White Protestants and the Civil Rights Movement in Kentucky
A mere two weeks after the Supreme Court’s Brown v. Board of Education decision declared racially segregated schools unconstitutional, Southern Baptists flocked to St. Louis for their annual convention. Attendees at that June 1954 meeting heard a stirring report that lauded the High Court’s action as “in harmony with the constitutional guarantee of equal freedom to all citizens and the Christian principles of equal justice and love to all men.” Although the ten thousand Baptists who gathered in St. Louis represented every state in the nation, two Kentuckians dominated the debate that followed. W. M. Nevins of Lexington warned that the Brown decision put the nation on a dangerous path toward racial amalgamation: “If we are going to eat with [blacks], and go to school with them, and go to church with them, the time is going to come . . . when some of you that sit in this audience today will have grandchildren with Negro blood.” Another Kentuckian, J. B. Weatherspoon, sprang to the report’s defense. The Southern Seminary professor urged that rejecting the progressive statement would send the message that America could “count Baptists out in the matter of equal justice.” “I don’t think we want to do that,” he concluded, to enthusiastic applause. The report sailed to victory on the wings of Weatherspoon’s oratory, his hearers approving it by an overwhelming voice vote. As if to acknowledge this commitment to a perilous but worthy path,
Methodists and the Crucible of Race, 1930-1975
Methodists and the Crucible of Race, 1930-1975. By Peter C. Murray. (Columbia: University of Missouri Press, 2004. Pp. xix, 266. Preface, bibliography, index. $44.95.) In this account of Methodists and race relations in the mid-twentieth-century United States, Peter Murray, professor of history at Methodist College in Fayetteville, North Carolina, has produced a decently researched but deeply flawed piece of scholarship. The book focuses on the racial integration of the largest American Methodist denomination. From 1939 to 1968, this denomination was officially known as The Methodist Church and, in the latter year, changed its name to the United Methodist Church. Although predominantly white, the organization included several hundred thousand black members, most of whom belonged to a racially segregated administrative unit known as the Central Jurisdiction. Created in 1939 to cater to the sensibilities of segregationist white Methodists, the jurisdiction was finally abolished only in 1967. In Murray's telling, this struggle was a lengthy and heroic one in which "prophets" supporting integration, such as African-American bishop Charles Golden, ultimately prevailed over intransigent "conservatives" (p. 239). Murray guides his readers expertly through the shoals of Methodist bureaucratic struggles, as waged through each quadrennial meeting of the denomination's General Conference. In considerable detail, Murray also discusses the various debates about race that were fought out in the denomination's other subdivisions and offices. The author certainly understands his subject and has done fairly thorough research. His sources include considerable archival material, mostly garnered from extensive collections at Emory University and Drew University. He has also read deeply in and made good use of Methodist newspapers and conference records. Unfortunately, Methodists and the Crucible of Race has many defects. Far too often, Murray bogs his readers down in tedious detail about bureaucratic minutiae. In one particularly confusing paragraph, for instance, he repeatedly references not only the "Committee of Five" but also the "Commission of Thirty-Six" and the "Commission of Twenty-Four" (pp. 166-167). On one level, then, the book is an institutional history of United Methodist bureaucratism. As such, it is confusing even for those familiar with Methodist institutions and will baffle those unfamiliar with them. Amidst this maze of offices, conferences, and committees, the experiences and sensibilities of ordinary Methodists, black and white believers in the pews, are almost entirely lost. …
Prevalence of lice on dairy cattle in England and the bordering counties of Wales
A postal questionnaire was used to collect information on the prevalence of lice on cattle on a random sample of dairy farms in England and the bordering counties of Wales. Replies were received from 1040 (52.8 per cent) of the 1970 farms which were mailed. Fifty per cent of farmers reported having ever seen or suspected lice in their herds and 29 per cent reported possible infestations in the winter of 1996/97. Visits were made to 24 farms in the south west of England during February 1998. Twelve of the farmers said that they had seen or suspected lice in their herd since October 1997, and that lice were more frequently observed on the adult cattle. However, examination revealed lice on 18 of the 24 farms, and adult cattle were the least likely group to be infested.