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Critique of Southern Society and Vision of a New Order: The Fellowship of Southern Churchmen, 1934–1957

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  28 July 2009

Robert F. Martin
Robert F. Martin
Affiliation:
Mr. Martin is assistant professor of history in the University of Northern Iowa, Cedar Falls, Iowa.
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Extract

Students of southern Protestantism seldom have interpreted regional Christianity, at least in its major denominational and sectarian expressions, as a force for positive economic or social change. Rather, they have correctly stressed its individualism, pietism, and fusion of religious and cultural values. Yet there have been a few Christians in the South who have been troubled by their region's mores and have boldly sought to change them. From the mid-1930s to the late 1950s a number of these individuals coalesced into a loosely knit interdenominational and interracial association, known after 1936 as the Fellowship of Southern Churchmen (FSC). Over the years this little cadre of Christians propounded a radical critique of twentieth-century southern civilization.

Type
Research Article
Information
Church History , Volume 52 , Issue 1 , March 1983 , pp. 66 - 80
Copyright
Copyright © American Society of Church History 1983

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References

1. Useful examinations of mainline Protestantism in the South include Bailey, Kenneth K., Southern White Protestantism in the Twentieth Century (New York, 1964);Google Scholar Eighmy, John L., Churches in Cultural Captivity: A History of the Social Attitudes of Southern Baptists (Knoxville, 1972);Google Scholar and Hill, Samuel S., Southern Churches in Crisis (New York, 1967).Google Scholar Radical stirrings on the periphery of southern Protestantism are discussed in Robert Miller, Moats, American Protestantism and Social Issues, 1919–1939 (Chapel Hill, 1958);Google Scholar and Meyer, Donald B., The Protestant Search for Political Realism, 1919–1941 (Berkeley, 1960).Google Scholar

2. Kester, Howard A., “The First Decade,” Prophetic Religion 6 (Summer 1945): 4.Google Scholar

3. Statistics concerning the total enrollment and the percentage of female Fellowship members were compiled from a 1949 membership list in the Fellowship of Southern Churchmen Papers, Southern Historical Collection, University of North Carolina Library, Chapel Hill. Material concerning the racial composition of the group was drawn from the 1949 city directories of Asheville, Chapel Hill, Charlotte, Durham, Greensboro, and Raleigh N.C.; Atlanta Ga.; Chattanooga, Tenn.; and Richmond, Va. Additional information was obtained through correspondence with Nelle Morton (24 July 1979), Warren Ashby (13 August 1979), and David Burgess (25 July 1979). The 1957 membership statistics were found in Minutes of Executive Committee Meeting, The Fellowship of Southern Churchmen, 5–6 August 1957, FSC Papers. Information about denominational affiliation is not readily available. On the basis of limited information gleaned from records and the members themselves it appears that all major denominations in the region were represented in the Fellowship but that there was a preponderance of Presbyterians and Congregationalists.

4. Notes on Business Session, The Fellowship of Southern Churchmen, 14–17 October 1940, Norris, Tenn., FSC Papers. By the late 1940s perhaps as many as 20 percent of the Fellowship's members resided outside the South, but most of these men and women had joined the FSC while living in the region.

5. “A Brief Statement regarding the Origin, Purpose, and Program of the Fellowship of Southern Churchmen,” n.d., p. 2,Google Scholar FSC Papers. See also the membership list cited in note 3.

6. Meyer, Protestant Search for Political Realism, pp. 50, 205–206;Google Scholar Niebuhr, Reinhold, “Why I Leave the FOR,” Christian Century 51 (3 01 1934): 19;Google Scholar Kester, Howard Anderson, interview with author, Montreat-Anderson College, Montreat, N.C., 15 November 1969;Google Scholar Howard Anderson Kester Papers, Southern Historical Collection, University of North Carolina Library, Chapel Hill.

7. Executive Committee to members of the FSC, n.d., FSC Papers; Kester interview, 15 November 1969; George Bent to members of the FSC, 1942, FSC Papers; Walter Sikes, W. to members of the FSC, 1 October 1943,Google Scholar FSC Papers; Morton, Nelle, interview with author, Chapel Hill N.C., 25 May 1979;Google Scholar Euphemia G. Young to author, 2 July 1979; “Almanac of FSC Activities,” 1945, FSC Papers; Kester to Charles M. Jones, 11 November 1951,Google Scholar FSC Papers; Charles M. Jones to Mrs. M. J. Lyells, 25 January 1950, FSC Papers.

8. James Dombrowski to author, 20 July 1979; list of people invited to Conference of Younger Churchmen of the South, Monteagle, Tenn., 28–29 May 1934, Kester Papers; Cowan, Thomas B., “History of the Fellowship of Southern Churchmen,” n.d., p. 1,Google Scholar FSC Papers; Burgess, David, “The Fellowship of Southern Churchmen, Its History and Promise,” n.d., p. 1,Google Scholar FSC Papers; Kester interview, 15 November 1969.

9. Cowan, , “History of the Fellowship,” p. 7;Google Scholar Cowan to Nelle Morton, 14 January 1949, FSC Papers; “Resolutions,” Prophetic Religion 1 (December 1937): 3.Google Scholar

10. Niebuhr, Reinhold, “The Fellowship of Socialist Christians,” The World Tomorrow 17 (14 06 1934): 298.Google Scholar

11. Cowan, , “History of the Fellowship,” p. 4.Google Scholar

12. Belfrage, Cedric, A Faith to Free the People (New York, 1944), p. 142.Google Scholar

13. Burgess, , “Fellowship of Southern Churchmen,” p. 2;Google Scholar Kester interview, 15 November 1969; Cowan, , “History of the Fellowship,” p. 7.Google Scholar

14. Kester, Howard A., “The First Decade,” Prophetic Relgzon 6 (Summer 1945): 4.Google Scholar

15. See May, Henry, Protestant Churches and Industrial America (New York, 1949);Google Scholar and Meyer, Protestant Search for Political Realism.

16. Jacklin, Thomas M., “Mission to the Sharecroppers: Neo-Orthodox Radicalism and the Delta Farm Venture, 1936–1940,” South Atlantic Quarterly 78 (Summer 1979): 304.Google Scholar

17. Cowan, , “History of the Fellowship,” p. 1.Google Scholar

18. FSC Newsletter, May 1943, p. 5, FSC Papers.

19. Howard, Kester, Revolt among the Sharecroppers (New York, 1936);Google Scholar Howard A. Kester, transcript of interview, 22 July 1974, Southern Oral History Program-Series B, Manuscripts Department, University of North Carolina Library, Chapel Hill; Burgess, David S., “How the Delmo Farm Labor Homes Were Won,” paper presented at the Mid America History Conference, Southwest Missouri State University, Springfield, Mo., 19–21 September 1979;Google Scholar Delta and Providence Farm Papers, Southern Historical Collection, University of North Carolina Library, Chapel Hill; Eugene Smathers, “I Work in the Cumberlands,” Penn School Papers, Southern Historical Collection, University of North Carolina Library, Chapel Hill; Kester interview, 15 November 1969.

20. Kester interview, 15 November 1969.

21. Ibid.

22. Burgess, , “Fellowship of Southern Churchmen,” p. 2;Google Scholar “Almanac of FSC Activities,” 1945;Google Scholar Francis A. Drake to Nelle Morton, 30 January 1945, FSC Papers; Drake to members and friends of FSC, 5 February 1946, FSC Papers; Kester interview, 15 November 1969.

23. Tindall, George B., The Emergence of the New South, 1913–1945 (Baton Rouge, 1967), p. 320.Google Scholar

24. See Pope, Liston, Millhands and Preachers: A Study of Gastonia (New Haven, 1942).Google Scholar

25. Bailey, , Southern White Protestantism, pp. 111–129.Google Scholar

26. Prophetic Religion 1 (December 1937): 96.Google Scholar

27. Newsletter, June 1945, FSC Papers.

28. News and Observer (Raleigh), 22 April 1938.Google Scholar

29. Newsletter, November 1946, FSC Papers; David Burgess and Thomas B. Cowan to all ministers, 26 August 1946, FSC Papers.

30. Voss, Carl Herman, “The Church and the Labor Movement,” Prophetic Religion 1 (03 1938): 7.Google Scholar

31. Morton interview, 25 May 1979; Warren Ashby, interview with author, Greensboro N.C., 25 September 1978.

32. Cowan, , “History of the Fellowship,” pp. 2, 4;Google Scholar News and Observer (Raleigh), 22 April 1938.Google Scholar

33. “That America Be Not Blamed,” news release, 26 December 1942,Google Scholar FSC Papers.

34. “Raleigh Conference Desegregated,” Christian Century 60 (5 May 1943): 552.Google Scholar

35. Summary of the Fellowship of Southern Churchmen, October 1955, FSC Papers; Nelle Morton to Tony Dunbar, 3 January 1978, copy in author's possession.

36. Newsletter, April 1955, FSC Papers.

37. Gene Smathers to Kester, 2 February 1956, FSC Papers; J.C. Herrin to Kester, 3 May 1956, Kester Papers; Howard Anderson, Kester, “A Step Toward Building a Democratic Christian Front in the Deep South,” 1956,Google Scholar FSC Papers.

38. Nelle Morton to author, 8 December 1978; Howard Kester to Warren Ashby, Tartt Bell, and Charles Jones, 5 January 1956, Kester Papers; Newsletter, January 1957, FSC Papers; Charles M. Jones, interview with author, Chapel Hill, N.C., 12 December 1969.

39. Membership list, Fellowship of Southern Churchmen, as of 15 September 1957, Kester Papers.

40. Howard A. Kester, transcript of interview, 25 August 1974, Southern Oral History Program-Series B.