“The Fatherhood of God and the Brotherhood of Man”: the Social Gospel Interracialism of the Southern Sociological Congress
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“The Fatherhood of God and the Brotherhood of Man”: The Social Gospel Interracialism of the Southern Sociological Congress by James Joseph Boshears, Jr. A dissertation submitted to the Graduate Faculty of Auburn University in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the Degree of Doctor of Philosophy Auburn, Alabama May 7, 2012 Keywords: U.S. South, Progressive Era, social gospel, race, religion Copyright 2012 by James Joseph Boshears, Jr. Approved by J. Wayne Flynt, Chair, Professor Emeritus of History David C. Carter, Associate Professor of History Charles A. Israel, Associate Professor of History Abstract Scholars have long debated the nature and extent of the social gospel movement’s influence on southern religion. The Southern Sociological Congress’ (SSC) rhetoric and actions demonstrated the blending of southern pietistic evangelicalism’s emphasis on spirituality with liberal theology’s accent on ecumenism, social service, and community. Adding credence to claims of a social gospel movement in the South, the SSC’s adaptive theology also challenged the notion of a static and definitive social gospel fitting prescribed parameters. SSC delegates adjusted the movement’s tenets to their ethical reality, a move that challenges commonly held notions about the SSC and contributes to a more inclusive understanding of the social gospel. As they reshaped social gospel beliefs to address regional social ills, SSC delegates melded southern evangelical spirituality with liberal theology’s insistence on social action, focusing most intently on racial ills. Emphasizing the interconnectedness of African Americans and southern whites, SSC delegates embraced a southern social gospel interracialism that battled the most egregious injustices of the segregated system. ii Acknowledgements Accomplishment requires collaboration. I am especially grateful to the many librarians, archivists, and scholars who made this project possible: Kathy Smith and Teresa Gray at Vanderbilt University’s Special Collections and University Archives; Beth Madison House and Jesse Carnie Smith at Fisk University’s Special Collections; Diane Black, Theresa Gordon, Marilyn Hughes, and Tom Cannon at the Tennessee State Archives; Nick Wyman at the University of Tennessee’s Special Collections; Tony Jones, Stacy S. Jones, and Andrea Jackson at Atlanta University Center’s Archives and Special Collections; Tom Dillard at the University of Arkansas’ Special Collections; Naomi Nelson at Emory University’s Manuscript, Archives, and Rare Book Library; Laurie Carr at Tulane University’s Amistad Research Center; Rachel Canada at the University of North Carolina’s Special Collections; Lisa Persinger at Wake Forest University’s Archives; Elizabeth Wells and staff at Samford University’s Special Collections; Nicole Bouche and Ellen Welch at the University of Virginia’s Special Collections; and Tim Dodge and Nancy Noe at Auburn University’s Ralph B. Draughon Library. Auburn University’s History Department also provided generous summer travel grants that eased my growing financial burden. I am overwhelmed by the generosity and grace of my mentors and colleagues at Auburn University. David Carter and Donna Bohanan offered open doors and sound iii advice. Dr. David Edwin Harrell, Jr. introduced me to unique perspectives on the southern religious experience. My major professor, Wayne Flynt, provided a keen editorial eye, scholarly guidance, a gracious and generous spirit, and a social witness rarely seen in academia. Scott Billingsley, Jeff Frederick, Tim Pitts, Dave Murdock, Delane Tew, and Rebecca Woodham were excellent mentors and true confidants. Above all, I am indebted to my friends and family. I will never be able to reciprocate Patti Morrow’s invaluable editing that rescued this project. Moreover, I could not have survived this whole endeavor without the love and support of Sam and Amy Persons Parkes, Scott Dunn and Jill Richards, and Pat and Steve Dunn. I especially thank my mother and father, Joe and Charlotte Boshears, for encouraging me to pursue and finish my doctorate and providing the means to do so. I reserve my deepest gratitude for my wife, Jeni. This accomplishment would never have happened without her, and I will never expose her to such torture again. My young son, Tilson, has no idea why his father spent so much time in front of the computer. I’ve promised him countless hours of baseball and swimming and will immediately begin making up for lost time. iv Table of Contents Abstract .............................................................................................................................. ii Acknowledgements .......................................................................................................... iii Introduction ........................................................................................................................ 1 Chapter 1: Of Carmack and Christ................................................................................... 30 Chapter 2: “The Solid South for a Better Nation”.............................................................93 Chapter 3: “The Fatherhood of God and the Brotherhood of Man”............................... 165 Chapter 4: The Brotherhood of Man and the Challenge of Custom............................... 263 Chapter 5: The Conservation of Health and the Preservation of Humanity................... 305 Chapter 6: Fighting the War and Winning the Peace .................................................... 365 Conclusion ..................................................................................................................... 411 Bibliography.................................................................................................................... 421 v INTRODUCTION Speaking before a capacity crowd at Nashville’s Ryman Auditorium in May of 1912, YMCA student secretary Willis D. Weatherford boldly conditioned the Southern Sociological Congress’ success on its ability to view African Americans as human beings “whom God has put here to be developed, ennobled, made worthy and useful.” For Weatherford, the Southern Sociological Congress (SSC) was meaningless unless it imbued all personality with sacredness and value: the bad and the good, the defective and the efficient, the diseased and the physically sound, and “more than all of these . the black as well as the white.” Coopting the concept of “the Fatherhood of God and the brotherhood of man” (a metaphor for a kingdom of God based on the intrinsic worth of every individual and guarded by God revealed in Christ) from Albrecht Ritschl, the influential nineteenth-century German liberal theologian, interracialists like Weatherford applied it to the southern biracial context. Like most SSC orators, this young Methodist minister espoused a social gospel theology informed by unique southern contingencies, primarily the belief that uplifting African Americans would hasten Christ’s kingdom on earth.1 1Willis D. Weatherford “The Negro and the New South,” in The Call of the New South, ed. James E. McCulloch (Nashville: Southern Sociological Congress, 1912), 220- 225; “Southern Sociological Congress Closes To-Night,” Nashville Banner, 10 May 1912, 1, 14; William A. Link, The Paradox of Southern Progressivism,1880-1930 (Chapel Hill and London: The University of North Carolina Press, 1992), 240-267; 1 The Southern Sociological Congress (SSC) clearly trumpeted its religious and racial proclivities at its inaugural 1912 meeting in Nashville. The organization’s “Challenge” issued to individuals and institutions called the church “to prove her right to social mastery by a universal and unselfish social ministry.” Although it reflected Progressivism’s panoply, the SSC’s social ministry agenda primarily emphasized interracial cooperation as a means to ameliorate African American social ills. Unlike previous organizations formed to address southern racial problems, the SSC offered more than just paternalistic words of support in the name of the “Negro”and chose instead to work in conjunction with African Americans. Historians, however, have only slowly recognized the SSC’s theological roots. Lyda Gordon Shivers’ 1935 dissertation, “The Social Welfare Movement in the South: A Study in Regional Culture and Social Organization,” designated the Southern Sociological Congress (SSC) as the primary southern social conference of the twentieth century’s second decade. Despite the organization’s name, Shivers recognized that religion, not sociology, set “the social aims of the South” and dictated the SSC’s emphases and interests. Of the Congress’ seven divisions or “departmental conferences,” the church and social service department routinely attracted the most interest and attention and was unique among social welfare conferences. Although the National Conference of Charities and Corrections had a section on “church and social work” in Dewey W. Grantham, Southern Progressivism: The Reconciliation of Progress and Tradition (Knoxville: The University of Tennessee Press, 1983), xix-xxii, 246-261, 374- 385; J. Philip Wogaman, Christian Ethics: A Historical Introduction (Louisville: Westminster/John Knox Press, 1993), 174-175. 2 1911, it lasted only a year. The SSC’s department was permanent, espoused a socially minded theology, and promoted an interracial agenda. Shivers also noted the influence of the race relations departmental conference. At the SSC’s Atlanta gathering in 1913, the conference garnered the largest crowds, welcomed black delegates,