Louisiana State University LSU Digital Commons LSU Historical Dissertations and Theses Graduate School 1983 Roland Q. Leavell: a Biography (Mississippi). Mary D. leavell Bowman Louisiana State University and Agricultural & Mechanical College Follow this and additional works at: https://digitalcommons.lsu.edu/gradschool_disstheses Recommended Citation Bowman, Mary D. leavell, "Roland Q. Leavell: a Biography (Mississippi)." (1983). LSU Historical Dissertations and Theses. 3876. https://digitalcommons.lsu.edu/gradschool_disstheses/3876 This Dissertation is brought to you for free and open access by the Graduate School at LSU Digital Commons. It has been accepted for inclusion in LSU Historical Dissertations and Theses by an authorized administrator of LSU Digital Commons. For more information, please contact [email protected]. INFORMATION TO USERS This reproduction was made from a copy of a document sent to us for microfilming. 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Leavell ROLAND Q. LEAVELL: A BIOGRAPHY The Louisiana State University and Agricultural and Mechanical Col.Ph.D. 1983 University Microfilms International300 N. Zenb Road, Ann Arbor, Ml 48106 Copyright 1984 by Bowman, Mary D. Leavell All Rights Reserved ROLAND Q. LEAVELL: A BIOGRAPHY A Dissertation Submitted to the Graduate Faculty of the Louisiana State University and Agricultural and Mechanical College in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in The Department of History by Mary D. Leavell Bowman B.A., Blue Mountain College, 1946 B.A.Ed., Louisiana College, 1964 M.A., Northwestern State University, 1965 August, 1983 ACKNOWLEDGMENTS One of the rewards of scholarship is the opportunity to benefit from the guidance, criticism, and keen intellect of those from whom we learn. To Professor Karl A. Roider, Jr., director of my dissertation, I owe profound gratitude for his candor, encouragement, and hours of painstaking assistance. I have been enriched by his intellectual astuteness, his profound classroom skills, his disciplined devotion to his own scholarly research, and the wise and dignifying spirit he exhibits toward all students. Other committee members to whom I am in­ debted are Professors Gary Crump, Thomas Carleton, Thomas Owen, and Gaines Foster. I wish to express appreciation for the generous support of the administration, faculty and trustees of Louisiana College, especially Professor Thomas Howell who assumed added responsibilities so that I might be away from my classroom duties. For financial assistance and their dedication to higher education I express appreciation to Delta Kappa Gamma Society International for the 1982-83 Founder’s Scholarship. In addition I am grateful to Mrs. Carolyn Sterne and Mrs. Sue Roider who generously provided time, interest, and efficient typing skills. I am acutely aware of the kindness of the many people who granted interviews and of the staff of the New Orleans Baptist Theological Seminary Library who provided access to personal materials belonging to Roland Q. Leavell. I am grateful to Dr. Edward McMillan, who twenty years ago provided me with the example and incentive to strive toward ii a new dimension in my life. For my three children who were completing graduate degrees at the same time as their Mother, I express highest esteem and gratitude for their accomplishments. Their obvious successes have somehow exonerated me and suggested that even though I was seldom exclusively involved in domestic duties, I was perhaps not amiss. I owe boundless appreciation to my loyal husband who demonstrated a chivalrous spirit, high-mindedness, and nobleness of character. He has endured, encour­ aged, and remonstrated appropriately as occasions arose. iii TABLE OF CONTENTS ACKNOWLEDGMENTS.................................................. ii TABLE OF CONTENTS .............................................. iv ABSTRACT.......................................................... V CHAPTER I: THE OXFORD EXPERIENCE ........................... 1 CHAPTER 2: SIN AND THE STERLING SILVER SOUP LADLE .... 39 CHAPTER 3: FROM NEW CASTLE TO NEUF CHATEAU........................ 66 CHAPTER 4: EVELESS EDENS E N D S .................................. 104 CHAPTER 5: GREEN PASTURES ON GREEN STREET .................... 136 CHAPTER 6: SAVING AMERICA TO SAVE THE W O R L D ................... 176 CHAPTER 7: TAMPA INTERLUDE...................................... 205 CHAPTER 8: A VICARIOUS WAY TO SAVE THE W O R L D ................... 217 EPILOGUE......................................................... 249 BIBLIOGRAPHY..................................................... 260 VITA............................................................ 271 iv ABSTRACT Roland Qulnche Leavell was born on December 21, 1891, as the eighth of nine boys to conservative, religious parents in Oxford, Mississippi. Raised in Oxford, he followed his mother's wishes and entered the ministry of the Southern Baptist Convention. As a pastor, he not only served well in a number of churches, but became renowned throughout the Convention for his success in evangelism. Because of this success, he won appointment to two of the most prestigious offices in the Con­ vention: Director of Evangelism and president of the Baptist Theologi­ cal Seminary in New Orleans. This dissertation is not, however, simply a recital of this man's successes. Based on his large collection of personal papers and on interviews with many friends and associates, it is a discussion of a paradigm, the Southern Baptist religious leader born and raised in the ideas and notions of the conservative South but forced over time to face the conditions of twentieth-century America and the world. Leavell .never shrank from observing twentieth-century life. Besides his religious work, he studied early on in Chicago where he first en­ countered integration; he experienced the First World War as a YMCA volunteer and as a stretcher-bearer; he visited the China of the war­ lords; in 1934 he witnessed Nazi Germany at first hand; and he preached in Nagasaki soon after that city' s destruction by the atom bomb. Despite all these experiences, he clung to a religion and theology rooted deep in what he learned at his mother's knee, a faith focused on individual salvation and the avoidance of the puritanical sins of drinking, gambling, dancing, and illicit sexual activity. Socially he made little progress; he believed throughout his life in the in­ equality of the races and the superiority of what he perceived as Southern values over those of the North. Intellectually he grew little as well, ducking and dodging the difficult questions the world posed to him. He stands in stark contrast to the fellow Oxfordian of his youth, William Faulkner, but he also represents a much more common type in the twentieth-century American South. vi CHAPTER I THE OXFORD EXPERIENCE Roland Quinche Leavell would be considered by any standard a compelling Individual. At his death many newspapers ran front-page accounts and editorials* extolling his varied accomplishments. The New Orleans Times Picayune praised him as a man of "many talents" and 2 spoke of "the Leavell energy" and "utter devotion to his career1, while the Clarion Ledger of Jackson, Mississippi lauded his "literary pro­ duction, preaching and devotion to the education of ministers, vision, 3 4 and talented and energetic spirit." Baptist denominational papers joined international and non-denominational religious publications in eulogizing Leavell, describing him as "relentless, hardworking, . a well-balanced man's man who liked to stalk a deer, and a great sport's [sic] fan . understanding