Jim Crow Racism, Murder, and the Methodist Church

"Evil flourishes when good people sit idly by and do nothing." Attorney General Hood

As I read One Mississippi, Two Mississippi:Murder, Methodists, and the Struggle for Racial Justice in Neshoba County by Carol V. R. George I experienced shock, depression, and sorrow.

In the early 1970s I married a seminary student at The Methodist Theological School in Ohio. During our three years on campus I audited classes and managed the campus bookstore. I took a class with Dr. Jeff Hopper and Dr. Everett Tilson. Dr. Van Bogart Dunn was the Dean of Students. I knew Dr. Paul Minus. These four men, all with Southern roots, participated in the 1964 Easter Sunday in Jackson, MS when an interracial group of Bishops and pastors endeavored to worship in a black congregation. Local law officers arrested them at the door. Read the story here.

I was so very young and had no idea that 1964 was 'yesterday' to these men in 1972. After reading this book I better understood their courage and conviction.

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I requested One Mississippi, Two Mississippi because of the subtitle Murder, Methodists, and the Struggle for Racial Justice in Neshoba. The author is a history professor who spent nine years researching the Mt. Zion Methodist Church in Neshoba and the relation between Methodists and the murder of Andrew Goodman, Michael Schwerner, and John Chaney.

Goodman and Schwerner had come to the area to work for voter registration of Blacks. Chaney was a local black man. The organizational meeting to create a Freedom School was held at Mt. Zion Methodist Church in Neshoba. The young men were abducted and murdered, their bodies buried and bull dozed over, and the Mt. Zion church was burned to the ground and church members severely beaten.

If you want to know about the events the book covers you can visit the Oxford University page on the book here. Or watch the movie "Neshoba" or Mississippi Burning. The internet is full of articles about the murders.

The Methodist church is a world-wide connectional system; every four years a General Conference consisting of laity and clergy meet to vote on the denominational policies, goals, and regulations. Change does not happen quickly. The stated ideals often lag behind practice. Founder John Wesley allowed free thinking beyond basic Christian tenets. The denomination is diverse in opinion. In theory members are to think and let think. In practice, strife, conflict, and schism occur--particularly over social issues. Segregation was one of those divisive issues. The denomination showed little prophetic leadership in demanding equality, giving Southern segregationists and the status quo a nod.

This book reveals that the Southern White Methodist church laity and clergy were not only complicit in maintaining segregation but were actively involved in KKK hate crimes, murder, and a decades long cover-up.

In 1939 the denomination created the Central Jurisdiction composed of Black pastors and churches, effectively establishing segregation as official church polity until 1972 when it was finally disbanded. See more about this at:
http://www.credoconfirmation.com/Leaders/LeadersArticles/tabid/292/ArticleId/449/The-Central-Jurisdiction-and-the-Story-of-Race-Relations-in-the-Methodist-Churches.aspx

It was not until after the Methodist Episcopal church merger with the United Brethren church in 1968, creating the current United Methodist Church, that implementation of federally mandated integration began. In 1970 the Neshoba County accomplished full integration without mass violence; but there were viscous attacks and harassment that led to the (white) School Superintendent's suicide.

It took years and several trials before the mastermind behind the murder plot was convicted. In 1999 The Winter Institute began a study of global models of reconciliation, particularly the South African Truth and Reconciliation Commission, consulting with Peter Storey.

It was hard to read this book, the events are so harrowing. I felt angry and ashamed and disheartened. I remembered a Facebook friend's comment about the hypocrisy of the Methodist Church, which had baffled me then. Now I get it. The friend is particularly interested in Civil Rights history.

I thought about issues the church avoids today, the injustices we allow. This statement from a United Methodist Church website on confirmation materials says its all:

As United Methodists—even United Methodists who weren't alive when the Central Jurisdiction was around—we have to think critically about how a faith tradition birthed by abolitionists and weaned in part by mixed-race house churches could cling to institutionalized segregation for so long. And, as we move forward, we need to make sure that we don’t repeat past mistakes. We need to be mindful of ways in which we exclude people or create divisions within the church, whether based on race, nationality, language or culture, age, or any other factor. Paul in Galatians tells us that we are “all one in Christ Jesus” (Galatians 3:28). We should be sure we act that way.

In church on Sunday I could barely keep from crying. It seemed insipid, 'feel good', shallow. Last week we heard of a church being closed; the pastor preached 'too much' about acceptance of Gay and Lesbians. The world cries. Do we listen?

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Contents:
Part I
History and Memory Settling Longdale, MS and Mt. Zion Methodist Church reviews the founding of the church in 1833 through the Jim Crow Years to 1954
Part II
"The Great Anomaly" The Methodist Episcopal Church and Its Black Members looks at segregation and the creation of the Central Jurisdiction, the politicization of Mississippi Methodist church, the Methodist church's debate over segregation, the Neshoba murders and their relation to Mississippi Methodism
Part III
Mt. Zion's Witness: Creating Memories considers how Neshoba struggled to fulfill equality in church and school, the retrial of accused murderers, and reconciliation

I received a free ebook through NetGalley for a fair and unbiased review.

One Mississippi, Two Mississippi: Murder, Methodists, and the Struggle for Racial Justice in Neshoba County
by Carol V. R. George
Oxford University Press
Publication May 1, 2015
$29.95 hard cover
ISBN: 9780190231088