Some have questioned if evangelicals—especially white evangelicals—did anything to aid the cause of the Civil Rights Movement in the 1960s. Most ardent in this question has been someone like Curtis J. Evans, who has charged, “Although they explicitly condemned racism in many of their public writings, [Evangelicals] did not support the tactics employed by civil rights leaders to end discrimination against black Americans. Evangelicals constantly criticized civil rights marches and legislation.”[1]
1. Michael O. Emerson and Christian Smith join in this criticism: “Some whites did indeed participate in Civil Rights marches, freedom rides, and the like, but they were rarely evangelical Christians. Rather, they were northern liberal Christians, Catholics, Jews, and non-Christians.” Divided By Faith: Evangelical Religion and the Problem of Race in America (New York: Oxford, 2000), 46.
By Evans’s estimation, evangelicals did not do anything to help the Black community during the Civil Rights Movement, and as a result, there remains a rift in the American church. Truly, that discussion is worth having, but it stands on an underlying assumption—namely, that the Civil Rights Movement is what gave the Black Church, and by extension the Black community, all they were looking to gain. But is that so? It’s a question worth considering.
In what follows, I want to challenge this assumption and leave an open-ended question about the enduring impact of the Civil Rights Movement.
To Move Forward, We Must Look Back
The journey to equality for blacks in America has a long and treacherous history. Today, some argue that blacks are nowhere near the end of that journey and much more needs to be done. For them, a new wave of promise comes through “social justice,” a justice brought about by the allure of new governmental laws, economic justice, and racial equity. Still, others embrace the progress made, holding the belief that there’s nothing more to be done.
An honest look at the history of the Civil Rights Movement can be helpful in assessing where it has come from and what’s needed to move forward.
In North America, the disconnect between “all men are created equal” in the Declaration of Independence sharply contrasted with the regular practice of slavery. This tension would ultimately culminate in the American Civil War: then the Emancipation Proclamation, the 13th Amendment (which ended slavery), the 14th Amendment (which gave citizens rights), and the 15th Amendment (which gave all men the right to vote)—and this was just the beginning.
Still, there were several impediments to equal treatment. Long after the Constitutional Amendments, many southern states subjected their black citizens to segregation and racial discrimination. Southern states passed laws that marginalized black people. This treatment would come in many forms, such as peonage, black codes, and Jim Crow laws. As a result, a new front had to be set up on the road to equality.
The Civil Rights Movement
Along the journey, Rosa Parks, a black seamstress, during an act of civil disobedience, was arrested in Montgomery, Alabama, on December 1, 1955, for violating a draconian Jim Crow law. Ms. Parks sat on the front row of the “colored section” of the bus, which was established to separate black and white commuters. Ms. Park refused to give up her seat to a white passenger when ordered to do so, and the result was the flame that ignited the Montgomery Bus Boycott of 1955.
This flame was the result of the coordinated effort of the Montgomery Improvement Association (MIA) led by Martin Luther King, Jr. The MIA consisted of black ministers and community leaders committed to bringing national attention to racial segregation in the South.
Seventy percent of the Montgomery Bus System’s patrons were black. During the boycott, blacks refused to get on a bus until the buses were desegregated. The city of Montgomery lost between 30 and 40 thousand bus fares each day during the boycott. Financial records suggest the city lost $3,000 daily (which equates to $31,326 per day in 2022).
Rather than paying fares to the city, consumers paid for a one-of-a-kind mode of transportation within their own community. Black commuters needing to get to work found a lift from someone else in the neighborhood and paid the fare to another black community member. The effect on the black economy was huge because the money spent on transportation was either saved or spent in the community.
The United States Supreme Court decision in Browder v. Gayle would end discrimination on public buses. After a 382-day boycott, black patrons received what they fought for: a desegregated bus. It was a victory in one sense, but ironically it led to the first of many miscarriages of justice caused by a movement committed to seeking justice. Although the movement gained an equal seat on the bus—this “victory” would witness black people abandoning the first-of-its-kind Uber car service and returning to the buses that despised their patronage.
The “success” of the Montgomery Bus Boycott would catapult Martin Luther King, Jr., onto the national stage while simultaneously cementing white superiority—through dependence on a white bus system—in the minds of blacks.
The message sent and received by the civil rights leaders was that equality meant sitting on the same bus, using the same bathroom, and eating at the same lunch counter as whites. More neglected was economic empowerment brought about by being self-sufficient. So, the message of self-sufficiency and entrepreneurship was lacking from the movement. The result of this failure would invite the need for greater political power. Yet again, the voices who spoke most loudly among black leaders also handed over the black community to any political party that would validate them through proximity to whites.
The Civil Rights Movement and its leaders successfully tied the advancement of the black community to the shifting political winds by largely abandoning economic self-sufficiency and embracing political power as the path forward. While this reality may not have been apparent to civil rights leaders initially, certain politicians saw it clearly and used political favors to obtain the power they needed from the black community.
The Problem of Politics
In 1957, civil rights activists hoped that Republican President Dwight D. Eisenhower would use his executive authority to support the Supreme Court ruling in Brown v. Board of Education to desegregate schools. Eisenhower did this, but he ran into opposition from some who believed he had overstepped his presidential authority to assist blacks.
Two historic occurrences for the administration occurred in September. The Civil Rights Act of 1957, which gave black voters more protection for their voting rights, was the first legislation of its kind to be signed into law since reconstruction. The second occurred when nine black students—known as the “Little Rock Nine“—became the school’s first group of black students. Later, Eisenhower would send federal marshals to accompany the students to their classes.
With voting rights secured and a growing dependency on the federal government, civil rights workers began to mobilize blacks to vote.
The Election of a President
Four black college students in Greensboro, North Carolina, staged a sit-in at a Woolworth’s lunch counter in February 1960. As the Civil Rights Movement got off the ground, sit-ins began nationwide.
After participating in a sit-in, Martin Luther King was found guilty of violating his probation in October 1960. Vice President Nixon ignored the news of King’s imprisonment weeks before a divisive presidential race against Senator John F. Kennedy. In contrast, Kennedy called Coretta Scott King, who was six months pregnant, and offered his condolences and the support of his brother, Robert F. Kennedy to press for King’s release on bail. Martin Luther King, Sr. endorsed John F. Kennedy wholeheartedly in response to the news. On election day, 70% of black voters chose John F. Kennedy (D), giving him the slimmest of victories as President of the United States.
Having already been promised benefits in exchange for their ballots, this action would further tie black voters to the Democratic Party.[2]
2. Historically, 1932 was the year when the political allegiance of blacks switched parties. Democrats, the party which previously defended slavery, convinced masses of black to abandon the Republican party by offering them greater benefits through Franklin D. Roosevelt’s New Deal legislation. If one wonders how the slavery-defending Democrats of the nineteenth century became the party of choice for blacks in the twentieth century, the presidential elections of 1932 and 1960 must be considered. See Nancy Joan Weiss, Farewell to the Party of Lincoln: Black Politics in the Age of FDR.
Securing the Black Vote
Following the election, civil rights leaders focused on registering black voters. Between 1960 and 1963, civil rights leaders relied on the Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC), the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC), the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP), the Congress of Racial Equity (CORE), and the National Urban League, as well as funds provided by the newly elected president through the Voter Education Project (VEP). These organizations’ efforts would result in the registration of 800,000 to 1,000,000 black voters, with the majority supporting the Democratic Party.
With such voter turnout uniformly attaching its future ambitions to one political party, the black community was determined to follow the leadership of Martin Luther King and the other civil rights leaders. While this decision may have seemed promising, time would show this as detrimental to blacks for decades to come.
Furthermore, while blacks helped to secure presidential office for Democrats, the Southern Democratic party continued its assault on black communities. However, this assault would come in a different form.
After Kennedy’s assassination, Vice President Lyndon B. Johnson took office. By 1964, at the beginning of his first full term in office, President Johnson signed the Civil Rights Act of 1964. This Civil Rights Bill guaranteed equal protection on the job, and Johnson’s “War on Poverty” called for putting into practice what FDR had envisioned in his “Economic Bill of Rights.”
As a result, the black community would come to perceive that their economic, social, and even emotional success or failure depended on the next wave of government programs and handouts. Given the reliance of black voters on government action, blacks were exclusively reliant upon the Democratic Party and the political wins they brought.
The Results
In 1965, Democratic Senator Daniel Patrick Moynihan issued The Moynihan Report: The Negro Family, The Case for National Action. The study looked at black poverty in the United States. One significant conclusion was that beyond Jim Crow laws and three centuries of slavery, black community problems were the result of fracturing family structures.
President Johnson’s government would utilize the report to further The Great Society policies, pledging assistance to single moms, who at the time of the report accounted for 25% of the population at the time. Tragically, these policies would ultimately serve not to help black families but destroy them. These policies created a situation where today only 27% of black women are married (lower than any other group) and nearly 69% of black children are born out of wedlock.
Here are the facts: When black men and fathers are not in the home, children suffer. Government services incentivized separation and single-motherhood, and these became the norm—to the devastation of black children for generations. When government-sponsored, “service providers” like Planned Parenthood set up shop in urban centers, black babies die. As Protecting Black Life reports, today “79% of its surgical abortion facilities are located within walking distance of African American or Hispanic/Latino neighborhoods.”
Truly, one of the hallmarks of the civil rights movement was the idea that desegregation was the key to future success. This was, with thanksgiving, accomplished at the lunch counter and in public education. Yet, how well did it fair? Public schools are more segregated today than before, many black families are fragmented, and there are the heinous abortion statistics.
Those who want to look elsewhere for solutions, recommending yet another government initiative, should consider the unfavorable outcomes this strategy has produced. Despite the advantages of enabling black people to share public accommodations, eat at lunch counters, and use restrooms next to white people, relying on government actions, whether civil or otherwise, is a flimsy solution to the issues affecting the black community.
The Solution
With the perspective of history, one might find legitimate grounds for asking: What would have happened if evangelicals took up the task of participating in the Civil Rights Movement? Would it have made a greater difference? Or, would it have compromised evangelical faith and the blessed hope of heaven?
Again, those questions need answers, and perhaps I’ll address those in another article.
Getting back to the question at hand, what we can see in the history above is that all the earthly rights and civil liberties gained for blacks in the 1950s and 1960s came with a cost. And for earnest followers of Christ who love their neighbors and want to see them flourish in this life and the next, it is worth considering the positive and negative impact of the Civil Rights Movement.
Sadly, for as much good as was promised by the civil rights leaders, those who came to believe that the government has the transformative ability necessary to rectify historical wrongs must pay a hefty price for relying on such a flawed source with so much authority. Indeed, the only answer capable of transforming the human heart is the power of the gospel—the good news of Jesus Christ. The evangel. This is what evangelicals believe. And in a world filled with injustice and sin, this is the truth we must remember.
Did the Civil Rights Movement fail the black community? Again, that’s a complicated question, but the truth is it was never designed to succeed in such a monumental task. By contrast, the gospel never fails, and should be central to our believing, our living.
Indeed, Jesus warned his people, no matter their skin color, that you can gain the whole world and forfeit your soul. Remembering this truth, it is vital for Christians to evaluate all things in life, including the Civil Rights Movement. Such honesty does not deny justice and human flourishing; it ensures that human flourishing will continue, so long as God’s people walk in truth.
Truly, this is the good news—and the path that leads to liberty and justice for all.
