The Last Segregated Hour
The Memphis Kneel-Ins and the Campaign for Southern Church Desegregation
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Narrated by:
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Alex Hyde-White
About this listen
On Palm Sunday 1964, at the Second Presbyterian Church in Memphis, a group of black and white students began a "kneel-in" to protest the church's policy of segregation, a protest that would continue in one form or another for more than a year and eventually force the church to open its doors to black worshippers.
In The Last Segregated Hour, Stephen Haynes tells the story of this dramatic yet little studied tactic which was the strategy of choice for bringing attention to segregationist policies in Southern churches. "Kneel-ins" involved surprise visits to targeted churches, usually during Easter season, and often resulted in physical standoffs with resistant church people. The spectacle of kneeling worshippers barred from entering churches made for a powerful image that invited both local and national media attention.
The Memphis kneel-ins of 1964-65 were unique in that the protesters included white students from the local Presbyterian college (Southwestern, now Rhodes). And because the protesting students presented themselves in groups that were "mixed" by race and gender, white church members saw the visitations as a hostile provocation and responded with unprecedented efforts to end them. But when Church officials pressured Southwestern president Peyton Rhodes to "call off" his students or risk financial reprisals, he responded that "Southwestern is not for sale."
Drawing on a wide range of sources, including extensive interviews with the students who led the kneel-ins, Haynes tells an inspiring story that will appeal not only to scholars of religion and history, but also to pastors and church people concerned about fostering racially diverse congregations.
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This biography of a seminal civil rights leader draws on personal interviews from Myrlie Evers-Williams (Evers's widow), his two remaining siblings, friends, grade-school-to-college schoolmates, and fellow activists to elucidate Evers as an individual, leader, husband, brother, and father. Extensive archival work in the Evers Papers, the NAACP Papers, oral history collections, FBI files, Citizen Council collections, and the Mississippi State Sovereignty Commission Papers, to list a few, provides a detailed account of Evers's NAACP work and more.
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Incredible Narration
- By Estella Owoimaha on 10-02-17
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The Evangelicals
- The Struggle to Shape America
- By: Frances FitzGerald
- Narrated by: Jacques Roy
- Length: 25 hrs and 50 mins
- Unabridged
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This groundbreaking book from Pulitzer Prize-winning historian Frances FitzGerald is the first to tell the powerful, dramatic story of the Evangelical movement in America - from the Puritan era to the 2016 presidential election. Evangelicals have, in many ways, defined the nation. They have shaped our culture and our politics. Frances FitzGerald's narrative of this distinctively American movement is a major work of history, piecing together the centuries-long story for the first time.
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Great book
- By Gary LA on 12-27-17
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A History of the Amish
- Third Edition
- By: Steven M. Nolt
- Narrated by: Bronson Pinchot
- Length: 9 hrs and 11 mins
- Unabridged
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The Amish, one of America's most intriguingly private, unique, and often misunderstood religious communities, have survived for 300 years! How has that happened? While much has been written on the Amish, little has been revealed about their history. This book brings together in one volume a thorough history of the Amish people. From their beginnings in Europe through their settlement in North America, the Amish have struggled to maintain their beliefs and traditions in often hostile settings.
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Very interesting
- By Jeffrey on 08-06-18
By: Steven M. Nolt
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Song in a Weary Throat
- Memoir of an American Pilgrimage
- By: Pauli Murray, Patricia Bell-Scott - Introduction by
- Narrated by: Allyson Johnson
- Length: 19 hrs and 44 mins
- Unabridged
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Poet, memoirist, labor organizer, and Episcopal priest, Pauli Murray helped transform the law of the land. Arrested in 1940 for sitting in the whites-only section of a Virginia bus, Murray propelled that life-defining event into a Howard law degree and a fight against "Jane Crow" sexism. Now Murray is finally getting long-deserved recognition: The first African American woman to receive a doctorate of law at Yale, her name graces one of the university's new colleges.
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Song with a key to my life
- By Fran White on 11-28-24
By: Pauli Murray, and others
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The Firebrand and the First Lady
- Portrait of a Friendship: Pauli Murray, Eleanor Roosevelt, and the Struggle for Social Justice
- By: Patricia Bell-Scott
- Narrated by: Karen Chilton
- Length: 14 hrs and 26 mins
- Unabridged
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An important, groundbreaking book - two decades in work - that tells the story of the unlikely but history-changing 28-year bond forged between Pauli Murray (granddaughter of a mulatto slave who, against all odds, as a lesbian Black woman, became a lawyer, civil rights pioneer, Episcopal priest, poet, and activist) and Eleanor Roosevelt (first lady of the United States from 1933 to 1948 and human rights internationalist) that critically shaped Eleanor Roosevelt's, and therefore FDR's, view of race and racism in America.
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Inspiring
- By Jean on 02-20-16
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The New Testament in Antiquity: Audio Lectures 2
- A Survey of the New Testament within Its Cultural Contexts
- By: Gary M. Burge, Gene L. Green
- Narrated by: Gary M. Burge, Gene L. Green
- Length: 4 hrs and 48 mins
- Original Recording
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New Testament in Antiquity: Audio Lectures skillfully develops how Jewish, Hellenistic, and Roman cultures formed the essential environment in which the New Testament authors wrote their books and letters. Listeners will learn how understanding the land, history, and culture of this world brings remarkable new insights into how we read the New Testament itself. Throughout the audio lectures, authors Gary Burge and Gene Green provide windows into the first-century world. They further discuss issues of interpretation derived from cultural observations.
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Great book
- By Jim on 06-27-22
By: Gary M. Burge, and others
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America's Original Sin
- Racism, White Privilege, and the Bridge to a New America
- By: Jim Wallis
- Narrated by: Patrick Lawlor
- Length: 10 hrs and 10 mins
- Unabridged
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America's problem with race has deep roots, with the country's foundation tied to the near extermination of one race of people and the enslavement of another. Racism is truly our nation's original sin. "It's time we right this unacceptable wrong", says best-selling author and leading Christian activist Jim Wallis. Fifty years ago, Wallis was driven away from his faith by a white church that considered dealing with racism to be taboo.
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Important book, but narrator was an amateur
- By RevReader on 06-01-18
By: Jim Wallis
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My Life, My Love, My Legacy
- By: Coretta Scott King, Barbara Reynolds
- Narrated by: January LaVoy, Phylicia Rashad
- Length: 14 hrs and 20 mins
- Unabridged
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The life story of Coretta Scott King - wife of Martin Luther King Jr., founder of the King Center for Nonviolent Social Change, and singular 20th-century American civil rights activist - as told fully for the first time, toward the end of her life, to one of her closest friends. Born in 1927 to daringly enterprising Black parents in the Deep South, Coretta Scott had always felt called to a special purpose.
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Inspirational memoir
- By Jean on 01-30-17
By: Coretta Scott King, and others
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Road to Jonestown
- Jim Jones and Peoples Temple
- By: Jeff Guinn
- Narrated by: George Newbern
- Length: 17 hrs and 30 mins
- Unabridged
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In the 1950s, a young Indianapolis minister named Jim Jones preached a curious blend of the gospel and Marxism. His congregation was racially mixed, and he was a leader in the early civil rights movement. Eventually, Jones moved his church, Peoples Temple, to northern California, where he got involved in electoral politics and became a prominent Bay Area leader. But underneath the surface lurked a terrible darkness.
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An Important Accurate Historical Report
- By Julia on 08-24-17
By: Jeff Guinn
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Rebbe
- The Life and Teachings of Menachem M. Schneerson, the Most Influential Rabbi in Modern History
- By: Joseph Telushkin
- Narrated by: Rich Topol
- Length: 18 hrs and 45 mins
- Unabridged
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From his modest headquarters in Crown Heights, Brooklyn, the Rebbe advised some of the world's greatest leaders and shaped matters of state and society. Statesmen and artists as diverse as Ronald Reagan, Robert F. Kennedy, Yitzchak Rabin, Menachem Begin, Elie Wiesel, and Bob Dylan span the spectrum of those who sought his counsel.
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Only good things
- By Ben on 06-01-17
By: Joseph Telushkin
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Parting the Waters
- America in the King Years 1954-63
- By: Taylor Branch
- Narrated by: Prentice Onayemi, Janina Edwards
- Length: 45 hrs and 10 mins
- Unabridged
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Hailed as the most masterful story ever told of the American civil rights movement, Parting the Waters is destined to endure for generations. Moving from the fiery political baptism of Martin Luther King, Jr., to the corridors of Camelot where the Kennedy brothers weighed demands for justice against the deceptions of J. Edgar Hoover, here is a vivid tapestry of America, torn and finally transformed by a revolutionary struggle unequaled since the Civil War.
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Excellent
- By Judith Princz on 05-15-19
By: Taylor Branch
What listeners say about The Last Segregated Hour
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- Adam Shields
- 09-09-19
Circles a bit. But that gives a multifacisted view
Summary: A broad overview of the church desegregation protests, and then a deep dive into one particular church with extensive interviews and history.
I think that many people do not have historically accurate views on how the church has traditionally related to racism, segregation, and the Civil Rights Era. An excellent introductory book for the subject is Jemar Tisby’s Color of Compromise. But no introduction can adequately address every issue in a long history.
The Last Segregated Hour works through the kneel-in campaigns that started in the mid 195s, alongside the lunch counter protests, the freedom rides, and other similar desegregation campaigns. The initial section that details the national perspective of the Kneel-ins feels repetitive because the history was repetitive. Teams of mixed race worshipers would visit a church, usually coordinated with a larger group so that several churches were visited at the same time. Some churches would welcome the groups, or at least not prevent them from being seated. Some churches would allow them in the sanctuaries but segregate them into a particular area. Some churches would ban them from entering, occasionally resulting in violence or police presence.
These Kneel-in campaigns happened over and over throughout the country for years. Churches that banned the mixed-race worshipers usually were visited over and over again, until they were allowed in. Some individual churches had groups of mixed race worshipers attempt to enter the congregation weekly for over a year before they were allowed to be seated.
According to Haynes, there was not a consistent denominational or church tradition that across geography was either more welcoming or more segregated, although in general Baptist churches were a bit more likely to be segregated, and Catholic was the most unlikely. But there were examples of almost every type of church being both segregated and welcoming.
Once the book moves to the particular example of the city of Memphis Kneel-ins starting in 1964 and then the specific campaign at Second Presbyterian Church, the book becomes more engaging. It is not that the national history and context is not essential; it is. But the particular does give a close understanding that I think makes this book worth reading. Part of the importance of the book is the interviews. Four chapters focus on memories of members at Second Presbyterian, the protestors themselves (separate sections looking at the different experiences of both White and Black protestors), and then a chapter on the perception of the member children and youth.
The history gets circled a number of times from different perspectives to pay attention to how the protests were viewed and experienced differently from pastoral, lay leaders, general members, the outside community, and the protestors. And the book does not stop with the actual protests and resolutions. There are three chapters on the long term results and implications. A church split happened as a result of the protests. Both the original and the new church have had 50 years to deal with the consequences of the kneel-in protests. And there is a section on repentance and corporate wrestling with the history.
I have read a couple of books by Haynes, the most recent is the Battle for Bonhoeffer. What I appreciate is that Haynes is interested in not just recounting history but using history as 'the usable past'. In both Battle for Bonhoeffer and The Last Segregated Hour, Haynes posits modern parallels, while being careful to not go beyond the historical data or his professional limitations. The part that seems most relevant to me is the connection between ideological and racial issues.
“At the time, in fact, many Southerners were convinced that racial integration was part of a communist plot to destabilize American society. And since communists were notoriously ‘godless,’ it follows that anyone fighting to end segregation was an atheist or a dupe of atheists. (Page 165)
Today there is a similar movement that is attempting to push back against social justice politically and theologically. In the civil rights era, the ideology being fought was communism. Today is a ‘cultural marxism’ or socialism. I have interacted with several people that claim to be against racism, but also believe that anti-racism is a Godless ideology that is incompatible with Christianity. Others in a more secular space, are willing to flirt with racism as a means to ‘own the libs.’ Some of these people I believe are genuinely opposed to racism inside and outside the church. But some have been significantly influenced theologically by a political position, primarily an extreme form of libertarianism or individualism that does not believe that cooperative action can (or should) exist.
This genuine opposition to both racism and objection to racism does not make sense to me. It feels ahistorical in approach. And it feels theologically problematic since justice is a clear theme of scripture. The best responses are objecting, not to justice as a goal, but the means of achieving that justice. And there is an argument there.
The Last Segregated Hour is important read not just because of the history, but because it grapples well with the long term result, the methods of protest, the theological implications, the resolutions of the protests and the attempts at reconciliation and resolution (admitting the weaknesses that resulted. Unfortunately, this book appears to be out of print outside of digital (audiobook or ebook) options. You can still get physical copies, but they are relatively expensive.
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- M & G
- 06-20-22
Required Reading!!
This should be required reading for every college graduate at Rhodes and University of Memphis. Such an amazing book about a pivotal time in the history of our city. And yet I am yet to find anyone who talks about it. Thank you so much for bringing this to the light.
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