9

The Doors of the
Church Are Closed

ISN’T IT IRONIC THAT THE KKK would plant a burning cross on the lawn of a young white Methodist minister? I suppose they thought they had just cause, since Ed King had come up with a new strategy for protest against segregation: it became known as Church Visitation. The idea behind Church Visitation was the belief that “good people” could be more readily found in the church than in the general society. Therefore, we might be able to reach the hearts of the Caucasian pastors and their members and make greater headway toward ending segregation.

Calls for support were sent out to ministers from Northern states, because in many cases church policies within a particular religious denomination differed in the North from those in the South. In the northern United States, the Methodist Church was somewhat more open and inclusive of blacks, while in the South, Methodist worship was divided into separate organizations, or conferences, within the church: one for blacks, the other for whites.

Individuals who were not ministers, but who were interested in visiting some of the white churches in the area, were also sought out. Many times, I felt that I would like to worship with my white brothers of the faith; I was raised in the church. However, it quickly became apparent that my white brothers were not interested in worshipping with me.

I was called a communist many times by people in authority at the white churches, as well as many other names that I prefer not to use here. Being accused of trying to disrupt the service just for wanting to worship was very hard for an already disillusioned young man to take. To be put out of church in such a rude manner was shocking to me, even after all the horrible events I had witnessed.

On World Communion Sunday, October 6, 1963, Bette Poole, Ida Hannah, and Julie Zaugg were arrested at Capitol Street Methodist Church in Jackson for attempting to enter that house of worship. These were Tougaloo College students, so despite my disappointment in the school’s SNCC activity at that time, there remained some brave foot soldiers who dared to take a stand. There is no doubt that I was damaged and still turning to drink, but that type of demonstration was something I felt I could do. So on January 19, 1964, a group of us—two white ministers named Rolly Kidder, a Chicago-area pastor from the Evangelical United Brethren (E.U.B.), and Rev. Martin Deppe, a Methodist minister from Chicago, and me—visited that same Capitol Street Methodist Church in Jackson for the 11:00 AM service.

As we left the car with our “look-out” person and ascended the church steps, we were approached by three ushers. We introduced ourselves and informed the three that we were interested in worshiping with them. We noticed that a policeman was directing traffic nearby.

One of the three men identified as an usher shook hands with the two white ministers but refused to shake hands with me. The usher asked us to leave the church. We tried negotiating with them to no avail. The usher signaled to the policeman. We had no money to be bailed out of jail; therefore, we wished the ushers Godspeed and left before the policeman reached us at the top of the steps.

My faith in the church was shaken; we decided to visit one of the black Methodist churches that morning instead. They greeted us in the spirit of the Lord. We sat with the choir and participated in the service. There was a better feeling there.

Shortly thereafter, we went to the white Wesley Methodist Church, where they were having their tenth anniversary service. There were seven of us, and Rev. Ed King, Ida Hannah, and their lookout joined us. There were two people standing near the door. One of them disappeared, we thought, to notify the police. The second man began to read the church policy regarding segregation. Then the first man returned and finished reading the church policy statement. The police arrived with sirens, but remained in their cars while speaking with other church officials. The church officials refused to invite us inside to worship.

Later in the evening, our group as well as other groups met at Tougaloo College to assess our activities of the day. These meetings, as well as others that followed, gave all of us the opportunity to give testimony to our true feelings, to search within ourselves for some aspect of racial healing. Also, when bail money was forthcoming, we could put more emphasis on this type of protest.

The church visitation at this time was meant to continue the pressure on the various church denominations to embrace religious integration. Many of my Tougaloo classmates had been arrested, some more than once, while attempting to integrate churches. Marveline Faggett from Dallas, Texas, along with many Methodist ministers from Illinois, were arrested for attempting to worship with my white brothers of Jackson, Mississippi.

Rev. Martin Deppe of Chicago, who was part of the group that comprised the Capitol Street Methodist Church visitation, composed an article for the Mississippi Journal. Dated February 2, 1964, it related our activities as we engaged in some of those church visitations. The Journal retells the experience we shared at the Jackson churches on Sunday, January 19, 1964. The following is an excerpt from the Mississippi Journal:

A report of a Church Visitation to Jackson, Mississippi, January 18-20, 1964 by Martin Deppe

I would like to share with you something of my experience on a recent weekend visit to Jackson, Mississippi. For a number of months teams of Methodist laymen and clergymen from a number of northern states have traveled to Jackson on a church interracial visitation effort. The story really begins last summer when mixed groups of nearby Tougaloo Southern Christian College students began visiting Jackson churches. The rationale comes from the young white college chaplain, Rev. Edwin King:

I know a little integration in the church isn’t going to change a society as sick as Mississippi’s. But people here respect religion very highly. I figured that if any Negro right would be accepted, it would be the right to worship anywhere. And once integrated contact in the church is established, I have enough faith in the church as a powerful social institution to think the potential for other advancements is tremendous.

A few churches opened their doors, but in most cases the students were turned away. “You can worship here, but not him.” The “team” would remain on the steps as a silent witness to parishioners as they entered and later left the service. Suddenly, on October 6, 1963 World Wide Communion Sunday, three girls from Tougaloo were arrested on the steps of Capitol Street Methodist Church. Held incommunicado from noon Sunday until 3 PM. Monday and given one telephone call one hour before going on trial, they were charged with disturbing public worship, fined $1000, and sentenced to six months in jail.

An alert Chicago reporter, Nicholas Von Hoffman, picked up the news off the wire service, noting that two of the girls were from the Chicago area, and gave it a late-edition headline in The Chicago Daily News. A concerned Chicago Methodist telephoned Ed King long distance to ask if there was anything he could do. Rev. King invited him to come to Jackson and stand with the students, which he did the following Sunday. His name: Stanley Hallett, of the Church Federation of Greater Chicago. He brought the story back to Chicago and the Interracial Council of Methodists (ICM), which accepted the challenge of outside support. The very next Sunday, October 20, four Chicago clergymen, seven Tougaloo students, and one faculty member were arrested. Bail money in the amount of $9500 was reached after almost a week of emergency telephoning among Chicago-area Methodists. And, the Methodist-E.U.B. (Evangelical United Brethren) Freedom Fund was born.

Since October, 1963, teams have come from Wisconsin, Iowa, Detroit, Cleveland, New York, Pittsburgh, as well as Chicago. Concerned E.U.B.’s have joined this witness to support their hope that the E.U.B. Church will face this issue as they discuss merger with the Methodists. Many have been disturbed by the method or approach that is used. Jackson is just one situation; church visitation is just one approach. It may be the wrong approach. But it does attempt to expose a cancer in the Church to the Methodists in Jackson, to all Methodism, to the coming General Conference, to the E.U.B. Church, to ourselves in our own situations. Jackson has become a symbol of our common sin. We can only speak for ourselves, and I knew that I would be going to Jackson.

On January 19, 1964, I went to Capitol Street Methodist Church for the 11 AM service with Rolly Kidder, an E.U.B. seminary student at Naperville, and Tom Armstrong, a Negro student from Tougaloo. Our chauffeur remained in the car as an “observer.” Walking up the steps we were met quickly by three ushers (a policeman supposedly directing traffic had moved to the sidewalk a few yards from us and mumbled something into a walkie-talkie).

I began, “We would like to worship with you,” and then introduced our group.

The usher gave his name reluctantly, shaking hands with Rolly and me, but not Tom. He said, “You will have to leave. The Official Board has declared this a segregated church. There will be no entrance here by force. I am just carrying out the Board policy.”

I replied, “My understanding of the Methodist Church is that it is open to all. Scripture says ‘Come unto me, ye who labor and are heavy laden.’”

The usher said, “Well? I don’t want to argue. You will have to leave.” I asked, “Who is Lord of the Church?”

The usher replied, “God is Lord of the Church, but these people have built this church and they are responsible for it.”

Rolly said, “We are simply witnessing to the belief that in Christ there is neither Greek nor Jew, male nor female, slave nor freeman.”

The usher shot back (growing belligerent), “Don’t preach to me. I’ve told you twice to leave and I’ll tell you once more.” (He motioned to the policeman.)

Rolly said, “We will be going. I hope that you will be free someday.” I added, “God bless you.”

From Capitol Street we went to a Negro Methodist Church where we were warmly greeted and asked to sit up front in the choir and participate in the service. How at home we felt in an open church!

The major confrontation of the weekend occurred at Wesley Methodist Church at a 3 PM. Tenth Anniversary Service with Bishop Franklin and Dr. Leggett (District Superintendent) in attendance. We arrived as a team of seven, including one Negro student, Ida Hannah, and Chaplain Ed King. The ushers seemed surprised. One usher disappeared to call the police. The Chairman of the Official Board stepped forward, greeted us cordially, and nervously read to us the policy statement of the Official Board. Halfway through, he stopped, “I can’t go on.” Another usher finished the reading. (When the police arrived with sirens, two ushers hurried over to the police car to keep them at the car—they obviously wanted no arrests with their own Bishop inside the church.) We answered by reading the statement of the Methodist Council of Bishops made in Detroit last November, one sentence of which reads: “To arrest any person attempting to worship is to us an outrage.” They replied that the Bishops’ statement was a recommendation only, an ideal. I answered that their Bishop had accepted this recommendation and they were defying their Bishop.

The Board Chairman replied, “The Bishop is our guest here this afternoon.” I pleaded, “But he is your Bishop.” The Board Chairman responded, “No, he is our guest today.”

An usher said, “Let’s not investigate the truth at this hour.” A team member asked: “Why won’t you face the truth?” Usher: “When, now?” Team member: “Anytime.” Usher: “The truth hurts.”

Board Chairman: “We don’t want to disrupt this service. Your visit will just disrupt us and tear us apart. This is our church. We love it. Now please go. We don’t want any trouble—we don’t want an arrest here today.” Team member: “Would you arrest us at church?” Another usher: “We don’t want to.”

The police moved in and Ed King, sensing the moment of arrest, said suddenly, “Let us pray.” The police were invited to join us, but they turned and disappeared. I led a short prayer and everyone joined in the Lord’s Prayer. Some ushers were visibly moved. We left quickly as the police returned.

Confrontation of conscience at the church steps was only one part of our weekend visitation effort. Our team spent many hours in interviews with the Negro religious leadership, Bishop Franklin, some of the leading Methodist ministers, some key laymen, and, of course, with Ed King, faculty members, and students at Tougaloo College.

Let me reflect upon some of these conversations. Our church visitation constitutes a great threat to the Southerner and his church. But, it seems to be just one of a number of threats to the Southern culture. One of their greatest fears is the Negro vote. 42% of Mississippi is Negro. One layman told me, “It’s a question of who dominates whom. There will always be domination.” Today the white dominates and only a token number of Negroes may vote. In Holmes County with a 3–1 Negro population, there are no Negro voters. Arbitrary constitutional exams, threats, locked doors, etc., are used to keep the Negro from voting. In two years of SNCC effort in Greenwood, only 48 Negroes were registered out of 2000.

Another Southern fear that we found very strong is the integration of public schools. They fear race mixing and inter-marriage. Many people we talked to felt that it would take Federal troop intervention before the first public school would comply with Federal orders on school desegregation.

An even greater fear is that of deviation from orthodoxy, nonconformity, speaking out among the white community. Dialogue on the race issue is not tolerated—only monologue.

After the Ole Miss bloodshed last year, the president of a life insurance company appeared on a TV station he owns in Jackson and editorialized quite mildly to the effect that mob violence perhaps was not the way to solve Mississippi’s problems. The next day, the board of directors of the insurance company flatly informed him that he was to make no further statements on the subject if he wished to remain president.

In the past year, 50 professors have left or been forced to leave the University of Mississippi. Of the 28 young Methodist preachers, who last January adopted a mild statement affirming the free pulpit, declaring segregation a sin, saying that the closing of the schools was too great a price to pay, and finally that they were anti-Communists—of these 28, 14 have been forced or pressured out of the state.

The Southerner’s greatest fear, I believe, is himself. The nervousness, the tension, the defensiveness that we met suggests this fear. The only humor, the only openness that we encountered over the weekend was not in the white, but in the Negro community.

The Southerner is imprisoned, is in fear of his neighbor, of his whole way of life, of himself. Bishop Franklin stated to an earlier team, “I may go to Hell for it, but I will not take a stand.”

The confrontation of conscience is fearful and painful to the Southerner because it throws into question his whole way of life. Every dealing he has ever had with Negroes will now be exposed. It would make sin of what had been custom. And so, they continue to believe that the Negro is not quite a human being. And, they live with this illusion, because like every person they fear judgment. They live in what one Mississippian calls a “fog of fear.” One Negro student at Tougaloo said half jokingly to a white student, “After we get free, we’re going to free you.”

Why should these threats be so serious, so fearful? Because any one of those threats could establish a crack in the dike. Any one could burst the bubble of their illusion of Southern greatness and the myth of historical persecution. Any one could begin the breakdown of their way of life.

Many of those Mississippi natives paid dearly for their contributions to the quest for equality. Before the cross was burned on Rev. Ed King’s lawn on the campus of Tougaloo College, he and his friend John Salter were traveling together in a blue Rambler. They were hit by another car on Hanging Moss Road on June 18, 1963, six days after Medgar Evers’s assassination; Medgar was a dear friend to them both. Somehow, Ed King ended up unconscious. The police called the Rambler incident a “traffic accident.”

Rev. Ed King also suffered disfiguring damage to the right side of his face when his head smached into the car’s windshield. But none of that stopped him from championing the Civil Rights Movement. Unfortunately, there was another movement afoot that would cause us to lose many of other other white supporters, due to its militant stance. That movement was known as Black Power.

Black Power

Before the Freedom Rides and all that followed, I had attended a National Student Association (NSA) meeting in Philadelphia. It was in 1960 that I hitched a ride from Tougaloo with three white NSA students from New Orleans. For a good part of the trip, I rested mostly on the floor in the rear of the auto. They were not enthusiastic about the meeting and spoke very little on the way back.

At that 1960 NSA meeting, I encountered my first introduction to the concept of Black Power. I believe that H. Rap Brown was present. I expressed opposition to points set forth by Black Power advocates on the grounds that they would alienate whites in the movement and reduce funding abilities for various projects. Needless to say, my opposition became one of the lone voices crying in the wilderness of nonacceptance. I was shouted down.

In his speech at Berkeley, California, Stokely Carmichael once again promoted the Black Power philosophy. This is surprising to many, because they had the belief that Black Power was not spoken of until after 1964. However, Black Power was a notion of Carmichael and others in the early days.

I believe that later events proved my analysis to be correct. For almost an entire week in 1999, I read the Mississippi Sovereignty Commission file titled “Informants F, X, Y, and Z,” which deals mostly with the Mississippi Freedom Democratic Party and various other organizations that were established by dedicated freedom fighters during the middle sixties.

My purpose for the review was to try to gain an overall picture of the time when I was absent from Mississippi. As I anticipated, many whites became disillusioned and left the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC) and the movement in general. These were good people I had worked with, people who put their lives on the lines many, many times, only to be encouraged to leave the movement to organize the white communities. Most refused to do so and walked away.

I couldn’t blame them. I believed with all my heart that both black and white support was needed to make racial progress, and after all the sacrifices they had made, Black Power was pushing these white foot soldiers out the door.

It wouldn’t be long before I was ready to join them.