rights movement going back decades. And, the idea that segregation "ended" in 1963, or even upon passage of the 1964 Civil Rights Act, denies the years of struggle that came after.
The segregationists were so sure they had God on their side -- that the Bible, properly interpreted, required segregation. Those of us old enough to remember are well aware that, with God's help, cultures CAN change. Sometimes that requires that we read the Bible with newly opened eyes.
I appreciate you filling out the history. By the same standard you've set in this response, segregation continues today. In fact, many of us living in Birmingham might say that not much has changed with regard to self-segregation and economic inequality of opportunity in our neighborhoods and schools. So you're quite right to say that the challenges do not end even when the tide has turned. And that was my point: until 1963, you could not have imagined Alabama without segregation. That's why Wallace's speech made sense at the time. But after 1963, you could not have imagined segregation surviving in Alabama, no matter how many people wanted it to endure, and no matter how many hurdles would still need to be jumped. So I'm sorry that you find my assessment to be "deeply offensive." I agree that we owe deep thanks to those who fought segregation before 1963, those who fought it after 1963, and those who continue to fight injustice today.
Even if you're backing off on the statement that it was segregation ITSELF that "suddenly ended" in 1963, and are now asserting that it was the BELIEF that segregation would be forever that "suddenly ended" in 1963, which isn't what your article said at all, I think that's just as fundamentally flawed as a matter of history. In 1964 the end of segregation was not yet certain, so it's hard to give any credit to your claim that, at that time, "no one could imagine" segregation would survive. Certainly, the perpetrators of 1965's Bloody Sunday were still imagining, and were still violently fighting for, segregation forever. Claiming that the survival of segregation was, at that time, unimaginable, is offensive because it airbrushes out of the picture the reality of the remaining battles.
Moreover, doesn't the idea that by the end of 1963 the survival of segregation was unimaginable actually contradict the encouragement you are trying to give to Christians who believe their values are lost "forever"? If the civil rights movement teaches us anything about assessing social change, it is that, in the midst of social change, we are often unable to recognize if or when the tide has shifted or to recognize what God is "willing" for the future.
I'm not quite sure what you're insinuating, friend, but I haven't backed off any statement. The last gasps of segregationists following 1963 cannot substitute for the certainty and arrogance of Wallace's vow. As far as the Kennedy administration was concerned, the tide turned in 1963. And they had considerable authority and power to implement the transformation, just as until this point they had considerable power to appease Southern Democrats by stalling the progress of civil rights. The example of Kennedy, the testimony of King, the action of white business leaders, and the behavior of African Americans in Birmingham suggest that 1963 marked a sudden and decisive shift in attitudes toward segregation. In no way do I intend to demean the suffering of those who continued to fight segregation after 1963, so I'm not sure why you continue to insist on calling my account "offensive."
I'm not insinuating anything. I was trying to give you the benefit of the doubt that your reply was trying to say something more nuanced than your article. I guess not.
The "white businessmen" who took action were only in Birmingham. And a business decision is not at all indicative of a change of heart. I'm pretty sure the Montgomery school board, which in 1964 was continuing its DECADE-long defiance of the Supreme Court, and the authorities who brutally repelled the Selma marchers on Bloody Sunday in 1965, were every bit as certain and arrogant as Wallace. So was Bob Jones University when it went all the way to the Supreme Court a full DECADE later still arguing, on behalf of themselves and too many others, that the Bible required the races to be segregated.
MLK gave his "How Long" speech after the Selma march in 1965, and while he proclaims his belief that they would prevail, that "the arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends toward justice," the speech shows that defeat was not at all unimaginable even in 1965, let alone more than a year earlier. King declares that many are asking "How long will prejudice blind the visions of men, darken their understanding, and drive bright-eyed wisdom from her sacred throne?" Though he answers "Not long" because "mine eyes have seen the coming of the glory of the Lord," he pleads with the movement to remain non-violent, to remain committed to the struggle. Frustration that victory was NOT certain had led some in the movement to consider violence. This is a speech to give hope to the weary -- NOT a speech to the already-victorious.
http://mlk-kpp01.stanford.edu/index.php/encyclopedia/documentsentry/doc_address_at_the_conclusion_of_selma_march/
Just because you didn't intend your account to be offensive doesn't mean that it isn't. The very idea that you purport to speak with such certainty for a generation of African Americans who lived through that time about what they AT THAT TIME imagined about victory or defeat, is remarkable.
I doubt that either one of us ought to suppose we can speak for that generation. Not even using ALL CAPS will suffice. I know I'm not making that claim; I'm speaking as a historian, not an eyewitness or spokesman. And if you're equating the end of segregation with changed hearts, then I'm afraid I've never lived somewhere that's overcome segregation. Not Chicago, not New York, and not Birmingham. Not then, not now, maybe not ever. Not anywhere, probably. Thankfully we can recognize how public opinion and the wheels of justice began to decisively turn in 1963, even as we appreciate the long road that still lies ahead even today. Thank you for participating in this discussion. Your examples of the ongoing fight to eradicate segregation have filled out what my limited focus on 1963 overlooked.
Thank you for writing this, Collin. I especially appreciated this line: "no injustice survives the purifying fires of God forever." What I was reminded was that though there will always be injustice on earth because we live in a fallen world, one day God will return making all things new. And even now, God will not be mocked. And I was reminded that“God reigns over the nations; God sits on his holy throne,” (Psalm 47:8). That brings great comfort. But most of all, I'm thankful that my security isn't in our government. I serve a King whose throne is forever. Thank you for tackling this topic!
[...] on Phyllis Tickle, had — according to Julie Clawson — a weird ending.Yes, of course, we strive for progress in racial relations in culture. But where’s the ecclesiology in this piece?St Francis, a good sketch. (HT: JD)Meanderings in [...]