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The Danger and Necessity of Purity in White and African-American Mennonite Ra NORTHWESTERN UNIVERSITY ‘A Pure Fellowship’: The Danger and Necessity of Purity in White and African-American Mennonite Racial Exchange, 1935-1971 A DISSERTATION SUBMITTED TO THE GRADUATE SCHOOL IN PARTIAL FULFILLMENT OF THE REQUIREMENTS for the degree DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY Field of History and Religion By Tobin Miller Shearer EVANSTON, ILLINOIS June 2008 2 © Copyright by Tobin Miller Shearer 2008 All Rights Reserved 3 ABSTRACT ‘A Pure Fellowship’: The Danger and Necessity of Purity in White and African-American Mennonite Racial Exchange, 1935-1971 Tobin Miller Shearer “How did the Civil Rights Movement bring about change?” In answer to that question, this dissertation argues that the splintering of purity rhetoric within the intimate environments of home and sanctuary both inhibited and empowered white and African-American religious practitioners to seek social change. To make this argument, this project follows the purity- focused activity of white and African-American Mennonites through the long civil rights era. Building on the work of anthropologist Mary Douglas, this dissertation focus on Mennonites’ multiple expressions of purity – defined here as a cultural value that orders society by defining group boundaries – through racially focused clothing restrictions, marriage practices, interracial congregations, evangelism initiatives, and service programs. Based on oral histories, photographs, diaries, and denominational records, this work demonstrates how purity values changed over time. The record of this change reveals how religious actors shifted their attention from maintaining racially untainted blood in the 1930s, to bolstering homogeneous fellowships in the 1940s, to protecting female chastity in the 1950s, and then to managing a splintered religious rhetoric in the 1960s. That rhetoric reveals a set of theologically expressed purity forms – in religious, sexual, racial, and ethical manifestations – alongside a rule-based purity heuristic 4 focused on establishing protective group boundaries. This study thus reveals a striking continuity: the danger and necessity of purity remained interlocked for four decades. Each time an expression of purity attracted African Americans to the church, another purity expression blocked their entrance. The argument advanced by this dissertation thus repositions the existing historiography of the Civil Rights Movement by shifting attention away from the public drama of street marches and civil arrests and toward the quotidian negotiation of family meals and evening devotions. Because their convictions forced them to make daily decisions between racial engagement and separatist conviction, Mennonites offer unique insight into the social tensions introduced by religious belief. In the intimate environments of living rooms, porches, sanctuaries, and offices, commitments to racial egalitarianism received bracing challenge. Through interrogation of these sites, I show how change was prompted in the streets but realized in the home, church, and work environment. 5 To the African-American and white Mennonites who struggled to build an interracial church in a segregated society 6 CONTENTS ACKNOWLEDGMENTS......................................................................................................... 8 LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS.................................................................................................. 11 LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS................................................................................................... 13 Chapter 1. INTRODUCTION – THE DANGER (AND NECESSITY) OF PURITY: PLACING RELIGIOUS VALUES IN MENNONITE AND CIVIL RIGHTS HISTORY ...................................................................................... 17 2. PURITY IN TIME: AN OVERVIEW OF WHITE AND AFRICAN- AMERICAN MENNONITE EXCHANGE, 1918-1971............................................ 35 1918-1943 – Separation Era: Deliberate Segregation, Overt Participation in the Racial Order, Initial Resistance .................................... 37 1944-1949 – Era of Evangelism: Church Planting, Segregation Debates, Spectacle...................................................................................... 39 1950-1955 – Hershberger Intervention: Organization, Purity, and Correction .................................................................................................. 43 1956-1962 – Pastoral Era: Promise, Integration, and Calls to Action................... 50 1963-1965 – Harding Ascendancy: Crisis, Movement Traction, and Debate........................................................................................................ 54 1966-1971 – Era of Minority Ministries Council: Rise and Reaction to Black Power........................................................................................... 57 3. “FOR THE PURIFICATION OF MY SOUL”: REFRAMING WOMEN’S RESISTANCE TO THE UNITED STATES RACIAL ORDER.................................................................................................................... 62 4. “IT MUST BE THE PURE STUFF”: FRESH AIR RURAL EXCHANGE PROGRAMS AS CIVIL RIGHTS INOCULATION, 1950-1971 .............................................................................................................. 121 5. MOVING BEYOND CHARISMA IN CIVIL RIGHTS SCHOLARSHIP: VINCENT HARDING’S SOJOURN WITH THE MENNONITES, 1958-1966 ................................................................................... 166 7 6. FROM POLLUTANTS TO PURIFIERS: INTERRACIAL MARRIAGE AND THE MENNONITE CHURCH, 1930-1971................................................... 219 7. INTEGRATED HOURS: RACIAL INTEGRATION AND BLACK POWER IN TWO CHICAGOLAND MENNONITE CONGREGATIONS .............................................................................................. 262 8. A CONVERSATION ABOUT MONEY AND VIOLENCE: REFRAMING THE BLACK MANIFESTO, 1965-1971 ........................................ 323 9. CONCLUSION – ‘A PURE FELLOWSHIP’ REVISITED: UNPACKING THE DANGER AND THE NECESSITY OF PURITY................... 387 Appendix 1. MENNONITE PRESS TITLES ON RACIAL THEMES, 1940-1971 ..................... 410 2. LIST OF MENNONITE STATEMENTS ON RACIAL THEMES......................... 432 3. BLACK MANIFESTO TO THE WHITE CHRISTIAN CHURCH AND THE JEWISH SYNAGOGUES IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA AND ALL OTHER RACIST INSTITUTIONS.................................... 455 4. LIST OF ORAL HISTORY INTERVIEWS ........................................................... 466 AUTHOR VITA ................................................................................................................... 469 8 ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS Although I wrote this dissertation in the solitary confines of a Northwestern library carrel with a gorgeous view of Lake Michigan and in a cement-block sunroom sometimes shaded by an overcup Oak tree, I also wrote in the midst of a crowd of interlocutors and supporters. The naming of these friends and colleagues does not erase my debt to them, but it does acknowledge their support and critical feedback. I begin first with deep appreciation for the co-chairs of my committee, Josef Barton and Cristina Traina. Their persistent feedback, careful prodding, and gracious collaboration – both with me and with each other – modeled the best intellectual formation the academy has to offer. In addition, Sarah Taylor and Fred Kniss have given feedback and counsel along the way and shaped the project by offering their unwavering support, reading my monthly progress updates, and believing that I could write this history. Many others have read and responded to portions of this work. Members of the Northwestern History Department’s dissertators group, run by Michael Sherry, prompted me to write for an audience who knew very little about Mennonites and to do so with the best prose I had to offer. Thanks in particular to my American history cohort members: Charlotte Cahill, David Davidson, Michael Green, Marygrace Tyrrell, and David Sellers Smith. Several Mennonite scholars offered perspicacious commentary including Jeffery Gingerich, Felipe Hinojosa, Steve Nolt, and Regina Shands Stoltzfus. I am also grateful for the counsel and feedback from members of the Center for African-American History’s dissertators group 9 including Justin Behrend, Janaka Bowman, Sarah Blackwood, Katy Chiles, Carole Emberton, Erik Gellman, Kamasi Hill, Kate Masur, Sarah Mesle, Mshaï Mwangola, Jarod Roll, Crystal Sanders, and Dana Wiener. The camaraderie and interdisciplinary feedback from Jonathan Adler, Michelle Albaugh, and Lisbeth Goble also helped me think outside the disciplinary boxes in which I spend my days. The commentary and feedback offered by members of Community Mennonite Church in Markham, Illinois, about a chapter that opened their internal story to external scrutiny was likewise invaluable. Thanks in particular to careful readers, encouragers, and providers of access to church records like Steve Buchtel, Don Burklow, Grace Burklow, Laura Devine, Mike Devine, Norma Devine, David Ewert, Karen Ewert, Ken Hawkley, Louise Hawkley, Dolores Mares, Jerry Mares, Bonnie Neufeld, Chuck Neufeld, Mertis Odom, Dave Suter, Marlene Suter, Keith Wilson, Jane Voth, and Mary Ann Woods. I have also benefited from the expert knowledge of many archivists. I am particularly grateful for the leads that Carolyn C. Wenger at the Lancaster Mennonite Historical Society offered me, for similar guidance from Dennis Stoesz at the Mennonite Church archives in Goshen, Indiana, and for counsel from John D. Thiesen at the Mennonite
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