Presbyterians v. Jim Crow

To the slowly gathering protest of Southern Protestants against racial segregation last week was added the most powerful voice yet to be heard--the 830,000-member Southern branch of the Presbyterian Church. In a five-day conference at Birmingham, the 97th General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church in the U.S. drafted a sharply worded statement condemning discrimination in the schools, defending Koinonia, the besieged interracial community at Americus, Ga. (TIME, April 29), and scourging the Ku Klux Klan and White Citizens' Councils.

"In this nation, where Christianity and democracy are bywords," said the assembly, "it is unthinkable that a Christian should join himself to Klan or Council whose purpose is to gain its point by intimidation, reprisal and violence, or that he should lift no voice of protest against those who appeal to prejudice and spread fear."

Coming only a week after 300 white and Negro pastors met at Nashville to discuss segregation in churches (TIME, May 6), the Presbyterians' message further condemned churchmen and churchgoers who worship with Jim Crow, urged ministers to create "a social climate . . . which will encourage a free concourse of men of good will, regardless of their race, status or national origin." Too often, said the Presbyterians, churches "mistake social compatibility for Christian fellowship," and recruit members from only one stratum of society.

Poll taxes, over-severe literacy tests for voters and concealment of information about times and places of registration were branded "political demagoguery in its worst form." Churchgoers were reminded that "the Christian faith has never countenanced racial discrimination," and that "the supreme law of the land requires that it no longer be practiced in the public-school system. Therefore every member of the assembly is urged to work in his own community for an honest and durable adjustment."

There was disagreement among the 475 Presbyterian delegates on the segregation issue, but when a minority report was offered, suggesting that racial problems be referred to member parishes, it was turned down. Most of the delegates left the assembly in the militant mood of Dr. Edward D. Grant, director of institutions for the state of Louisiana. Said Grant: "Pity the church that keeps silent and looks the other way in a day like ours."

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