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Racial Attituds in Wartime: The Protestant Churches During the Second World War

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  28 July 2009

W. Edward Orser
W. Edward Orser
Affiliation:
Assistant professor of American studies in the University of Maryland-Baltimore County.
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Extract

Delegates to a special meeting of the Federal Council of Churches in Columbus Ohio, in March, 1946, adopted a report which committed the Council to work for a non-segregated church in a non-segregated society and called upon its constituent communions to do likewise. The statement represented a new departure, but its timing—coming at the end of the Second World War—was also significant. Although the position of the Federal Council was in advance of any positain yet taken by the major protestant denominations individually, it indicated that American protestantism was beginng to be challenged in a new way by the question of race. In the yers immediately prior to 1939 the denominations paid little attention to race as a social issue: by 1945 it was frequently the subject of denominational pronouncements and editorials in the church press. This contrast in the reponse of the churches suggests that the years of the Second World War had been crucial in placing new pressures upon white attitudes toward black Americans.

Type
Research Article
Information
Church History , Volume 41 , Issue 3 , September 1972 , pp. 337 - 353
Copyright
Copyright © American Society of Church History 1972

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References

1. The Church and Race Relations (New York: Department of Race Relations, The Federal Council of the Churches of Christ in America, 1946), p. 5.Google Scholar Quoted in FrankLoescher, S., The Protestant Church and the Negro: A Pattern of Segregation (New York: Association Press, 1948), p. 42.Google Scholar

2. The best general historical treatment of the churches and race is Reimers, David M., White Protestantism and the Negro (New York: Oxford University Press, 1965).Google Scholar For a period, dee Andrew history of the relationship of one denomination to this issue, but of little help for the war period, see Andrew Murray, E., Presbyterians and the Negro-A History (Philadelphia: Presbyterian Historical Society, 1966).Google Scholar

3. Dalfiume, Richard M., “The ‘Forgotten Years’ of the Negro Revolution”, Journal of American History 55 (06, 1968), 90–106.Google Scholar Dalfiume has correctly noted a lack of attention to the growth of black protest during World War II. However, the lack of attention to the development of white attitudes during the war is also critical. Although the question of the treatment of Japanese-Americans was also an important wartime issue, this article will focus exclusively upon attitudes toward back Americans.

4. The wartime pronouncements of the following major Protestant denominations have been consulted: the Congregational and Christian churches, the Methodist Church, the Protestant Episcopal Church, the Northern Baptist Convention, the Southern Baptist Convention (not a member of the Federal Council), the Presbyterian Church U.S. (Southern), and the Presbyterian Church U.S.A. (Northern) - The denominational press provides further evidence of the nature of attitudes in the churches during the war. Develop. ments in the attitudes of the churches on the social issuse of war, post-war word order and labor are discussed in Orser, W. Edward, “The Social Attitudes of the Protestant Churches during the Second World War” (Unpublished Ph.D. dissertation, University of New Mexico, 1969).Google Scholar

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9. Annual of the Southern Baptist Convention (1939), p. 141.Google Scholar Hereafter cited as Annual, Southern Baptist.

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15. Ibid., p. 86. Most historians who have commented on the Methodist union of 1939 have agreed with the judgment that unity was bought at the price of racial segregation. Carter, Paul A., “The Negro and Methodist Union,” Church History, 21 (03, 1952), p. 67Google Scholar; Culver, Dwight, Negro Segregation in the Methodist Church (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1953), p. ixGoogle Scholar; Reimers, , White Protestantism and the Negro, p. 145.Google Scholar A general account of the historical background to union is FrederickMaser, E., “The Story of Unification, 1874–1939” in Bucke, Emory Stevens, ed., The History of American Methodism 3 Vols. (New York: Abingdon Press, 1964), Vol. 3,Google Scholar Chapter 32.

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32. Southern Churchman (04 26, 1941), p. 11Google Scholar; see also (September 13, 1941), pp. 9–10. The segregationist sentiments of the editorials were challenged by two articles in the same journal, Stanley, O. D., “Theological Education in Negro Schools”, (06 14, 1941), P. 8Google Scholar, and Young, P. B., “Another Approach to Negro Theological Education”, (09 13, 1941), p. 8.Google Scholar

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55. For the background to the issue of separate black dioceses and black bishops, see Reimers, David M., “Negro Bishops and Diocesan Segregation in the Protestant Episeopal Church: 1870–1954”, Historical Magazine of the Protestant Episcopal Church, 31 (09, 1962), pp. 231–8.Google Scholar

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57. Southern Churchman (08 30, 1940), p. 3.Google Scholar

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60. Presbyterian Tribune (Januaryu, 1945), p. 3.

61. Minutes, Presbyterian U.S.A. (1944), p. 232.Google Scholar

62. See Reimers, David M., “The Race Problem and Presbyterian Union”, Church History, 31 (06, 1962)Google Scholar, for the subsequent developments in the issue of union. Reimers concluded that race was an important factor in the defeat of the plan by the southern presbyteries in 1954 (pp. 208–15).

63. Zion's Herald (04 1, 1942), p. 295.Google Scholar

64. Zion's Herald (06 2, 1944), p. 512Google Scholar; Urmy, Ralph, “Is the Church Lagging? Method. ism and Racial Equality’, Zion's Herald (06 17, 1942), pp. 577, 595Google Scholar; Henry, David, “Tongue-Tied—Eventually”, Zion's Herald (07 8, 1942), p. 656Google Scholar; Auman, Lester W., “The Fifth Wheel: A Candid Study of the Jurisdictional System”, Zion's Herald (02 17, 1943), pp. 148–9.Google Scholar

65. Moore, John, “Tongue-Tied—Not Yet”, Zion's Herald (06 3, 1942), p. 526Google Scholar; Moore, John, “Keeping Union in Good Repair”, Christian Advocate (03 2, 1944), pp. 246–7.Google Scholar

66. This was the argument of a New Orleans Christian Advocate editorial, reprinted in Zion's Herald (03 24, 1943), p. 275.Google Scholar

67. Proceedings, Methodist (1944), p. 170.Google Scholar

68. Zion's Herald (05 17, 1944), p. 311.Google Scholar

69. The Federal Council statement did receive immediate endorsement from Presbyterians and Congregational Christians. Minutes, Presbyterian U.S.A. (1946), p. 211; Minutes, Congregational Christian (1946), p. 47.