Seventh-day Adventists and the Civil Rights Movement

Seventh-day Adventists and the

Civil Rights Movement

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Seventh-day Adventists and the

Civil Rights Movement

Samuel G. London, Jr.

University Press of Mississippi / Jackson

www.upress.state.ms.us The University Press of Mississippi is a member of the Association of American University Presses. Copyright © 2009 by University Press of Mississippi All rights reserved Manufactured in the United States of America First printing 2009 ∞ Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data London, Samuel G. Seventh-day Adventists and the civil rights movement / Samuel G. London, Jr. p. cm. Includes bibliographical references (p. ) and index. ISBN 978-1-60473-272-6 (cloth : alk. paper) 1. Civil rights—Religious aspects—Christianity. 2. Civil rights movements—United States—History— 20th century. 3. Seventh-Day Adventists—Political activity. 4. Christianity and politics—Seventh-Day Adventists. 5. Seventh-Day Adventists—Doctrines. I. Title. BR115.P7L59 2009 232.173’0882867—dc22 2009008377 British Library Cataloging-in-Publication Data available

To my parents Samuel and Mary London

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Contents

ix 3

Acknowledgments Introduction

Part I. The Seventh-day Adventists Origins and Development of Nonparticipatory Politics 11

1. Forays into Social Activism: A Comparative Analysis

66

2. Theology, Politics, and the Retreat from Social Activism

Part II. The Emergence of Afro-Adventist Activism 93

3. Afro-Adventist Activism in the 1930s and 1940s

107

4. Lay Activism

121

5. Ministerial Activism in the South Central Conference

136

6. Ministerial Activism in the South Atlantic and General Conferences

150

Conclusion

157 179 187

Notes Bibliography Index

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Acknowled gments

I would like to thank the University Press of Mississippi for making this book possible. Consequently, I want to recognize Craig Gill, the editor-in-chief; the editorial board; the readers; and the staff for their support of the present work and seeing it through to completion. I am also grateful for the unwavering support of my parents and my brother, Ingram, who took time to read the manuscript and provide helpful suggestions. It was their words of encouragement that strengthened me in the ordeal of putting this volume together. Moreover, I owe a debt of gratitude to the following persons: Joseph C. Dorsey; Vernon Williams Jr.; Leonard Harris; and R. Douglas Hurt, whose comments and critical readings enhanced the present volume. Archives and libraries that provided invaluable assistance included the following: the Ellen G. White Estate in Silver Spring, Maryland; the General Conference of Seventh-day Adventists Department of Archives and Statistics in Silver Spring, Maryland; the Library of Congress in Washington, D.C.; the King Center Archives in Atlanta, Georgia; the New York Public Library’s Division of Humanities and Social Sciences in New York, New York; the New York Public Library’s Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture and History in Harlem, New York; the Ephesus Seventh-day Adventist Church of Harlem, New York; the Eva B. Dykes Library and College Archives on the campus of Oakwood College in Huntsville, Alabama; the Oakwood College Branch of the Ellen G. White Estate in Huntsville, Alabama; the Archives and Records Center in the James White Library at Andrews University in Berrien Springs, Michigan; the Alabama Department of Archives and History in Montgomery, Alabama; the Sligo Seventh-day Adventist Church in Takoma Park, Maryland; the Black Cultural Center Library at Purdue University in West Lafayette, Indiana; and the Notre Dame University Libraries in South Bend, Indiana. Furthermore, I want to thank the office of the ix

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acknowled gments

Adventist Review in Silver Spring, Maryland, for their written permission to use information published in their journal. Likewise, I am grateful to the Review and Herald Publishing Association in Hagerstown, Maryland, and the Pacific Press Publishing Association in Nampa, Idaho, for granting permission to use information found in their publications of Ellen G. White’s writings. With heartfelt gratitude I want to thank the following individuals for candidly sharing their civil rights experiences: Alfonzo Greene Sr.; Charles Edward Dudley Sr.; Charles Joseph; Earl Moore; Warren St. Claire Banfield Jr.; Franklin Hill II; and Edward Earl Cleveland. Their cooperation made this project possible. It is also important that I recognize the financial assistance provided through the Bilsland and Ross Fellowships. Finally, the author takes full responsibility for any points of controversy, or errors of oversight found herein. This volume in no way reflects the views or expertise of the persons or organizations previously mentioned.

Seventh-day Adventists and the

Civil Rights Movement

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Introduction

This study provides the first in-depth examination of Seventh-day Adventist participation in civil rights politics. It considers the extent to which the denomination’s theology influenced the way its members responded to sociopolitical activism in the United States. Irony is not lost on the fact that most Adventists did not participate in the civil rights movement. Consequently, this book explores why some Adventists became involved in sociopolitical issues, while others did not. In doing so, the present volume examines the mixed forces that motivated Adventist activists to participate in civil rights politics. These determinants include community awareness or communityoriented consciousness; the example of early Adventist pioneers; liberationist interpretations of the Bible; and intellectual and theological justifications. These factors superseded the conservative ideological and theological ones that infiltrated Adventism upon the passing of its founders, which some white Adventist leaders, in the 1950s and 1960s, used to discourage church members from participating in sociopolitical activity. Existing literature on Seventh-day Adventist politics and activism consists of two essays (one published and the other unpublished), a dissertation, and two books. Holley Fisher’s article of 2003 titled “Oakwood College Students’ Quest for Social Justice before and during the Civil Rights Era” perceptively points out that authorized histories of the Seventh-day Adventist Church do not dwell on the civil rights movement, or the contributions of its members to it. According to Fisher, this erasure is a manifestation of the denomination’s conservative and guarded policies on race relations. She maintains that theological beliefs such as apocalyptic historical eschatology, sectarian ecclesiology, the radical deterministic doctrine of God, and the freewill image of man influenced the church’s position on the race question. In her estimation, apocalyptic historical eschatology—the doctrine concerning 3

4

introduction

Christ’s Second Coming and the destruction of the world—led Adventists to assume a laissez-faire attitude on social problems. Since Adventism advocates Christ’s return as the solution for society’s problems, adherents tend to perceive sociopolitical activism as unnecessary. In addition, sectarian ecclesiology—the doctrine that Christians are not to conform to the secular world—caused Adventist leaders to admonish members to disassociate themselves from political causes. Moreover, Adventists embraced the radical deterministic doctrine of God—the belief that the divine intervenes directly in human affairs. In short, this notion transfers sociopolitical responsibility from humanity to God. Finally, Fisher explains that the doctrine of the free-will image of man, defined as a state in which the condition of an individual or group remains constant until God “moves” to change their plight, prompted Adventists to downgrade the necessity of constructing a formal plan to deal with social inequalities in both the church and secular society. Fisher argues that the adoption of these four concepts contributed to the snail’s pace of racial reform within the Seventh-day Adventist Church. In her opinion, these tenets undermined the 1931 student protest for social justice at Oakwood College—the denomination’s only historically black institution of higher learning in the United States. Consequently, she characterizes the sociopolitical activism of Adventist students at Oakwood, in the 1930s, as individualistic and moderate. Fisher’s study does not concern itself with the reasons that prompted some Adventists to become participants in civil rights activism, even though on the surface it appears the denomination’s theological beliefs acted to suppress direct involvement in sociopolitical reform. Furthermore, her investigation focuses exclusively on civil rights activities at Oakwood College and the adjoining community of Huntsville, Alabama. It does not examine the efforts of Adventists to combat racial injustice in larger segments of American society.1 James Lewis Kyle Jr.’s unpublished 1977 essay, “SDAs and the Civil Rights Movement: The First Decade,” analyzes the denomination’s periodicals to gauge Adventist reaction to the civil rights movement.2 After examining numerous Seventh-day Adventist publications, such as the Review and Herald, Liberty, Message magazine, and the North American Informant, Kyle concludes that, between the years 1956 and 1966, the denomination was practically silent on the issue of black civil liberties. He provides two possible explanations for this reticence. First, Adventists viewed the civil rights movement as a political rather than a moral issue, and therefore, disavowed direct

introduction

5

involvement. Second, Adventists recognized the Social Gospel component of the civil rights movement and rejected it.3 Roger Dudley and Edwin Hernández’s Citizens of Two Worlds: Religion and Politics among American Seventh-day Adventists (1992) is essentially the publication of the latter’s dissertation, titled “Religious Commitment and Its Political Consequences among Seventh-day Adventists in the United States,” with some modifications. In the book, Dudley and Hernández draw parallels between Seventh-day Adventists and other Protestant evangelicals, to gain a better understanding of Adventist political behavior.4 Using data from their own research, as well as information collected from Stuart Rothenberg’s The Evangelical Voter (1984), John Redekop’s The American Far Right (1968), George Marsden’s Fundamentalism and American Culture (1980), and Gordon Allport’s “The Religious Context of Prejudice” (1966), Dudley and Hernández examine the impact of modernity, individualism, fundamentalism, religious maturity, education, ethnicity, and socioeconomic status on the political views of Protestant evangelicals and Seventh-day Adventists. Overall, they found that Adventists, like most evangelicals, tend to hold conservative political views.5 Nevertheless, their research shows that ethnic minorities within the Seventh-day Adventist Church are more likely to be politically liberal.6 Zdravko Plantak’s The Silent Church: Human Rights and Adventist Social Ethics (1998) investigates the Adventist response to human rights in its theology and history.7 In the book, he examines various issues as they relate to human rights within Adventism. These include: evangelism, premillennialism, belief in the Second Coming of Christ, the biblical Sabbath, the covenant theme, pragmatism, individualism, class struggle, the politics of identity, holistic theology, and the role of women in the church. Plantak concludes that the denomination’s historical record on human rights is inconsistent. He attributes this shortcoming to Adventism’s failure to develop a social theology.8 With the previous studies in mind, the present volume focuses on Adventism for the following reasons. First, the historical record contains little information on Seventh-day Adventist sociopolitical activism. Consequently, this book provides the first in-depth examination of Adventist participation in civil rights politics. Second, the sociologist Edwin Hernández argues that Adventist theology shows little deviation in the context of different cultural settings.9 That being the case, the Seventh-day Adventist Church, an international organization, has the potential to affect sociopolitical issues

6

introduction

worldwide. Third, research affirms that Adventist attitudes on public issues are similar to those of other Protestant evangelical groups.10 Therefore, examining Adventist political views will possibly shed light on other conservative Protestant denominations.11 Finally, this work tackles the issue of why some Adventists, in the civil rights era, became involved in sociopolitical issues while others did not. Part 1 of this book explores the development of nonparticipatory politics in Adventism. Chapter 1 examines the origins of the Seventh-day Adventist Church and recounts the efforts of Ellen G. White (a principal co-founder of the Seventh-day Adventist Church) and her son, James Edson White, to improve the socioeconomic condition of black Americans living in the South. Furthermore, it shows how Southern violence, at the turn of the twentieth century, affected Adventist views on sociopolitical activity. It compares the problems and strategies of Seventh-day Adventist missionaries, working with African Americans in the segregated South, to those of Katharine Drexel and the Sisters of the Blessed Sacrament, a Catholic missionary order serving Native Americans and blacks. Chapter 2 examines certain ideological and theological concepts that became more prominent within Adventism following the passing of its founders—concepts used by some white Adventist leaders, in the 1950s and 1960s, to prevent church members from becoming involved in political affairs. It uncovers the roots of these ideas and proceeds to show how Adventist leaders used them to oppose the denomination’s entry into the civil rights movement. Moreover, it discusses the legendary “curse of Ham” (also known as Noah’s curse or the curse of Canaan), and how some white Adventists applied it to blacks and used it to justify discrimination in the church. Furthermore, the chapter addresses intellectual and theological justifications for social activism, as well as liberationist interpretations of the Bible. Finally, it defines community-oriented consciousness or community awareness and presents it as one of the chief factors that motivated black Adventist activists. Part 2 explores the emergence of Afro-Adventist activism. Chapter 3 highlights the contribution of black Adventists, such as Matthew Strachan and Irene Morgan, to sociopolitical reform in the 1940s. It also demonstrates how events during the interwar years increased community awareness among African Americans. In addition, the chapter presents the argument that a heightened sense of community-oriented consciousness motivated Strachan and Morgan, as well as other black Adventists, to participate in sociopolitical activism. Chapter 4 gives attention to the involvement of black Adventist laypersons in the civil rights movement of the 1950s and 1960s, and specifically

introduction

7

the activities of Alfonzo Greene Sr., Terrance Roberts, and Frank W. Hale Jr. in combating social injustice within the Seventh-day Adventist Church and secular society. Based on information gathered from interviews and memoirs, the chapter demonstrates how community awareness (gained from personal experiences with racism, as well as family socialization), the example of Adventist founders and pioneers, intellectual and theological justifications, and liberationist interpretations of the Bible motivated the activism of these parishioners. Chapter 5 focuses on the sociopolitical activism of black ministers from the South Central Conference of Seventh-day Adventists, specifically Charles E. Dudley Sr., Charles Joseph, and Earl Moore.12 As employees of the denomination, it also documents the opposition they encountered from white Adventist leaders and parishioners. Chapter Six discusses the sociopolitical activism of black Adventist ministers from the South Atlantic and General Conferences.13 In narrating the experiences of Warren S. Banfield Jr. and Franklin Hill II of the South Atlantic Conference, it shows the length to which some white Adventists went to oppose their political activities. The chapter also examines the efforts of Edward Earl Cleveland (popularly known as E. E. Cleveland) to bring about social change as a church official in the Southern Union and General Conferences. As in the previous chapters, this one illustrates how community-oriented consciousness combined with intellectual and theological justifications motivated the activism of these ministers. The conclusion reexamines key issues discussed in the volume. These include the following: community awareness or community-oriented consciousness; the example of Adventist founders and pioneers; intellectual and theological justifications for activism; liberationist interpretations of the Bible; Adventist women activists; doctrine versus politics; events during the interwar years and their impact on black Adventist activism; the rise of Jim Crow; parallels and contrasts in Catholic and Adventist approaches to sociopolitical activism; differences between Northern and Southern AfroAdventists; the influence of Oakwood College on black Adventist activism; and the impact of World War II on the civil rights movement.

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The Seventh-day Adventists Origins and Development of Nonparticipatory Politics

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1.

Forays into Social Activism A Comparative Analysis

In this chapter I examine the origin of the Seventh-day Adventist Church, as well as the effort of some members, at the turn of the century, to improve the socioeconomic status of black Southerners. I also show how violence aimed at African Americans prompted Ellen White, one of the main founders of the church, to adopt a moderate approach to social activism in the South. Moreover, I will debunk the false assertion that White held blatantly racist views. To this day, White’s detractors use her statements, out of their proper historical context, to further their argument that she was a bigot. Some white Adventists who succeeded her in the leadership of the denomination misapplied her statements to foster their conservative agenda of racial segregation and inequality within the Seventh-day Adventist Church. In fact, this unwarranted application of the label of racist prompted Adventist historian Roy Branson to pen an article titled “Ellen G. White—Racist or Champion of Equality?” and inspired Ronald D. Graybill, another Adventist historian, to produce a book on the subject, E. G. White and Church Race Relations. The present study will show that it is unfair to characterize White as a blatant racist or bigot. The chapter also features a comparison between Ellen White and Katharine Drexel, the white Roman Catholic benefactor to various black ministries, to show that White’s statements and strategy for black uplift, or improvement, were not inconsistent with contemporary liberal views on race relations. Furthermore, Drexel’s late-nineteenth- and early-twentieth-century experiences in the Jim Crow South helps illustrate the enormous difficulty both non-Adventists and Adventist missionaries faced in trying to improve

11

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the adventists: origins, development

the plight of African Americans in the segregated South. I also help place White’s statements within their proper historical context. Understanding the sociopolitical climate of the post-Reconstruction South, we can appreciate White’s counsel regarding missionary efforts within the region without misconstruing it as racist. Finally, the similarities in the strategy implemented by Drexel, who to the author’s knowledge was never accused of blatant bigotry, and the strategy White proposed goes to emphasize the latter’s equally progressive stance on race relations at that particular point in time. In summary, the comparative section of this chapter reiterates the fact that Ellen G. White did not advocate the racist views of some white Adventists who succeeded her in the leadership of the denomination and served in leading pulpits. The origin of the Seventh-day Adventist Church goes back to William Miller (1782–1849), a self-taught Bible scholar. Born in Massachusetts in 1782, Miller most of his life resided in the towns of Poultney, Vermont, and Low Hampton, New York. For several years he ascribed to deism, the belief that a god created the universe but exercises no control over it. However, shortly following his military service in the War of 1812, he converted to Christianity. In 1816 Miller joined a small Calvinist Baptist congregation. Like most other Protestants in the United States, Miller was firmly committed to the idea of the separation of church and state.1 Moreover, like many Northern Bible-believing Christians, he was opposed to the institution of slavery. As an avowed abolitionist, Miller assisted runaway slaves on their trek to Canada on the Underground Railroad.2 During this period he began intensively to study the Bible. In his readings, the time prophecy recorded in Daniel 8:13–17 caught Miller’s attention: Then I heard one saint speaking, and another saint said unto that certain saint which spake, How long shall the vision concerning the daily sacrifice, and the transgression of desolation, to give both the sanctuary and the host to be trodden under foot? And he said unto me, Unto two thousand and three hundred days; then shall the sanctuary be cleansed. And it came to pass, when I, even I Daniel, had seen the vision, and sought for the meaning, then behold, there stood before me as the appearance of a man. And I heard a man’s voice between the banks of Ulai, which called, and said, Gabriel, make this man to understand the vision. So he came near where I stood: and when he came, I was afraid, and fell upon my face: but he said unto me, Understand, O son of man: for at the time of the end shall be the vision.3

forays into so cial activism

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The context of this passage alludes to the “time of the end,” so Miller reasoned that the “two thousand and three hundred days” in some way specified the time remaining in Earth’s history. Therefore, the end of the “two thousand and three hundred days” marks the Second Coming of Christ and the concurrent destruction of the world as spoken of in Revelation 19:11–21. On examining at length these prophetic issues, Miller concluded that Christ’s return to Earth would occur around the year 1843. Miller came to this conclusion in 1818.4 Nevertheless, he did not present his views publicly until the year 1831. The following year, 1832, his prophetic calculation, for the first time, appeared in print. William Miller based his prediction for the Second Coming of Christ on the “two thousand and three hundred days” mentioned in Daniel 8:14. Miller used the day for a year principle found in Ezekiel 4:6. “And when thou hast accomplished them, lie again on thy right side, and thou shalt bear the iniquity of the house of Judah forty days: I have appointed thee each day for a year.” The day for a year principle is also found in Numbers 14:34. “After the number of the days in which ye searched the land, even forty days, each day for a year, shall ye bear your iniquities, even forty years, and ye shall know my breach of promise.” Using this day for a year principle, Miller reasoned that he could calculate Christ’s Second Advent. Nevertheless, in order to do this he needed one more component to complete the puzzle and that was the starting point of the “two thousand and three hundred days” (that is, the two thousand and three hundred literal years). For the answer, he turned once again to the book of Daniel. The latter portion of Daniel 9 deals with a second time prophecy encompassed within the prophecy concerning the “two thousand and three hundred days.” Daniel 9:24–27 introduces this time prophecy known as the “seventy weeks.” A close reading of Daniel 9:25 shows yet another time period marked off within the “seventy weeks.” In this passage, the angel Gabriel— expounding on the vision of the “two thousand and three hundred days— says: “Know therefore and understand, that from the going forth of the commandment to restore and to build Jerusalem unto the Messiah the Prince shall be seven weeks, and threescore and two weeks: the street shall be built again, and the wall, even in troublous times.” In this passage Gabriel explains to Daniel the marking off of sixty-nine weeks within the “seventy weeks” encompassed within the “two thousand and three hundred days.” The sixtynine weeks referred to in the passage is calculated as follows. Three score, a score being twenty, is sixty. Sixty weeks plus the seven weeks plus two weeks

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the adventists: origins, development

comes to sixty-nine weeks. This sixty-nine weeks pinpoints the appearance of the “Messiah the Prince,” who William Miller understood to be Jesus Christ. Like most nineteenth-century Christians, Miller believed that the Holy Spirit’s anointing of Jesus as the Messiah took place at his baptism.5 The signal manifestation of this anointing is recorded in the gospels of Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John. The account found in Matthew 3:16–17 will suffice to illustrate the point. “And Jesus, when he was baptized, went up straightway out of the water: and, lo, the heavens were opened unto him, and he saw the Spirit of God descending like a dove, and lighting upon him: And lo a voice from heaven, saying, This is my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased.” From this point, Jesus commenced his ministry. Contemporary biblical scholarship estimated that Jesus’s baptism took place in the year 27 C.E.6 Since Christ’s baptism marked the end of the sixtynine week period and the date of the baptism is known to be around the year 27 C.E., then calculating the beginning of the sixty-nine weeks within the “seventy weeks,” and “two thousand and three hundred days” is relatively easy. Sixty-nine weeks are synonymous to four hundred and eighty-three days. Using the day for a year principle, this translates to four hundred and eighty-three literal years. Working back to the starting point of the sixty-nine weeks within the “seventy weeks,” and the “two thousand and three hundred days,” we must subtract twenty-seven from the four hundred and eightythree years, which leaves four hundred and fifty-six. The year zero is absent from the reckoning of historical time, so we add another year. This brings us to four hundred and fifty-seven. Therefore, 457 B.C.E. is the starting point for the prophetic sixty-nine-week period, the “seventy weeks,” and the “two thousand and three hundred days.” To verify this date, we must return to Daniel 9:25. There the angel Gabriel says: “Know therefore and understand, that from the going forth of the commandment to restore and to build Jerusalem unto the Messiah the Prince shall be seven weeks, and threescore and two weeks: the street shall be built again, and the wall, even in troublous times.” The key to confirming the date 457 B.C.E. is that it must coincide with a command, or decree, to restore and build Jerusalem. Nineteenth-century scholars confirmed that in the year 457 B.C.E. the Persian emperor Artaxerxes Longimanus issued an order to rebuild the walls of Jerusalem. Scholars found the date for this decree in the Canon of Ptolemy, which Sir Isaac Newton (1642–1727) verified in his work titled Observations upon the Prophecies of Daniel.7 Moreover, the decree as recorded in the seventh chapter of the book of Ezra is identical to the account found in the Canon of Ptolemy.8

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The rebuilding of Jerusalem took place during the time of both Ezra and Nehemiah. The complete story of the restoration of the city of Jerusalem is recorded in the biblical books corresponding to their names. Therefore, both biblical and historical evidence establish the date 457 B.C.E. as the start of the prophetic sixty-nine weeks, the “seventy weeks,” and the “two thousand and three hundred days.” Miller simply added 2,300 years to the starting point of the prophecy concerning the “two thousand and three hundred days” in Daniel 8:14 (that is, the year 457 B.C.E.). Taking into account the rule for tabulating time before the Common Era, Miller subtracted 457 from 2300, which left him with 1843. Therefore, he concluded that the year 1843 C.E. marked the close of the prophetic “two thousand and three hundred days” spoken of in Daniel 8:14.9 For thirteen years, Miller kept his findings to himself. However, as the date drew near for the fulfillment of the prophecy, he experienced a feeling of unrelenting guilt and fear. Must he relate his discovery? How would others perceive it? Would they label him a madman? Would he face ostracism and ridicule? Must he warn others of Jesus Christ’s imminent return? Would God hold him accountable for keeping silent? In refusing to broadcast his finding, would it place his own salvation in jeopardy? Surely he would bear the blame for untold thousands who would perish in their sins at the Second Coming. Certainly these persons must hear the warning, so that they can prepare their souls for Christ’s imminent return. These questions and thoughts perplexed him with dread and foreboding.10 Finally, at the age of fifty, Miller publicly made his prediction of the Second Coming known.11 With some trepidation, William Miller, in 1831, began conducting public lectures on the Second Coming of Christ. Within a couple of years the Baptist congregation to which he belonged granted him a pastoral license.12 During the 1830s, Miller’s teachings spread from upstate New York into New England, where they attracted adherents from various Christian denominations. In 1840, Miller’s Advent message evolved into an organized movement. A principle factor in the success of the Millerite movement was the promotional expertise of Joshua Vaughan Himes (1805–1895), pastor of Boston’s Second Christian Congregation. Like Miller, Himes was an abolitionist. As such, he was a friend and associate of William Lloyd Garrison (1805–1879), a leader among abolitionists in Boston.13 Himes was a staunch pacifist, an advocate of temperance, and a supporter of women’s rights.14 During his time, Himes was the epitome of Christian sociopolitical activism. In 1839, at a convention of Christian Connection churches in New Hampshire, Miller and Himes met for the first time. The thirty-nine-year-old Himes listened attentively as

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the adventists: origins, development

Miller expounded on the time prophecies of Daniel as they related to the Second Coming of Christ, and was immediately persuaded of the correctness of Miller’s calculations. Using his skill as an experienced publisher and editorialist, as well as his broad network of friends, Himes brought Miller’s message to a larger audience. Himes organized a lecture tour that brought Miller to major metropolitan areas along the northeastern seaboard, including the booming metropolis of New York City. Moreover, in 1840 Himes began publishing the first Millerite periodical, Signs of the Times. In the fall of that year, Himes organized the first General Conference of Advent Believers. This was the beginning of what the historian Paul Conkin calls a “para-church movement.”15 At another conference held in 1842, Millerite ministers moved to create elaborate charts depicting key historical events in relation to the time prophecies of Daniel, in order to make Miller’s message accessible to the visual learner. Now individuals could follow the lectures of Millerite preachers step by step, and appreciate the calculations that placed great emphasis on the year 1843 as the culmination of Earth’s history and Bible prophecy. In November 1842, Himes permanently established the Midnight Cry, which was originally a temporary newspaper launched to support Millerite revivals. Due in large part to the efforts of Joshua Himes and the dedication of Millerite ministers, such as Joseph Bates and James White, by 1843 persons as far west as Ohio and as far south as Washington, D.C., had heard the Advent message of William Miller.16 Around this time Adventists, or Millerites, had effectively become a separate group within America’s Christian denominations. By far, the largest segment of Adventists was Methodists, followed by Baptists, other evangelical groups, and the Christian Connection. In total, the number of Adventists was approximately 50,000.17 Disappointment began to set in with the passing of the target year 1843. However, hope revived in the spring of 1844 when Samuel Snow introduced a new element into the calculation of the “two thousand and three hundred days” prophecy of Daniel 8:14. According to Snow, the Advent would take place in the seventh month of the Jewish liturgical calendar—not the first, as most Millerites expected. Snow argued that the “cleansing of the sanctuary,” spoken of in Daniel 8:14, coincided with the autumn festivals of the Jewish calendar; particularly, the antitypical Day of Atonement, or Yom Kippur. Consequently, he placed the starting point of the “two thousand and three hundred days” prophecy in the autumn, or fall, of the year 457 B.C.E.18 According to the Bible, as well as Jewish tradition, God specified the exact time for the annual Day of Atonement. Leviticus 16:29–30 contains the key

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information. “And this shall be a statute forever unto you: that in the seventh month, on the tenth day of the month, ye shall afflict your souls, and do no work at all, whether it be one of your own country, or a stranger that sojourneth among you. For on that day shall the priest make an atonement for you, to cleanse you from all your sins before the Lord.” Using the time reference in this passage, Snow reasoned that the prophecy of the “two thousand and three hundred days,” began exactly on the tenth day of the seventh month in the year 457 B.C.E. According to the Karaites, a small and strict Jewish sect, the tenth day of the seventh month in the Jewish liturgical calendar is synonymous with the 22nd of October. Consequently, Snow concluded that October 22, 1844, was the date for Christ’s return.19 Convinced beyond a doubt that the Second Coming was close at hand, some Millerites closed their businesses and neglected the fall harvest.20 Soon the Advent believers voluntarily severed ties with their parent denominations, or were expelled from fellowship within the mainstream Protestant churches. Subsequently, the Millerites formed groups devoted wholly to Bible study and introspection (that is, soul searching and confession of sin). When Christ failed to appear, on October 22, 1844, the Millerite movement ended.21 Historically, this is called the “Great Disappointment.” This event (or the lack thereof) crushed Advent believers. Their disappointment turned to despair. This hopelessness gave way to embarrassment, the consequence of excessive and widespread ridicule. Scorn was especially heaped on William Miller and other prominent Adventist leaders.22 In the aftermath of the Great Disappointment, some of Miller’s followers remained convinced of the accuracy of his calculation. On the 23rd of October, the day following the Great Disappointment, Hiram Edson (1806–1882), leader of the Advent movement in Port Gibson, New York, claimed to have experienced a vision while walking through a cornfield. Edson reported seeing what appeared to be a sanctuary, or temple, in the heavens. Within this structure were two distinct compartments. Moreover, he saw a man clothed in priestly garments passing from one compartment of the sanctuary, or temple, into the other compartment.23 Hiram Edson shared this vision with the Advent believers in Port Gibson. The group carefully searched the Bible for clues that would help explain the vision. Within a short span of time, the thoughts of Hiram Edson; Franklin B. Hahn, a physician; and O. R. L. Crozier, a schoolteacher, reverted to a phrase found in Daniel 8:14, the same passage that introduced the prophecy of the “two thousand and three hundred days.”24 The latter portion of the verse reads, “then shall the sanctuary be cleansed.” In his vision, Edson

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reported seeing a building, or edifice, which had the appearance of a sanctuary, or temple. Another important component of the vision was the man who passed from one compartment, or room, of the structure into the other. More telling, however, was the manner in which this man was attired. According to Edson, this man’s priestly garments had an uncanny resemblance to those worn by Jewish high priests in the earthly tabernacle of Old Testament times. Exodus 28 and 39 contain detailed and colorful descriptions of the special garment the Jewish high priest wore. Moreover, Leviticus 8:7–9 has a truncated description of the priestly vestments: “And he put upon him the coat, and girded him with the girdle, and clothed him with the robe, and put the ephod upon him, and he girded him with the curious girdle of the ephod, and bound it unto him therewith. And he put the breastplate upon him: also he put in the breastplate the Urim and the Thummim. And he put the mitre upon his head; also upon the mitre, even upon his forefront, did he put the golden plate, the holy crown; as the Lord commanded Moses.” The sanctuary reference of Daniel 8:14, in combination with Edson’s vision, inspired Hahn and Crozier to search the Bible for any evidence indicating or suggesting the possible existence of a “heavenly sanctuary,” or temple. Should the search be fruitful, the evidence would add credence to Edson’s purported vision and could potentially provide a new interpretation for the prophecy of the “two thousand and three hundred days.” Over the next few months Hahn and Crozier found what they were looking for. Revelation 11:19 seemed to confirm, beyond doubt, the existence of a heavenly sanctuary, or temple: “And the temple of God was opened in heaven, and there was seen in his temple, the ark of his testament: and there were lightings, and voices, and thunderings, and an earthquake, and great hail.” For Hahn and Crozier, this passage seemed to validate Edson’s assertion that he saw a sanctuary or temple in the heavens. Moreover, the verse states, “there was seen in his temple, the ark of his testament.” From previous study of the Old Testament, Hahn and Crozier were familiar with the design and furnishings of the earthly tabernacle, or sanctuary, constructed during the time of Moses. Exodus 26:31–35 provides information on the structural compartments, or rooms, of the earthly tabernacle, as well as a description of the furnishings and their precise location within the compartments. Hebrews 9:1–5 duplicates the description given in Exodus. The first compartment, or room, known as the “Holy Place,” contained three articles of furniture: the seven branched candlestick, the table of showbread, and the altar of incense. A veil separated the first compartment, or room, from the second. The second compartment, or room, known as the “Most Holy

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Place,” or “Holy of Holies,” contained only one piece of furniture, that is the ark of the testimony (also referred to as the ark of the covenant). Enclosed within the ark of the testimony were the tablets of stone engraved with the Ten Commandments. Combining the information gathered from Revelation 11:19 and Exodus 26:31–35 with that provided in Edson’s vision, Hahn and Crozier suspected that the heavenly sanctuary or temple consisted of two compartments, or rooms. To validate their hunch, Hahn and Crozier searched the Bible for additional evidence pertaining to a heavenly sanctuary or temple. They found their evidence in Hebrews 8:5. The passage reads: “Who serve unto the example and shadow of heavenly things, as Moses was admonished of God when he was about to make the tabernacle: for, See, saith he, that thou make all things according to the pattern showed to thee in the mount.” The first part of the passage speaks of the “the example and shadow of heavenly things.” Moreover, the latter part of the passage is a direct reference to Exodus 25:8–9 as well as Exodus 26:30 in which God commanded Moses to construct the earthly tabernacle, or sanctuary, according to the pattern shown to him on Mount Sinai. Exodus 25:8–9 states: “And let them make me a sanctuary; that I may dwell among them. According to all that I shew thee, after the pattern of the tabernacle, and the pattern of all the instruments thereof, even so shall ye make it.” Likewise, Exodus 26:30 reads: “And thou shalt rear up the tabernacle according to the fashion thereof which was shewed thee in the mount.” According to Hahn and Crozier, these texts show that the earthly sanctuary, or tabernacle, was simply a pattern, or shadow, of an original structure. Furthermore, the biblical passages agree that Moses received the pattern for the construction of an earthly sanctuary, or tabernacle, from God. Therefore, they concluded that the “temple of God” in heaven alluded to in Revelation 11:19 must be the original sanctuary or temple. Hahn and Crozier found additional validation for their stance in Hebrews 8:1–2. The passage says: “Now of the things which we have spoken this is the sum: We have such an high priest, who is set on the right hand of the throne of the Majesty in the heavens; A minister of the sanctuary, and of the true tabernacle, which the Lord pitched, and not man.” So, for Hahn and Crozier it was clear that there was a heavenly sanctuary or temple, and it was the original, or “true tabernacle,” on which the earthly sanctuary or tabernacle was patterned. Just as the original (the heavenly sanctuary or temple) consisted of two compartments, or rooms, so the earthly sanctuary or tabernacle (which was patterned after the original) contained two compartments, or rooms. These findings seemed to confirm an element contained in

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Hiram Edson’s vision. Moreover, Hebrews 8:1–2 mentions a high priest who ministers in the “true tabernacle” or heavenly sanctuary. Edson mentioned a man clothed in priestly garments like those the Jewish high priests of the Old Testament wore. In the eyes of Hahn and Crozier, this was another factor that gave credibility to Edson’s vision. Nevertheless, several important questions remained concerning Edson’s vision. First, who was the man adorned in high priestly vestments? Second, what was the significance of this man moving from one compartment, or room, of the heavenly sanctuary into another? Finally, how does this all relate to the prophecy of the “two thousand and three hundred days” of Daniel 8:14? Hahn and Crozier made the assumption that the high priest spoken of in Hebrews 8 was identical to the man in Edson’s vision arrayed in priestly garments. Their search for clues identifying this high priest centered on the New Testament book of Hebrews, which contains references to the earthly sanctuary or tabernacle, as well as to the priesthood. Consequently, they reexamined Hebrews 8:1: “Now of the things which we have spoken this is the sum: We have such an high priest, who is set on the right hand of the throne of the Majesty in the heavens.” According to this verse, the high priest sat on the right hand of the “Majesty in the heavens.” In the reckoning of Hahn and Crozier this Majesty was none other than God the Father. So, the high priest of Hebrews 8 holds an exalted heavenly station, since the Bible places his location at the right hand of God. In the common vernacular, this high priest is God’s right-hand man. Elsewhere in the Bible, Hahn and Crozier recalled a text whereby a person assumed a position situated at the right hand of God. Mark 16:19, the passage the researchers recalled, reads: “So then after the Lord had spoken unto them, he was received up into heaven, and sat on the right hand of God.” Close examination of the chapter containing this verse reveals the identity of the individual “received up into heaven,” who “sat on the right hand of God.” Mark 16 discusses the resurrection of Jesus (verses 1–8), the appearance of Jesus to Mary Magdalene and eleven of his disciples (9–14), and Jesus’s final speech to his followers (15–18). In the sequence of events laid out in Mark 16, Hahn and Crozier believed that verse 19 must refer to the ascension of Jesus into heaven. Therefore, the “Lord” mentioned in Mark 16:19 was a direct reference to Jesus. This is a reasonable assumption, because the first part of verse 19 states, “So then after the Lord had spoken unto them.” The phrase “So then after,” means that the action about to take place occurred immediately following the preceding event. That event being the last speech Jesus

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delivered to his followers. Consequently, from the reading of verse 19, Hahn and Crozier understood that Jesus after his ascension assumed a position at the right hand of God. At this point, Hahn and Crozier knew that at least two persons in heaven were situated at the right hand of God: the high priest of Hebrews 8:1, and Jesus as explained within Mark 16. Nevertheless, the identity of the high priest of Hebrews 8:1 was still unknown. The researchers pondered the question: Could it be possible that the high priest of Hebrews 8:1 and Jesus were one in the same? After all, according to the Bible, both assumed the same heavenly position relative to God. To find the answer to this question, Hahn and Crozier returned to the book of Hebrews. Since Hebrews deals extensively with the sanctuary, or temple, services of the Old Testament and the priesthood, it was a logical place to resume the investigation. In their in-depth study of Hebrews, Hahn and Crozier selected a passage that for them settled the matter regarding the identity of the high priest of Hebrews 8:1 who they took for granted as the man wearing priestly garments in Hiram Edson’s vision. In the minds of the researchers, Hebrews 7:22–28 contained the identity of the high priest of Hebrews 8. This latter portion of Hebrews 7 says: By so much was Jesus made a surety of a better testament. And they truly were many priests, because they were not suffered to continue by reason of death: But this man, because he continueth ever, hath an unchangeable priesthood. Wherefore he is able also to save them to the uttermost that come unto God by him, seeing he ever liveth to make intercession for them. For such an high priest became us, who is holy, harmless, undefiled, separate from sinners, and made higher than the heavens; Who needeth not daily, as those high priests, to offer up sacrifices, first for his own sins, and then for the people’s: for this he did once, when he offered up himself. For the law maketh men high priests which have infirmity; but the word of the oath, which was since the law maketh the Son, who is consecrated for evermore. Hahn and Crozier reasoned that this passage is about Jesus, because the first line mentions him by name. That is, in this passage the writer of Hebrews makes Jesus the subject of the first line; therefore, the following lines must relate either directly or indirectly to the subject, which is understood to be Jesus. In addition, all singular pronouns following the introduction of the subject, which as previously stated is Jesus, must refer directly to the subject. Consequently, singular pronouns within the passage (“he,” “him,” and

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“who”) all refer to the subject (that is, Jesus). Furthermore, all specified singular nouns such as: “this man,” “an high priest,” and “the Son,” must also refer to the subject (that is, Jesus). Undoubtedly, the researchers were aware of the fact that Jesus often referred to himself using specified nouns sometimes followed with a preposition such as: “the Son,” “the Son of man,” or “the Son of God.” A few examples will suffice. Jesus refers to himself in Matthew 11:27 using the specified noun, that is, “the Son”: “All things are delivered unto me of my Father: and no man knoweth the Son, but the Father; neither knoweth any man the Father, save the Son, and he to whomsoever the Son reveal him.” Moreover, in Mark 10:33 Jesus refers to himself using the specified noun followed with the preposition, that is, “the Son of man”: “Behold, we go up to Jerusalem; and the Son of man shall be delivered unto the chief priests, and unto the scribes; and they shall condemn him to death, and shall deliver him to the Gentiles.” Finally, Jesus refers to himself using the specified noun followed with the preposition, that is, “the Son of God.” In John 9:35–37, Jesus speaks of himself in a conversation with the blind man he healed at Siloam: “Jesus heard that they had cast him out; and when he had found him, he said unto him, Dost thou believe on the Son of God? He answered and said, Who is he, Lord, that I might believe on him? And Jesus said unto him, Thou hast both seen him, and it is he that talketh with thee.” In addition to Jesus using specified nouns to refer to himself, and biblical writers using the same specified nouns in reference to Jesus, another entity (understood to be God) uses the specified noun “the Son” in reference to Jesus. Mark 1:11, states that at Jesus’s baptism, a voice was heard from heaven saying, “Thou art my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased.” Later, at the transfiguration, God again referred to Jesus as “the Son.” Matthew 17:1–5 gives a complete account of the incident. And after six days Jesus taketh Peter, James, and John his brother, and bringeth them up into an high mountain apart, And was transfigured before them: and his face did shine as the sun, and his raiment was white as light. And behold, there appeared unto them Moses and Elias talking with him. Then answered Peter, and said unto Jesus, Lord, it is good for us to be here: if thou wilt, let us make here three tabernacles; one for thee, and one for Moses, and one for Elias. While he yet spake, behold, a bright cloud overshadowed them: and behold a voice out of the cloud, which said, This is my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased; hear ye him.

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Hahn and Crozier were undoubtedly aware of the pattern in the New Testament, whereby some passages refer to Jesus using the specified noun sometimes followed with the preposition such as: “the Son,” “the Son of man,” and “the Son of God.” This is relevant in relation to the last portion of Hebrews 7:28: “For the law maketh men high priest which have infirmity; but the word of the oath, which was since the law, maketh the Son, who is consecrated for evermore.” As previously mentioned, Hahn and Crozier deduced that the entire passage of Hebrews 7:22–28 discusses Jesus. Moreover, the specified noun “an high priest” used in Hebrews 7:26 is also a direct reference to Jesus. Now, to validate their conclusion, Hahn and Crozier had to show a connection between the passages of Hebrews 7:22–28, which identifies Jesus as “an high priest,” and Hebrews 8:1–4,6, which discusses the ministry of a seemingly unidentified high priest. Hebrews 8:1–4,6 reads: Now of the things which we have spoken this is the sum: We have such an high priest, who is set on the right hand of the throne of the Majesty in the heavens; A minister of the sanctuary, and of the true tabernacle, which the Lord pitched, and not man. For every high priest is ordained to offer gifts and sacrifices: wherefore it is of necessity that this man have somewhat also to offer. For if he were on earth, he should not be a priest, seeing that there are priests that offer gifts according to the law . . . But now hath he obtained a more excellent ministry, by how much also he is the mediator of a better covenant, which was established upon better promises. Hahn and Crozier found the connection between the passages of Hebrews 7:22–28; and Hebrews 8:1–4,6 in the first line of Hebrews 8:1, in which the writer of Hebrews states: “Now of the things we have spoken this is the sum.” Therefore, the first portion of Hebrews 8 is simply a summary of the preceding passage. Hence the subject of Hebrews 7:22–28 is also the subject of Hebrews 8:1–4,6. As previously mentioned, the author of Hebrews specifies Jesus as the subject of Hebrew 7:22–28. Consequently, the subject of Hebrews 8:1–4,6 is also Jesus. As a result, Hahn and Crozier were able to biblically verify that the high priest of Hebrews 8 was Jesus. They assumed that the man of Hiram Edson’s vision, clothed in priestly garments, also was Jesus. On closer study, Hahn and Crozier uncovered additional information in both passages of Hebrews providing insight into Jesus’s high priestly ministry in the heavenly sanctuary, or temple. Hebrews 7:25 explains that Jesus

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is able to save and intercede with God on behalf of humanity. Hebrews 7:27 says that Jesus “offered up himself ” as a sacrifice on behalf of humanity. This seems to allude to Jesus’s crucifixion. Moreover, in reference to the sacrifice, it states that “for this he did once”; in other words, Jesus “offered up himself ” only once, as a sacrifice. This is an important distinction because earthly priests, especially those of Old Testament times, offered numerous sacrifices. Hebrews 8:2 indicates that Jesus, as a high priest, serves in the heavenly sanctuary, or temple. Hebrews 8:4 suggests that Jesus did not begin his high priestly ministry until after his ascension into heaven. Hebrews 8:6 shows that Jesus is the mediator between humanity and God. As such, Jesus has a “more excellent ministry” compared to earthly priests. In summary, Hahn and Crozier concluded that Jesus is the high priest discussed in Hebrews 7:22–28 and Hebrews 8:1–4,6. Furthermore, Jesus’s high priestly ministry is superior to earthly priests because he offered up himself as a sacrifice, thereby obtaining the right to intercede for humanity in the heavenly temple of God. Concerning Edson’s vision, Hahn and Crozier could, with a degree of certainty, identify the man attired in priestly vestments. Another important question remained regarding the vision: What was the significance of Jesus, the high priest, moving from one compartment of the heavenly sanctuary into another? From previous research, already discussed, Hahn and Crozier knew that the heavenly sanctuary consisted of two compartments. Moreover, as shown, Revelation 11:19 indicates that within one of the compartments of “the temple of God” is the “ark of his testament.” As seen in Exodus 26:31–35 and Hebrews 9:1–5 the compartment of the earthly tabernacle that contained the Ark of the Testament (often referred to as the Ark of the Covenant) was the “Most Holy Place,” also known as the “Holy of Holies.” Therefore, the compartment of the heavenly sanctuary that contains the Ark of the Testament is also known as the Most Holy Place. Likewise, in both the earthly and heavenly sanctuaries the other compartment is known simply as the Holy Place. To unravel the significance of Christ moving from one compartment to another, Hahn and Crozier first had to determine what compartment Christ was leaving and what compartment he was entering. Again, in the book of Hebrews the researchers found clues. Hebrews 9:6–7 discusses the religious significance of the rituals the Jewish priests performed in the earthly sanctuary: “Now when these things were thus ordained, the priests went always into the first tabernacle, accomplishing the service of God. But into the second went the high priest alone once every year not without blood, which he offered for himself, and for the errors of the people.” Verse 6 points out

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that, in the earthly sanctuary service, the priests routinely entered “the first tabernacle.” It is important to note that the margin of the King James Version indicates that “the first tabernacle” can also be understood to mean “the first part of the tabernacle.” Therefore, the first part of the tabernacle is synonymous with the first compartment, also known as the “Holy Place.” Verse 7 indicates that the high priest of the earthly sanctuary entered alone into the second compartment, or Most Holy Place, only once a year. Hahn and Crozier next turned to the Old Testament book of Leviticus for more insight into the significance of the Jewish high priest entering into the Most Holy Place once a year. Leviticus 16 discusses the Day of Atonement (also known as Yom Kippur) and the rituals that took place within the earthly sanctuary on this occasion. According to Leviticus, it was on this Day of Atonement that the high priest would move beyond the veil partitioning the two compartments into the Most Holy Place, or Holy of Holies. Leviticus 16:12–14 describes this process: “And he shall take a censer full of burning coals of fire from off the altar before the Lord, and his hands full of sweet incense beaten small, and bring it within the vail: And he shall put the incense upon the fire before the Lord, that the cloud of incense may cover the mercy seat that is upon the testimony, that he die not: And he shall take the blood of the bullock, and sprinkle it with his finger upon the mercy seat eastward; and before the mercy seat shall he sprinkle of the blood with his finger seven times.” Leviticus 16 further explains that the reason for the Day of Atonement ritual was to cleanse from sin both the earthly sanctuary and the people. In reference to the cleansing of the earthly sanctuary or tabernacle, Leviticus 16:16 states: “And he shall make atonement for the holy place, because of the uncleanness of the children of Israel, and because of their transgressions in all their sins: and so shall he do for the tabernacle of the congregation, that remaineth among them in the midst of their uncleanness.” Referring to the cleansing of the Jewish people on the Day of Atonement, Leviticus 16:30 also says: “For on that day shall the priest make an atonement for you, to cleanse you, that ye may be clean of your sins before the Lord.” Therefore, the significance of the Jewish high priest entering into the Most Holy Place, or Holy of Holies, is that it signified the cleansing of the earthly tabernacle and the people of their sins. From their study of the book of Hebrews, Hahn and Crozier came to the realization that the earthly sanctuary and the rituals performed in it were patterned on the heavenly sanctuary and the services performed in it. This is pointed out in Hebrews 8:4–5, which reads: “For if he were on earth, he

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should not be a priest, seeing that there are priests that offer gifts according to the law: Who serve unto the example and shadow of heavenly things, as Moses was admonished of God when he was about to make the tabernacle: for, See, saith he, that thou make all things according to the pattern showed to thee in the mount.” With this knowledge in hand, Hahn and Crozier contemplated the fine points Hiram Edson articulated in relating his vision. The researchers recalled that Edson said he saw a man clothed in priestly garments (now understood to be Jesus) moving from one compartment of the heavenly sanctuary into another. This is a key point, because it provides a clue while eliminating some possibilities. The researchers knew that Jesus was not entering the heavenly sanctuary, nor was he exiting the heavenly sanctuary. If he was entering the heavenly sanctuary, it would mean that Jesus was just now commencing, or beginning, his high priestly ministry in the temple of God. Likewise, if Jesus was leaving the sanctuary, it would mean that his work of mediation, or intercession, for humanity was over, completed, or finished. Consequently, Jesus would be on his way back to Earth to redeem his saints and bring them to heaven—thus fulfilling his promise made in John 14:2–3 which says: “In my Father’s house are many mansions: if it were not so, I would have told you. I go to prepare a place for you. And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again, and receive you unto my self; that where I am, there ye may be also.” Nevertheless, in accordance with Edson’s vision, Jesus was purportedly seen moving from one compartment of the heavenly sanctuary into another. Hahn and Crozier found a revealing statement in Hebrews 9:11–12: “But Christ being come an high priest of good things to come, by a greater and more perfect tabernacle, not made with hands, that is to say, not this building; Neither by the blood of goats and calves, but by his own blood he entered in once into the holy place, having obtained eternal redemption for us.” This passage, as those previously discussed (Hebrews 7 and 8), indicate that Jesus Christ is the high priest who ministers in the heavenly temple of God. Moreover, due to the fact that he offered up himself once as a sacrifice on behalf of humanity, Jesus entered the Holy Place of the heavenly sanctuary only once. Consequently, the researchers reasoned that Jesus, at the time of the writing of the book of Hebrews, was already in the first compartment of the heavenly sanctuary known as the Holy Place. Combining this information with the specifics of Edson’s vision, Hahn and Crozier deduced that Jesus was moving from the Holy Place into the Most Holy Place, also known as the Holy of Holies.

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This action of Jesus was of great importance to the researchers, because it signified the cleansing of the heavenly sanctuary. Based on the typology of the earthly sanctuary and its services, the Jewish high priest went into the Most Holy Place only on the Day of Atonement in order to cleanse or purify the tabernacle and the people of their sins. Likewise, Hahn and Crozier believed Jesus entered the Most Holy Place on or near the date of October 22, 1844 to commence cleansing the heavenly sanctuary and his people from their sins. According to Leviticus 16:29 the Day of Atonement was a time of great anxiety. In fact, God demanded that the people of Israel afflict their souls. This created an atmosphere of serious contemplation, introspection, and judgment. Leviticus 16:29 reads: “And this shall be a statute forever unto you: that in the seventh month, on the tenth day of the month, ye shall afflict your souls, and do no work at all, whether it be one of your own country, or a stranger that sojourneth among you.” Likewise, in connection with the high priestly ministry of Jesus Christ, Hebrews 9 speaks of judgment and God’s people cleansing themselves of evil works. Hebrews 9:14 states: “How much more shall the blood of Christ, who through the eternal Spirit offered himself without spot to God, purge your conscience from dead works to serve the living God?” Moreover, Hebrews 9:27 declares: “And as it is appointed unto men once to die, but after this the judgment.” Therefore, in the context of Hebrews 9, it is noted that a judgment of some type will take place for all humanity. In the typology of the earthly sanctuary, while the people were “afflicting their souls,” the high priest was in the Most Holy Place simultaneously carrying out the rituals of purification on behalf of all the people. Referring to the work of the high priest on the Day of Atonement, Leviticus 16:33 says: “And he shall make an atonement for the holy sanctuary, and he shall make an atonement for the tabernacle of the congregation, and for the altar, and he shall make an atonement for the priests, and for all the people of the congregation.” Likewise, in a period of judgment—as God’s people are striving to perfect their characters and purge themselves of all evil works—Jesus Christ, the high priest of the heavenly sanctuary, simultaneously makes atonement, based on that one sacrifice, for those who accept him. Furthermore, he carries out the work of mediation before God on behalf of his people. Discussing Christ’s work, Hebrews 9:15 says: “And for this cause he is the mediator of the new testament, that by means of death, for the redemption of the transgressions that were under the first testament, they which are called might receive the promise of eternal inheritance.” On this issue, Hebrews 9:23–24 declares: “It was therefore necessary that the pattern of the things in the heavens

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should be purified with these; but the heavenly things themselves with better sacrifices than these. For Christ is not entered into the holy places made with hands, which are the figures of the true; but into heaven itself, now to appear in the presence of God for us.” Elsewhere, Romans 5:10–11 explains the atonement work of Jesus that reconciles humanity to God: “For if, when we were enemies, we were reconciled to God by the death of his Son, much more, being reconciled, we shall be saved by his life. And not only so, but we also joy in God through our Lord Jesus Christ, by whom we have now received atonement.” For Hahn and Crozier, the significance of Hiram Edson’s vision and its correlation to the prophecy of the “two thousand and three hundred years” of Daniel 8:14 was readily apparent; consequently, the investigators reexamined the passage concerning the prophetic “two thousand and three hundred days.” Daniel 8:14 reads: “And he said unto me, Unto two thousand and three hundred days; then shall the sanctuary be cleansed.” There are two key phrases in this passage. As discussed earlier, the phrase “Unto two thousand and three hundred days” refers to time. The second phrase, “then shall the sanctuary be cleansed,” describes or denotes the event that will take place at the end of the time period specified in the first phrase. Therefore, Hahn and Crozier concluded that William Miller and the Advent believers had all erred in their interpretation of the event that was to take place at the end of the “two thousand and three hundred days” (that is, literal years) of Daniel 8:14.25 Taking into consideration the biblical evidence related to the earthly and heavenly sanctuaries, the researchers reasoned that the end of the prophetic “two thousand and three hundred days” marked the beginning of a new phase in the high priestly ministry of Jesus Christ in the heavenly sanctuary. Jesus moving into the Holy of Holies correlates with the earthly typology of the Day of Atonement, which was in a sense a time of judgment. Likewise, Christ’s presence in the Most Holy Place signifies that his high priestly ministry is in its final phase. Therefore, God’s people must strive to perfect their characters and repent of their misdeeds, before Jesus leaves the heavenly sanctuary and his role as mediator ends.26 According to Hahn and Crozier, the investigative or pre-Advent judgment commenced from the time Christ entered the Holy of Holies (on or around October 22, 1844).27 During this time God reviews the records of the dead and living. When Jesus leaves the heavenly sanctuary, the investigation closes, thus fixing the eternal destinies of all humans.28 Then Christ will return to Earth and reward His followers. Consequently, Hahn and Crozier concluded that the “cleansing of the sanctuary” refers to the investigative or

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pre-Advent judgment—not the Second Coming of Christ and the end of the world. This logical explanation provided an answer to their perplexity but in no way diminished their hope and expectancy for Christ’s Second Coming.29 In fact, Hahn and Crozier’s theological contribution known as the sanctuary message (which emphasizes judgment), along with the Advent belief in a literal Second Coming of Jesus, became two of the four doctrinal points that together distinguish the Seventh-day Adventist Church from other Christian denominations.30 Reverencing, or keeping holy, the seventh-day Sabbath (also known as the biblical Sabbath) is another distinguishing doctrinal point of Seventhday Adventist theology.31 The origin of Sabbatarian Adventism goes back to a little church located in the township of Washington, New Hampshire. In 1843 the members of this independent Christian church accepted William Miller’s Advent message. Among the congregants was Rachel Harris Oakes-Preston (1809–1868), a Seventh-day Baptist, who distributed among parishioners tracts and leaflets that discussed the binding claims of the fourth commandment. These tracts placed considerable emphasis on the following biblical passages: Genesis 2:2–3; Exodus 20:8–11; Ezekiel 20:19–20; Luke 4:16; and Hebrews 4:4–10.32 Because reverence for the biblical Sabbath is an integral part, as well as one of the four distinguishing doctrinal points, of Seventh-day Adventist theology, a thorough examination of each of these passages is in order. Genesis 2:2–3 states: “And on the seventh day God ended his work which he had made; and he rested on the seventh day from all his work which he had made. And God blessed the seventh day, and sanctified it: because that in it he had rested from all his work which God created and made.” According to verse 2 the seventh day marked the end of God’s creative work; therefore, he rested from his labor on that day. Moreover, verse 3 indicates that God established the seventh day of creation week as a memorial signifying the completion of the creative process. In this manner God “sanctified it,” or set it apart from the other days of the weekly cycle. It seems God denoted the previous six days as common, not in the sense that nothing special took place, but due to the fact that he worked on these days. However, the seventh day had special significance because on it God completed his work, rested from his labor, and celebrated the completion of the creative process in memorializing it. What is especially telling about this passage is that the biblical root of Sabbatarianism goes back to God at the end of creation week. The second textual support for Sabbatarianism comes from Exodus 20. Most of this chapter is a recitation of the Decalogue, also known as the Ten

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Commandments. In the King James Version of the Bible the passage concerning Sabbatarianism is commonly referred to as the fourth commandment. The commandment found in Exodus 20:8–11 says: “Remember the sabbath day, to keep it holy. Six days shalt thou labour, and do all they work: But the seventh day is the sabbath of the Lord thy God: in it thou shalt not do any work, thou, nor thy son, nor thy daughter, thy manservant, nor thy maidservant, nor thy cattle, nor thy stranger that is within thy gates: For in six days the Lord made heaven and earth, the sea, and all that in them is, and rested the seventh day: wherefore the Lord blessed the sabbath day, and hallowed it.” Verse 8 is simply a reminder that the Sabbath is to be respected as a holy day. Verse 9 distinguishes the common days of the week from the Sabbath referenced in the previous verse. Verse 10 specifies the seventh day of the weekly cycle as the Sabbath and that the day itself belongs to God. Next, the verse—in a general manner—stipulates that no work, or labor, is to be done on this day. Furthermore, it lists the persons to whom this prohibition applies. Finally, verse 11 provides an explanation for this commandment. According to this verse, the reason for the Sabbath commandment is similar to the rationale discussed in the analysis of Genesis 2:2–3. That is, the seventh day marked the end of creation week; God rested from his labor on that day; and he memorialized the completion of the creative process on that day. The third scriptural support for Sabbatarianism is Ezekiel 20:19–20, which says: “I am the Lord your God; walk in my statutes, and keep my judgments, and do them; And hallow my sabbaths; and they shall be a sign between me and you, that ye may know that I am the Lord your God.” In verse 19 God introduces himself as “the Lord your God.” Therefore, in this passage he speaks to his people, consequently, he admonishes them to obey his laws. In verse 20 he specifically commands them to honor his Sabbaths. Moreover, for those who do this it will serve as a sign that he is their God. Finally, the possessive article “my” before the plural form Sabbaths indicates that the Sabbaths spoken of here are synonymous with the Sabbath of Exodus 20:8–11 and Genesis 2:2–3. The fourth support for Sabbatarianism, found in the New Testament book of Luke, mentions an event in the life of Jesus. Speaking of Jesus, Luke 4:16 states: “And he came to Nazareth, where he had been brought up: and, as his custom was, he went into the synagogue on the sabbath day, and stood up to read.” In this verse, Jesus returns to his hometown. On the Sabbath day he goes to the synagogue, which is the place where Jewish religious services are traditionally held. Nevertheless, the key phrase in this particular passage

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is “as his custom was,” meaning that Jesus regularly observed the Sabbath in accordance with the fourth commandment. Another passage found in the book of Hebrews seems to support Sabbatarianism. Hebrews 4:4–10 declares: For he spake in a certain place of the seventh day on this wise, And God did rest the seventh day from all his works. And in this place again, If they shall enter into my rest. Seeing therefore it remaineth that some must enter therein, and they to whom it was first preached entered not in because of unbelief: Again, he limiteth a certain day, saying in David, To day, after so long a time; as it is said, To day if ye will hear his voice, harden not your hearts. For if Jesus had given them rest, then would he not afterward have spoken of another day. There remaineth therefore a rest to the people of God. For he that is entered into his rest, he also hath ceased from his own works, as God did from his. The writer of Hebrews does not clearly identify the speaker in this passage. However, discerning the message is possible. Verse 4 points out that the seventh day is the subject of this passage. It also points out that God rested on this day. Therefore, the following verses elaborate on the Sabbath of the fourth commandment in Exodus 20:8–11. Verse 5 begins with the phrase “If they.” At this point, “they” are not identified. Moreover, the verse talks about entering into rest. Specifically, it denotes entering into “my rest.” Grammatically, my is an adjective signifying the possessive form of the noun I. Referring to the previous verse, we know that “God rested.” Consequently, we can assume that the “my,” a singular possessive form of the noun I, refers to God since the passage up to this point introduced only one singular noun capable of possessing something, that is, God. Furthermore, the use of my, the firstperson singular possessive, correlates with God’s use of the noun I followed with the first-person singular present indicative of be, that is, am—hence the famous name or phrase “I Am.” Exodus 3:13–14 shows God’s use of this name, or phrase, in reference to himself: “And Moses said unto God, Behold, when I come unto the children of Israel, and shall say unto them, The God of your fathers hath sent me unto you; and they shall say to me, What is his name? what shall I say unto them? And God said unto Moses, I Am That I Am: and he said, Thus shalt thou say unto the children of Israel, I Am hath sent me unto you.” The use of my is also consistent with God’s claim of ownership concerning the seventh-day Sabbath, as mentioned in the discussion of

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Exodus 20:10. Verse 6 states that “it remaineth.” The it must refer to the noun introduced at the end of the previous verse, that is, rest. Since the subject of the entire passage is the seventh day, and the seventh day is synonymous with the Sabbath, and the Sabbath is a day of rest, then all three nouns essentially have the same meaning. That is, all three nouns are the subject. The verse goes on to say “that some must enter therein.” The “enter therein” must refer to the previous pronoun it, which is understood to be “rest.” So, the first part of this verse mentions some people entering into rest. The last portion of verse 6 provides a bit more information concerning the previously unidentified they. The verse says that “they” were the first preached to, but “entered not in” because of unbelief. So, the latter portion of the verse talks about a group who were the first preached to, but did not believe, and therefore refused to enter into rest. Verse 7 reintroduces the subject “a certain day,” that is, the seventh-day Sabbath. Moreover, it contains the warning “harden not your hearts.” This seems to imply that there is danger for those who hear, or know, about the seventh-day Sabbath, but refuse to enter the rest it provides. Verse 8 is a rhetorical question, “For if Jesus had given them rest, then would he not afterward have spoken of another day[?]” This seems to imply that Jesus did not transfer the sanctity, or holiness, of the seventhday Sabbath to another day. Apparently, around the time of the writing of Hebrews there were persons affiliated with the early Christian church who advocated the sanctity of another day instead of the traditional seventh-day Sabbath. Verse 9 concludes that there is still a Sabbath rest for the “people of God.” The grammatical construction of verse 10 suggests its use as an example strengthening the theological proposition of the entire passage. According to the writer, whomever desires to follow the example of God should rest on the seventh day, just as God rested from his labor on that day. The tracts Rachel Oakes-Preston distributed convinced some of the Advent believers in Washington, New Hampshire, to become Sabbatarians.33 Two Advent ministers in New Hampshire, Frederick Wheeler and Thomas M. Preble (1810–1907), accepted the biblical Sabbath. Preble wrote an article that appeared in the February 1845 edition of Hope of Israel, an Adventist journal. The article presented, in a persuasive manner, the validity of the fourth commandment.34 On reading the Preble article, Joseph Bates (1792–1872) felt convinced of the binding claims of the biblical Sabbath.35 A retired merchant seaman, Bates was a prominent citizen in the community of Fairhaven, Massachusetts. Strongly opposed to slavery, he became involved in the antislavery, or abolitionist, cause. He developed a strong friendship with the abolitionist Joshua V. Himes, who introduced Bates to William Miller’s

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teachings on the Second Coming of Christ.36 Before long, Bates became a Millerite itinerate minister. Shortly after reading the Preble article, he went to Washington, New Hampshire, to study the Sabbath question in depth with the Sabbatarian Advent believers there. Consequently, Bates became fully convinced of the validity of the biblical Sabbath. Once he adopted Sabbatarianism, Bates emerged, among Advent believers, as the chief proponent for the observance of the seventh-day Sabbath.37 At an Adventist conference, Bates met Hiram Edson. Bates convinced Edson to accept the seventh-day Sabbath doctrine; in turn, Edson persuaded Bates to embrace the sanctuary message.38 In August 1846 Bates wrote and published a forty-eight-page exegetical pamphlet on the biblical Sabbath.39 Toward the end of the month, a copy of this work made its way into the hands of James White, another Millerite minister, and Ellen Gould Harmon, his bride. The newly married couple read the tract and later were convinced to take their stand supporting the observance of the seventh-day Sabbath.40 As Sabbatarians brought increasing attention to the Sabbath doctrine, Adventists began to study the issue at length and were soon convinced of its validity. In these studies, they also came to an understanding that the biblical Sabbath commenced at sunset Friday and continued until sunset Saturday. They based this belief on the biblical, or Jewish, reckoning of time presented in the book of Leviticus. The passage dealing with this time issue, found in Leviticus 23:32, reads: “It shall be unto you a sabbath of rest . . . from even unto even, shall ye celebrate your sabbath.” The antiquated English term used here, even, is synonymous with the modern usage evening. Since the evening portion of the day begins at sunset, the early Sabbatarian Adventists concluded that the biblical Sabbath must therefore commence on sunset Friday and continue to sunset Saturday.41 Inevitably, belief in the observance of the seventh-day Sabbath became a part of Adventism’s doctrinal platform.42 Just prior to the year 1847, Joseph Bates, along with James and Ellen White, began working to bring about doctrinal cohesion among various Adventist groups.43 Bates served as the itinerate evangelist spreading the doctrines of Sabbatarian Adventism across the country. James White functioned as the organizer and publicist of the fledgling Sabbatarian Adventist movement, while Ellen White—through her writings and visions—confirmed and provided additional insight on the finer points of Adventist theology. Together this trio became the founders of the Seventh-day Adventist Church. James Springer White (1821–1881), a native of Maine, was a schoolteacher. At the age of fifteen he experienced a personal religious awakening, and subsequently joined a congregation of the Christian Connection Church.

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In 1841 his family persuaded him to accept William Miller’s teachings concerning the Second Coming of Christ. Shortly thereafter, White dedicated his life to spreading the Advent message. In 1843 he accepted ordination as a minister in the Christian Connection. Like many Advent believers, White experienced the Great Disappointment of October 22, 1844; however, he remained committed to the cause of Adventism. In August 1846 he married Ellen Gould Harmon, who was also a native of Maine. Around this time, the couple received Bates’s pamphlet on the Sabbath doctrine. Soon thereafter, they began observing, or keeping, the seventh-day Sabbath. Bates met with the Whites and together they decided to work toward advancing the cause of Sabbath-keeping Adventists. That same year White commenced publication of a leaflet, followed the next year with a tract, on Sabbatarian Adventism. In 1848 an informal conference of Sabbatarian Adventists established a periodical called The Present Truth. James White agreed to edit and publish it. From Middletown, Connecticut, the first issue rolled off the press in July 1849. The following year in Paris, Maine, White launched another journal named The Second Advent and Sabbath Herald. Over the years this periodical, currently known as the Adventist Review, earned the distinction as the most important publication in Seventh-day Adventism.44 In 1852 the Whites moved to Rochester, New York, where James purchased a printing press and established an unofficial headquarters for his publishing work. Three years later, the Whites and their publishing enterprise relocated to Battle Creek, Michigan, which soon developed into the general headquarters of the Sabbatarian Adventist movement. Due in part to James White’s efforts to organize the movement, a conference of Sabbatarian Adventists, held in 1860, agreed to incorporate the publishing operation and give it an official name. After some debate, a consensus formed to adopt the name “Seventh-day Adventist,” signifying their belief in the seventh-day Sabbath and their anticipation for the Second Advent of Jesus Christ. Thus, the publishing enterprise became known as the Seventh-day Adventist Publishing Association. In 1861 Michigan’s Seventh-day Adventist congregations formed a state conference for the purpose of licensing ministers and certifying church membership. It also issued a call for a general conference. Before long several state conferences emerged. Then, in May 1863, delegates from the state conferences assembled and drafted a church constitution, which provided for the establishment of a more centralized administrative body known as the General Conference of Seventh-day Adventists.45 May 1863 is the date on which the

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Seventh-day Adventist Church was formally established as a denomination. The current organizational structure of the Seventh-day Adventist Church is as follows, in ascending order: the local church; the local, state, or regional conference (made up of local churches); the union conference (made up of local, state, and/or regional conferences); the division conference (made up of union conferences); and finally, the General Conference (made up of all division conferences).46 From these beginnings, the Seventh-day Adventist Church developed into an international organization.47 In 2002 its world membership approached thirteen million. Within its North American Division (Canada, the United States of America, Bermuda, the French possession of Saint Pierre et Miquelon, Johnston Island, the Midway Islands, and all other islands of the Pacific Ocean not attached to other divisions) there are 974,271 members.48 Of these, 31 percent or 302,066 are African Americans.49 The multiethnic composition of the Seventh-day Adventist Church, particularly in North America, adds significance to this study’s scrutiny of Adventist theology as it relates to sociopolitical activism in the United States. During the 1850s the Seventh-day Adventist doctrine concerning the state of the dead emerged to counteract the surging spiritualist movement and the growing popularity of the occult sciences.50 The modern spiritualist movement in the United States, currently known as the National Spiritualist Association of Churches, began on March 31, 1848, in the home of John and Margaret Fox in Hydesville, New York. On that day, their daughters, Maggie and Kate, began hearing mysterious rapping sounds from under the floorboards and walls of the cottage. Based on these tapping sounds, the girls eventually formulated a code of communication. Supposedly, the spirit entity responsible for the noises identified itself as Charles B. Rosna, a peddler murdered in that same house years earlier.51 Moreover, the girls claimed that the spirits chose them to convince the skeptics of the great truth of human immortality and the continuous existence of the soul.52 From these happenings in Hydesville a movement began that ultimately developed into a new religion with organized churches.53 As Spiritualism gained momentum in the United States, Sabbatarian Adventists worked fervently to discourage persons enchanted with the prospect of communicating with the dead from joining the Spiritualist camp. In this effort they employed biblical passages with prohibitions against the following: necromancy (that is, those who supposedly communicate with the dead), witchcraft and sorcery, astrology, and the like. The principal passage

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they referred to, found in the Old Testament book of Deuteronomy, condemns practically all of what is now known as the occult sciences. Deuteronomy 18:9–12 says: When thou are come into the land which the Lord thy God giveth thee, thou shalt not learn to do after the abominations of those nations. There shall not be found among you any one that maketh his son or his daughter to pass through the fire, or that useth divination, or an observer of times, or an enchanter or a witch, Or a charmer, or a consulter with familiar spirits, or a wizard, or a necromancer. For all that do these things are an abomination unto the Lord: and because of these abominations the Lord thy God doth drive them out from before thee. Verse 9 prohibits persons from learning, or practicing, the occult sciences. The following verses specifically list the detestable practices generally referred to as “abominations.” Verse 10 denounces human sacrifice, a practice that was not uncommon in times of antiquity. The verse also prohibits divination, or fortune telling, that is, attempting to tell the future through the use of signs and omens. This verse also condemns the observing of times, which is understood to be astrology, the occult science pertaining to the zodiac. Enchanters are forbidden, such as magicians, wizards, and sorcerers. The verse concludes with a denunciation of witchcraft, which is synonymous with magic and sorcery. Verse 11 bans charmers, that is, those who cast spells. Also under interdict are necromancers and all those who consult, or communicate, with familiar spirits or ghosts. Verse 12 concludes the passage with the statement that persons who practice the aforementioned occult arts are an abomination. In addition, Adventists found scriptural evidence that seemed to indicate that the dead are in an unconscious state. Subsequently, they argued that communication with the dead, or their so-called spirits, is impossible. In the process, Adventists formulated a doctrine known as the unconscious state of the dead, or what the historian Paul Conkin calls “soul sleep.”54 Adventists base this doctrine on these biblical passages: Ecclesiastes 9:5–6; Psalms 115:17; and 1 Corinthians 15:51–55.55 Since this doctrine is one of the four doctrinal issues within Seventh-day Adventist theology that distinguishes it from other Christian denominations, a thorough examination of these passages is in order. Ecclesiastes 9:5–6 states: “For the living know that they shall die: but the dead know not any thing, neither have they any more a reward; for the

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memory of them is forgotten. Also, their love, and their hatred and their envy, is now perished; neither have they any more a portion for ever in any thing that is done under the sun.” Verse 5 certainly supports the Adventist notion of the unconscious state of the dead. In clear and specific terms it declares “the dead know not any thing.” Verse 6 states that the dead do not experience emotions such as love, hate, and envy; moreover, it says that the dead no longer have a portion “for ever in anything that is done under the sun.” This implies that the dead, or their spirits, are not allowed to interfere or make contact with the living world. Concerning the state of the dead, Psalms 115:17 says: “The dead praise not the Lord, neither any that go down into silence.” This passage seems to reaffirm the conclusion reached in Ecclesiastes 9:5–6 that the dead are unconscious and, therefore, incapable of even praising God. The question that then confronted Adventists who accepted the doctrine of the unconscious state of the dead was: If all living persons, even professed Christians, are destined to die and all who are dead are unconscious, what hope is there for the Christian who dies? Adventists found their answer to this dilemma in the New Testament’s First Epistle of Paul the Apostle to the Corinthians. 1 Corinthians 15:51–55 says: Behold, I shew you a mystery: We shall not all sleep, but we shall be changed, In a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trump: for the trumpet shall sound, and the dead shall be raised incorruptible, and we shall be changed. For this corruptible must put on incorruption, and this mortal must put on immortality. So when this corruptible shall have put on incorruption, and this mortal shall have put on immortality, then shall be brought to pass the saying that is written, Death is swallowed up in victory. O death, where is thy sting? O grave, where is thy victory? In verse 51, Paul states that this passage reveals “a mystery.” Apparently, the information disclosed in this passage was not widely known, or not completely understood, among Christians at the time of the writing of First Corinthians. Continuing, the writer states, “We shall not all sleep.” In their exegesis of this passage, Adventists assert that, in using the word sleep, the writer of First Corinthians speaks metaphorically of death.56 To justify their reasoning, they cite another passage in which Jesus metaphorically uses sleep in reference to death, John 11:11–13: “These things said he: and after that he saith unto them, Our friend Lazarus sleepeth; but I go, that I may awake him

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out of sleep. Then said his disciples, Lord, if he sleep, he shall do well. Howbeit Jesus spake of his death: but they thought that he had spoken of taking of rest in sleep.” Therefore, in scripture, there is precedent for the metaphorical use of sleep when referring to death. Consequently, the Adventist doctrine concerning the unconscious state of the dead is also known as “soul sleep.” Returning to the passage of 1 Corinthians 15:51–55, the latter portion of verse 51 states that “we shall all be changed.” This implies that those who sleep, or are dead, as well as those who are alive will be changed. Verse 52 indicates that this change, whatever it is, will happen quickly or in the blink of an eye. Moreover, this change will occur “at the last trump,” or trumpet blast; Paul states that the sound of the trumpet will raise the dead to life. Consequently, Seventh-day Adventists, with their bleak outlook concerning death, point to this passage as their hope, that is, resurrection from the dead. Moreover, they connect the blast of the trumpet spoken of here with the prophecy of Christ’s Second Coming in 1 Thessalonians 4:16–17, which reads: “For the Lord himself shall descend from heaven with a shout, with the voice of the archangel, and the trump of God: and the dead in Christ shall rise first: Then we which are alive and remain shall be caught up together with them in the clouds, to meet the Lord in the air: and so shall we ever be with the Lord.” Adventist doctrine on the state of the dead correlates well with their belief in a literal Second Advent of Jesus. In fact, the Second Coming is crucial to Adventists because it is at this time that Christ will resurrect the dead, freeing them from their hapless condition. Returning to verse 52, the writer of First Corinthians states that the “dead shall be raised incorruptible,” which implies a change in their physical state. Moreover, the verse says “and we shall be changed,” which implies that those who are alive at Christ’s Second Coming will also undergo a physical transformation. Verse 53 and the first portion of verse 54 provide specifics regarding this physical change to the resurrected dead and those who are alive when Christ returns. According to Paul, these new bodies are incorruptible (free of disease and infirmity) and immortal (not subject to death and decay). With this knowledge Paul, in the remaining portion of verse 54, expresses his confidence that the Christian will ultimately—at the resurrection—have victory over death. With this perspective the writer of First Corinthians, in verse 55, quotes another source that taunts death and the grave as if personified. With the formation of their doctrine concerning the state of the dead, Seventh-day Adventists were poised to counteract the beliefs of Spiritualism, as well as the doctrine of the immortality of the soul—as accepted within Catholicism and mainstream Protestantism.57 This doctrinal point, the belief

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in the unconscious state of the dead—together with the expectation and belief in the literal Second Coming of Christ; the sanctuary message and its emphasis on judgment; and Sabbath sacredness—distinguish the Seventhday Adventist Church from all other Christian denominations. As previously mentioned, Ellen G. White was one of the three principal founders of the Seventh-day Adventist Church. Born on November 26, 1827, to Robert and Eunice Harmon in Gorham, Maine, Ellen Gould Harmon grew up in the city of Portland, situated on the southern coast of the state of Maine. It was there, in 1840, that the Harmon family attended William Miller’s lecture. Subsequently, they accepted his prediction regarding the Second Coming of Christ. In 1842 Ellen became a baptized member of the Pine Street Methodist Church, where her father served as a deacon. Her membership was brief; the following year the church expelled the entire family because they refused to relinquish their Millerite views. Although Christ did not return on October 22, 1844, the Harmons and others remained convinced of the accuracy of Miller’s calculation. In 1846 Ellen Harmon married James White, a Millerite preacher. That same year, the Whites accepted the doctrine of the biblical Sabbath. The couple, along with Joseph Bates, formed the nucleus responsible for the establishment in 1863 of the Seventhday Adventist Church. As a co-founder, leading advisor, and denominational spokesperson, Ellen White issued several written statements on race relations. Increasingly, critics interpret her comments, which helped shape Adventist opinion on racial matters, as antithetical to the civil rights movement.58 One of White’s statements, found in Testimonies for the Church, Volume Nine, appears to substantiate their conclusion. “The colored people should not urge that they be placed on an equality with white people.”59 To understand this remark, it is necessary to evaluate its historical context. Adventist historians Ronald Graybill and Roy Branson point out that White’s controversial statement coincided with the “Crisis of the Nineties,” defined as a period of deteriorating race relations in the United States.60 During the 1890s, Southern state legislatures nullified several of the political and legal rights blacks gained during Reconstruction.61 In 1890 the Mississippi legislature instituted a poll tax and literacy test to limit African American participation in the political process. Five years later, South Carolina’s legislature disenfranchised most of its black residents when it made property ownership a prerequisite for voting—in addition to paying a fee and passing a proficiency exam. In 1898 the Louisiana legislature enacted the “grandfather clause,” which exempted the progeny of registered voters in 1867 from

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literacy and property requirements. This exemption benefited white males only, since neither blacks nor women could vote at that time. Soon other Southern state legislatures followed these examples.62 By 1910 African Americans were effectively disenfranchised throughout the South.63 This allowed Southern legislatures to enact uncontested statutes that further limited social interaction among the races, which they did. Subsequently, legalized segregation reinforced the notion of white supremacy.64 The historian George Frederickson classifies the American South in the heyday of Jim Crow as an “overtly racist regime.”65 A characteristic of racist regimes, according to Frederickson, is the prevalence of an ideology based on racism.66 One example of racist ideology in Southern popular culture at the turn of the last century is the literary classic The Clansman (1905). In this novel, the acclaimed Southern author Thomas Dixon Jr. (1864–1946) portrayed blacks as inherently ignorant and bestial. This work of fiction was later adapted to the stage. Ultimately, D. W. Griffith (1875–1948) brought Dixon’s story to the big screen as the silent film epic The Birth of a Nation (1915). The book, the theatrical rendition, and the major motion picture won acclaim throughout the southern United States, as well as other parts of the nation.67 Furthermore, historians James Ford Rhodes (1848–1927), Claude Gernade Bowers (1878–1958), and William Archibald Dunning (1857–1922) are prime examples of “old school” writers whose works supported racism as a regime.68 Like Dixon, these scholars disparaged black Americans and blamed them for the prevalence of seemingly unrestrained corruption in postwar Southern politics at the time of Reconstruction.69 In the category of legislation, Fredrickson maintains that racist regimes establish laws mandating the separation of the races.70 Accordingly, the American South designed Jim Crow statutes in the hope of preventing miscegenation, while reinforcing the ideology of white supremacy.71 According to Frederickson, another feature of racist regimes is the disenfranchisement of groups deemed racially inferior.72 When the American South denied blacks the right to vote, they deprived them of the means to redress social, political, and economic injustice. This provided the classless illusion of white solidarity in a society that stratified whites and nonwhites along economic divides.73 Thus, poor whites became incorporated in the delusion of superiority.74 Finally, Fredrickson contends that racist regimes impose limitations on the resources and economic opportunities available to groups targeted as inferior.75 Following Reconstruction, Southern state legislatures passed laws strengthening the region’s sharecropping system.76 In the antebellum South, state legislatures prohibited enslaved blacks from owning or acquiring

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property. Consequently, in the immediate aftermath of the American Civil War, emancipated blacks lacked sufficient resources to establish their own livelihood. Accustomed to agricultural labor, many African Americans hired out their services to wealthy farmers and commercial landowners. In exchange for food, housing, and other necessities (purchased on credit), the laborers agreed to work the land in exchange for a share of the crop—hence the term sharecroppers. After the harvest, the sharecroppers took their allotted share of the crop and sold it. With the proceeds they hoped to pay off their debts. However, to their dismay, either the accrued interest on the initial purchase was too high to overcome or the crop yield was insufficient to net a respectable profit. Consequently, black sharecroppers found themselves trapped in a system that severely hampered their chances of acquiring financial security.77 Coinciding with the establishment of a racist regime in the American South, the 1890s witnessed an erosion of Republican and Northern sympathy for the plight of black Southerners.78 This apparent indifference, or ambivalence, concerning the future of African Americans, on the part of white Northerners was due to a number of factors. First among these was the failure of Reconstruction—specifically, the disorder and corruption that marked state governments in which blacks participated in the political process and had representation in the legislative assemblies. Some Northern whites interpreted this as an indication that African Americans lacked the capacity to assimilate themselves into civilized society.79 In addition, increasing numbers of immigrants from Southern and Eastern Europe into the northern states contributed to a growing xenophobia among native white Northerners. These newcomers were frequently stereotyped, ostracized, and derided in the North. Over time, white Northerners began to empathize with their Southern counterparts, who also had to deal with a “foreign” presence in their midst (that is, blacks).80 A significant number of white Northern intellectuals and business leaders began, in the late 1800s, to embrace Herbert Spencer’s (1820–1903) philosophy of social Darwinism. William Graham Sumner (1840–1910), a Yale University professor, became the chief proponent of this concept in the United States. Social Darwinists believed that the progress of society depended on an unregulated marketplace. Within this marketplace human beings compete for economic resources. Those who acquire the most wealth exhibit their fitness, whereas those who do not are unfit and will eventually fade into extinction. Explaining this development, Spencer called it the “survival of the fittest.” For the benefit of society, those who exhibit an aptitude for success

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will pass on their traits to their offspring. However, if government interferes with the free-market economy the process of natural selection will not take place, thus allowing inferior persons to pass on their traits to the next generation. According to social Darwinists, this situation hampers society’s progress. White Northerners who embraced social Darwinism were consequently champions of laissez-faire socioeconomics. As such, they believed that entitlement programs, financial aid, and other government remedies to improve the plight of African Americans were in the long run detrimental to the wellbeing of society as a whole. These Northern whites felt that blacks needed to compete, and subsequently rise or fall, according to their own merit or ability.81 The late nineteenth century also witnessed the growth of American imperialism with the annexation of the Hawaiian Islands and the SpanishAmerican War in 1898. The latter resulted in the United States acquisition of the Philippine Islands, Puerto Rico, and Guam. The principal justification for these actions was that white Americans (Northern and Southern), being of pure Anglo-Saxon stock, were superior to darker-skinned peoples, and therefore had the right to subjugate them and take possession of their lands. Moreover, whites felt that they, being of a superior race and culture, had the burden of civilizing these dark-hued and backward populations. Rudyard Kipling’s (1865–1936) poem “The White Man’s Burden” (1899) captured this sentiment. Naturally, this attitude also applied to darker-skinned persons within the continental United States, namely blacks and Native Americans. Accordingly, the growing consensus among white Northerners was that their Southern counterparts, being of a superior race, were entitled, short of reenslavement, to deal with the South’s African American population on their own terms.82 A number of Northern intellectuals accepted the ideas of scientific racism. Specifically, the so-called evidence of innate black inferiority, which sociologists, anthropologists, and psychologists of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries presented for public consumption. A prime example is Madison Grant’s (1865–1937) The Passing of the Great Race. In the volume Grant, an amateur cultural anthropologist, bemoans what he sees as the demise of a superior Anglo-Saxon society in the United States, brought about as a consequence of the American Civil War and the inundation of the country with inferior immigrant groups.83 Thus, for philosophical reasons, political expediency, and economic interest, Northern politicians and businessmen assumed a laissez-faire attitude on race relations in the South.84

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Events that precipitated the deterioration of white and black relations in the southern United States, indicative of the 1890s, were U.S. Supreme Court decisions and a disputed presidential election. In the case of the United States v. Reese (1876), the Court declared that the Fifteenth Amendment, granting blacks the right to vote, did not confer the right of suffrage on everyone. Moreover, in the case of the United States v. Cruikshank (1876), the Court declared unconstitutional the Enforcement Act of 1870, designed to protect black voting rights. In the presidential election of 1876, the leading candidates Samuel J. Tilden (1814–1886), presidential nominee of the Democratic party, and Rutherford B. Hayes (1822–1893), nominee of the Republican party, were unable to garner the necessary number of electoral votes to win the presidency outright. Through a series of backdoor deals, the Republicans succeeded in capturing the White House. They had to grant major concessions to Southern Democrats, such as the withdrawal of federal troops, subsidies for internal improvements, and increased representation in Washington affairs.85 This Compromise of 1877 signaled the end of Reconstruction (the period following the American Civil War in which the federal government attempted to overhaul the political, social, and economic framework of the South to bring it in line with other parts of the country). The Republican abandonment of Southern blacks in the Compromise of 1877 left the latter at the mercy of their former oppressors.86 Southern legislatures swiftly began enacting laws that created stringent barriers between whites and nonwhites. The Supreme Court of the United States sanctioned this activity in the case of Plessy v. Ferguson (1896), when it enunciated the national doctrine of “separate but equal.” Consequently, Northern charities and religious groups, when working in the South, gradually adopted the Southern practice of drawing the color line.87 As their social and political rights dwindled, blacks viewed education as the only means available for their self-improvement. Though some white Southerners opposed black education, they seemed more tolerant of schools than other agencies and institutions designed to improve the plight of African Americans. Some Northern religious organizations began contributing resources to establish black schools in the South, among them Catholics, Presbyterians, Episcopalians, the American Missionary Association, the Freedmen’s Aid Society of the Methodist Episcopal Church, the Baptist Home Mission Society, and the Southern Missionary Society of Seventh-day Adventists. Soon the amount of contributions from religious groups exceeded that of secular foundations.88

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During the 1890s violence against African Americans increased. In this decade, the Southern establishment (that is, elements of the Southern Democratic party) employed various acts of terror—intimidation, flogging, maiming, the destruction of personal property, and lynching—to reinforce social boundaries.89 From 1890 to 1900, 1,691 African Americans died from lynching.90 In 1892 the annual number of lynchings in the United States peaked at 241.91 During this period, the states of Mississippi, Alabama, Georgia, and Louisiana led the nation in the number of reported lynchings. Between 1900 and 1914, more than eleven hundred blacks died as victims of lynching.92 It was during the 1890s that Ellen G. White’s views concerning race relations in the South came to the forefront. This coincided with incidents directly related to her son’s missionary efforts in that particular region.93 In 1894 James Edson White (1849–1928), James and Ellen White’s second son, assembled a missionary team with the purpose of helping improve the plight of blacks residing in the state of Mississippi. The mission team included Emma MacDearmon-White, the wife of James Edson White; Will O. Palmer and his wife; Walter Cleveland, Walter Halliday, and Louis Krause from Chicago; Fred Halladay from Ottawa, Illinois; Albert Green of Illinois, a black cook and recent convert to Adventism; and Finis Parker of Cairo, Illinois, a black teenager who piloted the mission boat to Vicksburg, Mississippi. Later on, the following persons joined the Adventist mission team in Mississippi: Miss M. M. Osborne, a white Baptist missionary who converted to Adventism; Ida Wekel, an undergraduate nurse from the Battle Creek Sanitarium in Battle Creek, Michigan; Dr. W. H. Kynett and his wife; Lydia Kynett, Dr. Kynett’s daughter, who was also a nurse; E. W. Carey; Anna Agee from Knoxville, Tennessee; Anna Jensen from Battle Creek College in Battle Creek, Michigan; Dan Stephenson, a Mississippi native; Professor E. A. Sutherland; Professor Percy T. Magan; F. R. Rogers and his wife Minnie Rogers, from Walla Walla, Washington; and Chester Rogers, the couple’s son.94 James Edson White knew he needed a means of transporting his mission team and their supplies to Mississippi. He also knew that, on account of their missionary endeavor, the team would encounter difficulty finding adequate accommodation. Moreover, White would need space to hold classes and religious services. Consequently, he decided to construct a riverboat.95 This vessel had the potential of solving the problems of transportation, accommodation, and space. To help pay for the mission enterprise, White wrote a book, titled The Gospel Primer. The volume served three purposes. First, it was an evangelistic tool that conveyed the messages of the Bible in a clear and simplistic manner. Second, royalties from sales of the book went toward

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construction of the riverboat, as well as the purchase of other necessities for the mission effort. Third, the volume was useful in teaching illiterate persons to read.96 In his Battle Creek basement shop, Captain A. T. Orton constructed the frames for James Edson White’s paddlewheel steamer. Once Orton completed this task, he shipped the pieces to Allegan, Michigan, where on March 10, 1894, White (with the assistance of volunteers) began construction of the boat in earnest. In July the team completed construction of the boat, which they christened the Morning Star. The riverboat had only a single cabin deck. The vessel was seventy-two feet in length. At the bottom, the hull measured twelve feet wide. The vessel had an office in the bow, followed with a main cabin measuring twelve by sixteen feet. Next were five staterooms. The boat had a natural wood finish. The floor was made of white oak, while the paneling beneath the windows and the partitions were sycamore. The window trim and casing were all made of red oak. Before leaving, the General Conference of Seventh-day Adventists gave James Edson White and Will O. Palmer missionary licenses. That August, the Morning Star took her maiden voyage on Lake Michigan. From Douglas, Michigan, the boat crossed and arrived in Chicago. There, the remaining members of the mission party came onboard and the crew outfitted the vessel with additional supplies. From Chicago, the riverboat made its way down the Illinois & Michigan Canal into the Illinois River. The paddleboat steamer then churned its way through the twists and turns of the Illinois till it came to the confluence where the tributary emptied into the grand Mississippi River. The Morning Star continued on a southerly course till it arrived at Vicksburg, Mississippi, on January 10, 1895. Moored on Centennial Lake, just below Fort Hill, the boat served as a base for Adventist missionary operations throughout Warren County. During the course of the trip, White began to feel that the dimensions and accommodations of the vessel were not entirely adequate for the mission work, so the following year he had the steamboat refitted.97 A. T. Orton came from Michigan to oversee the remodeling of the Morning Star. The workmen increased the overall length of the vessel to 105 feet. White had an upper level built and a pilot house, placed on top of the hurricane deck. On the lower deck was another room that served as the typesetting room for the Gospel Herald periodical. White published this journal with the intent of publicizing the Adventist missionary work in Mississippi, and to solicit funds for the support of further endeavors in the South.98 Located behind this room was the press room, which housed two steam-powered printing presses run with a six-horsepower auxiliary engine. Behind the

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press room were three relatively spacious and comfortable staterooms that served as the missionaries’ quarters; a nine-by-twelve-foot dining room, and a kitchen. In the stern of the lower deck was a bathroom, a storage area, and the engine room.99 On the bow of the upper deck was James Edson White’s personal study and living quarters. Next came a stateroom, a bathroom, the business office, and a small darkroom for developing photographs and making stereopticon slides. Behind the office was the new main cabin, measuring twelve feet by twenty. This room served as a sitting room and library. However, opening the double doors adjoining the main cabin and the business office created a spacious chapel for religious services. This makeshift chapel had a seating capacity of fifty to eighty people. Situated atop the hurricane deck was the pilot house. The total cost to James Edson White for building and refitting the Morning Star was thirty-seven hundred dollars.100 Situated high up on Fort Hill, overlooking Centennial Lake, was the Mount Zion Baptist Church, one of approximately twenty African American churches in the city of Vicksburg. Edson and his missionary team decided to start their work for the black people of Mississippi there. Soon, they realized that there were two white ladies from the Baptist Home Missionary Society, Miss M. M. Osborne and Miss Maggie Scott, already at work in the area. Eventually, Miss Osborne converted to Adventism and linked her effort to help the blacks of Vicksburg with those of the newcomers.101 Katie Holston, a deaconess at the Mount Zion Church, invited Adventist missionaries to her home, where she conducted a weekly prayer group. Over time, more individuals within the black community heard about the meetings and expressed interest in attending. Soon Holston’s home was too small to accommodate the growing number of persons attending the Bible studies. Consequently, Mount Zion’s pastor gave permission for the Bible students to hold their meetings at the church. Since many of the students were illiterate, White put his Gospel Primer to good use. The Adventists started a night school on Tuesday and Thursday evenings. It was an instant success. Although the city of Vicksburg had public school facilities for black children, these were vastly overcrowded. Moreover, the city did not provide grammar schools for black adults. As a result, those children who were not able to attend the public schools and adults who desired to learn to read and write attended the night classes at Mount Zion. Fifty students attended the first night. Before long, the number of students grew to over a hundred. The class session began with forty-five minutes devoted to reading and spelling from the Gospel Primer, followed

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with fifteen minutes of hymn singing. Next was prayer, followed by half an hour of Bible study. In order to accommodate the various levels of learning, White’s missionary team organized twelve different classes. There were regular classes for children and beginners, special classes for the elderly, and classes for advanced readers. The people were so eager to learn that some nights the Adventists had difficulty getting their students to leave and go home. The popularity of the school at Mount Zion was so great that blacks from another church two miles away requested that the Adventists send someone over to teach them. White sent an advanced student to help start a night school there.102 As the students became more proficient readers, the Adventists started sharing some of their beliefs with the students. Some students accepted the Seventh-day Adventist doctrines and began attending Sabbath services held in the makeshift chapel on the Morning Star. Soon a few of the black Baptist ministers became perturbed when they noticed that some of their regular congregants had stopped attending Sunday services. When they realized that these individuals had converted to Adventism, the possible impact on their own financial well-being turned their anxiety to anger and fear. These pastors banded together and intimidated fellow ministers who were initially reluctant to join their cause.103 Finally, they called a community meeting and declared a boycott of the missionaries from the Morning Star. They went so far as to publicly state their reason for this drastic action. One irate minister bluntly told the black assembly that they were too ignorant to understand the Bible. Another pastor told the crowd that if they wanted to know about the Bible they should come to them first, because that is what they are paid for. Finally, one preacher speaking on behalf of all the ministers declared that they would not stand by and allow their church members to give their money and souls to the devil.104 Consequently, the Adventists could no longer use Mount Zion, or any other black church, to hold night classes. To keep the school going, White rented a town hall for ten dollars.105 James Edson White and Will Palmer knew they needed to build a church to accommodate the growing number of Adventists in Vicksburg. Though short on funds, the missionaries obtained a lot on the corner of Walnut and First East Streets, where they erected a twenty-by-forty-foot building. On August 10, 1895, Ole Andres Olsen (1845–1915), president of the General Conference from 1888 to 1897, was on hand to dedicate the completed chapel. Now that they had their own place, the mission team decided to operate both a day and night school. They attached removable desks to the backs of the pews, to use the church as a schoolhouse.

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The year 1895 proved to be a high point for the Adventist missionary cause in the South. In addition to the completion and dedication of the Walnut Street Chapel of Seventh-day Adventists, it marked the opening of a day and night school in that facility. James Edson White organized the Southern Missionary Society of Seventh-day Adventists to coordinate aid and missionary activities for African Americans in the Southern states.106 Dr. W. H. Kynett served as the organization’s vice-president and business manager; his daughter Lydia was the secretary.107 Also in 1895, due in large part to the prodding and insistence of Ellen G. White and her son James Edson White, the General Conference of Seventh-day Adventists voted to establish an institution of higher learning for black youth. Moreover, the denomination sent a three-person task force consisting of Ole Andres Olsen (president of the General Conference), George A. Irwin (director of the Southern District of the General Conference), and Harmon Lindsay (treasurer of the General Conference) to select and purchase property for this purpose. In January 1896 they acquired a 360-acre plantation in Huntsville, Alabama, for eight thousand dollars. The Adventist Church transformed the property into the Oakwood Industrial School, which opened on November of that year.108 This institution, which is now a university, produced African American leaders like Charles Dudley Sr., Warren S. Banfield Jr., Charles Joseph, Earl Moore, Franklin Hill II, and Edward Earl Cleveland, who all carried on the work of social reform inaugurated through the White family. Despite strong opposition from Vicksburg’s black ministers, to the extent of threatening their parishioners with expulsion if they attended the Adventist school, many took advantage of the educational opportunities the missionaries provided. Night school at the Walnut Street Chapel took place on Monday and Wednesday evenings. Twenty-five students attended the first night; thirty-seven the second; fifty-three the third; eighty-two the forth; and ninety-two the fifth. Within a few weeks, the chapel, initially built for a seating capacity of 100, contained a crowd of 150 students. Here, they received lessons on reading, penmanship, spelling, grammar, arithmetic, and the Bible.109 The missionaries needed more room, so they built an extension onto the chapel. The builders installed folding doors to divide the two sections, the chapel proper and the new extension. Decorative wallpaper covered the addition, except for the cherry-stained wood paneling that reached a height of four feet and extended along the entire length of the walls. In addition to serving as auxiliary space for the school, the extension doubled as a library. The missionaries installed bookshelves and White filled them with donated books and illustrated magazines. John Harvey Kellogg (1852–1943), a

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physician from Battle Creek, Michigan, gave the school a full set of his health books.110 The night classes became such an overwhelming success that the General Conference sent E. W. Carey to start up the day school.111 Noting the success of the mission work in Vicksburg, White felt it was time to expand the operation. In December 1897 he, along with a few missionaries, took the Morning Star up the mouth of the Yazoo River. As the boat made its way to Mississippi’s Yazoo City, the crew noticed several broken links in the chain that transmitted power from the engine to the paddlewheel. They decided to stop at a place named Bliss’s Landing. From there they placed an order to Chicago for the parts needed to repair the vessel. As they waited for the links to arrive, the missionaries started a night school for blacks on the other side of the river across from Bliss’s Landing. This development irritated the area’s white residents. The deputy superintendent of schools in Yazoo County confronted White about this matter. He told him that he had a choice to make. He could either teach the white people, or leave. The deputy of schools went on to explain that the blacks in the area outnumbered the whites by a ratio of sixteen to one. He added that the whites of that section had always managed to keep the blacks down, and they intended to keep it that way.112 Meanwhile, white plantation owners admonished their black sharecroppers and field hands not to attend the night school. Subsequently, the number of students dwindled to the point that keeping the school open was no longer feasible.113 Eventually the Morning Star arrived in Yazoo City. There the missionaries took up their task of helping the area’s African American residents. In addition to establishing schools and conducting Bible studies, the Southern Missionary Society started businesses that provided employment for blacks; introduced advanced agricultural techniques benefiting black farmers and sharecroppers; and mended donated clothing for distribution to the needy.114 In recognition of his work, the General Conference conferred ordination on James Edson White on March 7, 1897, making him a minister in the Seventhday Adventist Church. About this time, Fred Halladay, an early member of the missionary team, married Ida Wekel, a nurse from the Battle Creek Sanitarium who joined the missionaries in 1896.This couple conducted Bible studies in numerous homes in Yazoo City. They also taught Sunday and night classes at the home of Annie Smith in Lintonia, Mississippi, and at the Wilsonia Baptist Church in Wilsonia, Mississippi (two suburbs of Yazoo City). As the Adventist missionary effort progressed, both racial and religious animosity surfaced. Although the Wilsonia Baptist Church remained open to them, the missionaries had a difficult time acquiring adequate

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accommodations for their growing number of students. The white community refused to rent their meeting halls to the Southern Missionary Society because they did not want blacks in their facilities. Moreover, due in part to doctrinal differences, the black churches, which owned and operated the halls reserved for African Americans, refused to rent to the Adventists.115 Consequently, White decided that it was time to acquire a meeting place for Adventists in the greater Yazoo City area, so that the work done for black people would not abate. The Halladays picked out a lot in Lintonia; in early April 1898, White purchased the lot and made arrangements to set up a movable chapel on the site. The building cost one hundred fifty dollars and measured fifty by one hundred forty-two feet. This chapel became the Lintonia Seventh-day Adventist Church. On December 8, 1898, George A. Irwin, president of the General Conference from 1897 to 1901, dedicated the meeting place. For the purpose of constructing a permanent church facility, the Southern Missionary Society purchased another lot located in the main section of Yazoo City. White rented a black schoolhouse next door, to serve as a temporary site for Adventist night and weekend classes in Yazoo City proper. Within a short time, White received a request to establish a night school in a black Baptist church, located a mile or so outside Yazoo City.116 Consequently, three Adventist night schools started operating in the greater Yazoo City area. To help in this educational endeavor, F. R. Rogers, in the company of his wife Minnie and son Chester, moved from Walla Walla, Washington, to the greater Yazoo City area, where he and Minnie began teaching. Meanwhile, White moved the headquarters of the Southern Missionary Society from Vicksburg to Yazoo City, where he began printing the Gospel Herald in May 1898. That same year, the missionary team in Vicksburg came into contact with the Jones family of Calmar, Mississippi. Albert Jones, an independent black farmer, owned several acres of land near the confluence of the Little Sunflower and Yazoo Rivers, which is approximately halfway between Vicksburg and Yazoo City. The Jones family were Sabbatarians, who evidently learned about the seventh-day Sabbath from personal Bible study. Albert Jones informed the missionaries that several blacks in and around Calmar owned their own land, making it the ideal setting for an Adventist chapel and school. The Southern Missionary Society acquired a parcel of land in the area and commenced construction. Meanwhile, White continued to make trips back and forth between Yazoo City and Vicksburg to keep tabs on the progress of the missionary work in both areas. On one of these trips, White

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returned to Bliss’s Landing and held a religious service aboard the Morning Star. In that meeting, William H. Casey, the black superintendent of the eight-hundred-acre Bruce Plantation, and N. W. Olvin, a black sharecropper, converted to Adventism. In February 1899 the chapel and schoolhouse at Calmar, Mississippi, neared completion and the principal, Dan Stephenson, a white Mississippian, was eager to start classes. When the doors finally opened, two professors from Battle Creek College, E. A. Sutherland and Percy T. Magan, came to observe and assist in the instruction. Almost two hundred students attended the Adventist school at Calmar. Professor Magan lectured on the advantages of diversified agriculture, as well as improved farming techniques to increase crop yield. Several black farmers and at least a few whites attended Magan’s classes.117 In fact, one of the white planters made a declaration that he would diversify his crops and help his sharecroppers get out of debt.118 When word of this reached the ears of neighboring white planters, they became furious. The whites were already uneasy about the Adventist presence in Calmar. In fact, an elderly white man recalled that it was difficult to get any black person from that section of the Mississippi Delta to work on Saturday.119 Heightening their concern was the fact that the Adventist school taught blacks advanced agriculture methods. However, this new development was the last straw. Though blacks outnumbered whites in that section of the Mississippi Delta, the latter had for years enjoyed the privileges of a caste system in which they were on the top and the blacks were on the bottom.120 The fact that one of their own would risk upsetting the socioeconomic hierarchy was more than they were willing to bear.121 The following incident, epitomizing the terror and violence common in the South of the 1890s, directly influenced Ellen White’s views on race relations.122 On the evening of May 11, 1899, twenty-five whites stormed the Seventh-day Adventist mission in Calmar, Mississippi.123 A sergeant of the Mississippi Volunteer Infantry led the attackers, composed mostly of wellto-do planters between Yazoo City and Vicksburg.124 On entering the compound, the mob called out Dan Stephenson, the principal. The men placed Stephenson in a buggy and escorted him to the rail station in Redwood, Mississippi. There they paid Stephenson’s fare and placed him on a train headed out of town.125 Returning to the mission, the planters looted the chapel and school, burning books and other instructional materials. The mob searched the mission grounds for William H. Casey, a recent convert to Adventism, who now served as the chief custodian.126 Unable to find Casey, they rode to the home of N. W. Olvin, the black Adventist sharecropper. However, before

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they left, the men nailed a notice to the chapel door warning the Adventists not to return.127 Arriving at the sharecropper’s home, the planters called for him to come out. Olvin stepped out of his front door and stood, defiantly staring at the men. The planters peppered him with questions and Olvin answered, though not in a manner they deemed respectful. In short, he refused to show the customary deference to whites as expected in Southern etiquette. The men dismounted, seized Olvin, and dragged him out. Two of the planters held Olvin down while another stripped him to the waist. Meanwhile, the recognized leader of group went to his saddlebag and pulled out a rawhide whip. For dramatic effect, he cracked the whip a couple of times in the air. The men formed a circle around Olvin except for the two that held him down. Alerted by the laughter and hooting of the mob combined with the sound of the crackling whip, Mrs. Olvin dashed from the front door toward the encirclement, screaming at the top of her voice. One of the planters drew a pistol and fired in her direction. The bullet grazed her leg and she crumpled to the ground. Ignoring her cries of pain, the planters returned to the business at hand. It was then that the whipping began. Each time the whip descended on Olvin’s exposed back, it opened up neat little furrows that filled with bright red blood.128 Absorbed in their own spectacle, the planters failed to notice an unknown rider making his way through the darkness toward that pitiful scene. Approaching just within range for them to hear his voice above their shouts of recrimination, the agonizing wails of Mrs. Olvin, and the sickening sound of the whip as it cracked unmercifully on Olvin’s bruised and bloodied back, the rider pulled on the reins of the horse and reached for his holster. In a low-pitched, commanding voice he ordered the men to stop. Startled, the planters turned in the direction of the unfamiliar voice. In the dense darkness, they could barely make out the figure of the mounted rider. For a moment, they froze with uncertainty. Then they looked at one another, reasoned that the numbers were on their side, and recommenced their sadistic work. Just as the whip applied a new strip, a peal of thunder emitted from the revolver of the mysterious rider. Gripped with panic, the planters sprinted toward their horses. Confused and bewildered, the men mounted and took off in various directions. The mounted stranger turned and faded into the darkness.129 One of the reasons the planters singled out Olvin was because of his widespread Adventist proselytizing.130 His activities enraged both black and white non-Adventist ministers who felt the threat of a competing denomination. Toward the end of the nineteenth century, religious zeal intensified

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in the South. According to C. Vann Woodward, this fanaticism originated among Methodists and Baptists—two Protestant denominations that held a near monopoly on Southern religious life.131 As institutions of the Southern establishment, these denominations served as centers of resistance to Northern culture.132 In light of this incident, Ellen G. White advised all missionaries working in the South to be careful not to arouse the animosity of white Southerners.133 She regarded this as necessary in an environment of religious intolerance and racial bigotry.134 White wrote the following: “As time advances, and race prejudices increase, it will become almost impossible, in many places, for white workers to labor for the colored people. Sometimes the white people who are not in sympathy with our work will unite with colored people to oppose it, claiming that our teaching is an effort to break up churches and bring trouble over the Sabbath question. White ministers and colored ministers will make false statements, arousing in the minds of the people such a feeling of antagonism that they will be ready to destroy and kill.”135 To ensure the safety of both white and black Adventists in the South, White advised missionaries to labor for those of their own ethnic group; that blacks not seek equality with whites; and that the races worship in separate facilities.136 At the turn of the last century, Ellen White astutely perceived as suicidal any movement in the South for white and black social equality. She issued this warning to Adventists in the Southern states: “We are not to agitate the color line question, and thus arouse prejudice and bring about a crisis.”137 To avoid bloodshed, White counseled missionaries to conduct the work of education and evangelism along racial lines.138 This recommendation came from her concern that integrated Adventist institutions in the South could potentially provoke the animosity of whites, thus resulting in violence. Commenting on the racial feeling and jealousy that manifested itself in certain sections of the South, Ellen White wrote: The same spirit of oppression is still cherished in the minds of many of the white people of the South, and will reveal itself in cruel deeds, which are the manifestation of their religious zeal. Some will oppose in every possible way any action which has a tendency to uplift the colored race and teach them to be self-supporting. When the whites show an inclination to help the colored people by educating them to help themselves, a certain class of the white people are terribly annoyed. They do not want the colored people to earn an independent living. They want them to work their plantations.139

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Increasing danger associated with Adventist missionary work on behalf of blacks in the South necessitated a temporary policy of racial segregation in evangelistic outreach and worship practices. However, White wanted Southern blacks to understand that her counsel, advocating racial separation, originated from concern for safety—not an attitude of racial bigotry. Consequently, she declared the following: “Let the colored [or African American] believers be provided with neat, tasteful houses of worship. Let them be shown that this is done not to exclude them from worshiping with white people, because they are black. . . Let them understand that this plan is to be followed until the Lord shows us a better way.”140 As this quote implies, White’s counsel provided a temporary solution to a specific problem in a particular region of the country. George Ide Butler (1834–1918), president of the General Conference from 1871 to 1874 and from 1880 to 1888, substantiated Ellen White’s position. In an article that appeared in the Advent Review and Sabbath Herald, Butler remarked: “The necessity of separate meetings is because of the race feeling existing in portions of the South. Because of this fact, separate churches and separate meetings are found to be preferable to both classes. The state of society makes this necessary.”141 Clearly, Ellen G. White never intended that the Seventh-day Adventist Church reformulate her counsel into a longterm policy of racial segregation. Nevertheless, during the civil rights era, Adventists used her statements—taken out of historical context—to support a conservative agenda that exhibited indifference toward social injustice.142 There are two possible reasons for this. First, being fifty years removed from the time White issued her counsel on race relations, it is possible if not probable that Adventist leaders misunderstood it. Second, it is likely that some deliberately distorted the context of her statements to support their own segregationist views. In the course of her career, White expressed concern for the plight of African Americans in the South.143 She wanted Adventists to play a larger role in helping Southern blacks. The following statement demonstrates her sentiment, as well as the unique difficulties attached to this mission field. For many years I have borne a heavy burden in behalf of the Negro race. My heart has ached as I have seen the feeling against this race growing stronger and still stronger, and as I have seen that many Seventh-day Adventists are apparently unable to understand the necessity for an earnest work being done quickly. . . One of the difficulties attending the work is that many of the white people living where the

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colored people are numerous are not willing that special efforts should be put forth to uplift them. When they see schools established for them, when they see them being taught to be self-supporting, to follow trades, to provide themselves with comfortable homes instead of continuing to live in hovels, they see the possibility that selfish plans will be interfered with—that they will no longer be able to hire the Negro for a mere pittance; and their enmity is aroused. They feel that they are injured and abused. Some act as if slavery had never been abolished.144 There are a couple of explanations for White’s deep concern for the welfare of African Americans. The first deals with her ancestry. Research on Ellen White’s genealogy uncovered evidence suggesting that she was a woman of mixed ethnicity.145 As a result, Ellen’s background possibly provided a sense of community awareness that sensitized her to the difficulties confronting African Americans. Second, White’s Christian beliefs obligated her to address the needs of humanity—regardless of race or class. Her statement seems to confirm this point. “It was never God’s purpose that society should be separated into classes, that there should be an alienation between rich and poor, the high and low, the learned and the unlearned. But the practice of separating society into distinct circles is becoming more and more decided.”146 Prior to the 1899 incident in Calmar, White issued several statements supporting racial equality.147 In 1891, she chided some Seventh-day Adventist churches for barring blacks: “You have no license from God to exclude the colored people from your places of worship. Treat them as Christ’s property, which they are, just as much as yourselves. They should hold membership in the church with the white brethren. Every effort should be made to wipe out the terrible wrong which has been done them.”148 In addition to speaking out against segregation, White expressed her opinion that the federal government, as well as private citizens, owed reparations to African Americans for the years of uncompensated labor they performed while enslaved.149 She wrote: “The American nation owes a debt of love to the colored race, and God has ordained that they should make restitution for the wrong they have done them in the past. Those who have taken no active part in enforcing slavery upon the colored people are not relieved from the responsibility of making special efforts to remove as far as possible, the sure result of their enslavement.”150 Accordingly, White called on the Seventh-day Adventist Church to send missionaries to work among the black people of the South. Furthermore, she urged the denomination to construct schools and churches to meet

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the needs of African Americans in the region.151 It is worth remembering that some Adventist leaders, during the 1950s and 1960s, omitted White’s missionary zeal on behalf of Southern blacks and her commitment to racial equality in carving out their official position against involvement in the civil rights movement. After the Calmar incident the Southern Missionary Society, in adherence to Ellen White’s counsel, began the process of placing African Americans in charge of its black schools and other outreach efforts. The necessity for this change in policy became even more apparent in light of developments taking place in Yazoo City. Due in large part to the indefatigable efforts of F. R. and Minnie Rogers, the Adventist school in Lintonia became a huge success. Reminiscent of an earlier situation in Vicksburg, the Southern Missionary Society built an addition to the Lintonia Seventh-day Adventist Church to accommodate the increasing number of students. As the school grew, it attracted some unwanted attention. The achievements of this educational enterprise excited the jealousies of certain religious elements in the African American community. Moreover, the whites became increasingly wary concerning the ramifications of this missionary effort to improve the condition of blacks in their area. The white youth of Yazoo City began to harass F. R. Rogers, a teacher and de facto principal of Lintonia Adventist School, whenever they spotted him walking down the main thoroughfare of the city. The brazen adolescents took pleasure in grabbing Rogers’s coattails while simultaneously chanting the maligning phrase, “Nigger lover! Nigger lover!” At other times they pelted him with brickbats. Clearly, Rogers’s personal safety was at risk. James Edson White immediately began the search for black teachers to replace the Rogers. Soon Franklin G. Warnick, a black Adventist minister, arrived to take over teaching duties at the Lintonia School. White gave F. R. Rogers the title of Superintendent of Education and charged him to work behind the scenes, focusing on the administrative aspect of the schools in Vicksburg and Yazoo City. Eventually, White appointed more African Americans to head the mission projects within the Southern Missionary Society. The society’s first African American directors were Frank Warnick, Tazwell B. Buckner, W. H. Sebastian, and Matthew Strachan.152 James Edson White went on to serve as a founding member of the Negro Department within the General Conference of Seventh-day Adventists, established in 1909.153 Despite these moves, the attitudes of Yazoo City’s community leaders did not change toward the Adventists and their missionary endeavor. On

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June 1, 1900, the Yazoo City Herald ran an editorial lambasting the Seventhday Adventists. Among the many accusations, the editor accused them of introducing, to the detriment of the community, religious discord (concerning the seventh-day Sabbath) and the practice of social equality. The editor of the Herald wrote: “For more than a year the Adventists have been quietly at work among the negroes, having established a church and school for them in Lintonia. For a time their doctrine did not seem to make much headway. But they have persisted, and by throwing in a large slice of social equality with their Seventh Day observance doctrine, they have influenced a number of them to join and renounce the Sabbath Day [Sunday], which is and has been observed by every Christian denomination since the morning the Savior rose from the tomb.” On this issue, the commentator added the following: “No good can result from such a doctrine, and the dangers are only increased when coupled with the practice of social equality. The Herald knows enough about the old Southern darky to know that they never expect to see the social barrier between the two races broken down.”154 On June 7, 1900, the editor of the Yazoo City Sentinel chimed in with his remarks: “It is stated by reliable negroes that he [F. R. Rogers] has adopted two negro girls. . . Whether or not this is true, we do not know, but we state as an absolute certainty that these negro girls are living with the Rogers as members of his family; they eat at the same table, sleep in the house with this family, sit around the fireside with them, and to all appearances are equal members thereof.”155 Bearing in mind this rhetoric and the endemic white-on-black violence associated with the South at the time, the astuteness of Ellen White’s counsel concerning the issue of social equality is evident. Her statement, written in the aftermath of the Calmar incident of 1899 and the 1900 article presently under discussion, reads: “The colored people should not urge that they be placed on an equality with white people.”156 Again, to come to a proper understanding of this comment, consideration of the historical context, as well as previous statements in which Ellen White affirms the equality of blacks and whites, is essential. Another allegation brought against Adventists was that they did not respect state law, especially the blue laws designed to preserve the sanctity of Sunday. On this matter, the Herald columnist wrote: “The laws of the State of Mississippi recognize the Sabbath Day [Sunday], and prohibit worldly employment on that day. This law these Seventh Day people want their followers to fly in the face of and to bid it defiance. They teach that Saturday is the day that should be observed as one of rest—and that it is neither wrong

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in morals or law to do any and all kinds of work on what is recognized as the Christian Sabbath.”157 Likewise, the editor of Sentinel wrote: Aside from this [social equality], which, in itself, is enough to damn him in the eyes of all decent people, the so-called religious doctrine which he teaches is contrary to the law of the land. In brief, he teaches that the day which we all recognize as the holy Sabbath, is not the Sabbath at all, and that any kind of work may be done on that day with impunity. . . . Our Sunday has been set apart by all Christian nations for centuries as a holy day—a day of rest, in conformity with Divine injunction, and no intelligent, Christian community will tolerate any man who persistently teaches open violation of it.158 It is quite possible that this allegation hurled from the editors of the Herald and Sentinel was baseless and entirely false. In 1895, five years prior to the present articles under examination, Ellen White released this statement to Southern missionaries concerning Sunday labor: “I see that if we would get the truth before the Southern people, we must not encourage the colored people to work on Sunday.”159 Moreover, she goes on to explain the reason for this counsel: “Everything of a character to set them in a position of opposition to [government] authorities, as working on Sunday, would cause the colored people great suffering and cut off the possibility of white laborers’ going among them; for the workers who intend to do them good would be charged with insurrection.”160 These statements show that Ellen White and those missionaries that adhered to her counsel did not advocate the desecration of Sunday. That is, they did not teach black Adventist converts to work on that day. Up to the time of her death in 1915, White continued to make financial contributions for the construction of churches for African Americans in the South.161 In addition, she encouraged the denomination to take an active role in programs designed to aid the black community.162 In the same way, her son worked for the remainder of his life to improve the socioeconomic condition of African Americans. Through publications, missionary endeavors, and monetary donations he exhibited a willingness to engage in social reform.163 Recent scholarship indicates that holistic theology motivated the work of Ellen and James Edson White.164 Holism is similar to the Social Gospel, divorced from its postmillennialist component.165 Essentially, it teaches that human beings are whole persons, that the physical and spiritual essence of an individual are equally important.166 Ellen White’s statement indicates the

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impact of holism on her thought: “The union of the Christlike work for the body and the Christlike work for the soul is the true interpretation of the gospel.”167 Likewise, the Old Testament’s covenant motif seemed to motivate the activism of the Whites. Biblical scholars define covenants as contracts between God and his people.168 In her writings, Ellen White applied the covenant concept to a variety of topics: finance, business, ethics, and childcare.169 She associated efforts to help blacks as an extension of Christian duty under the covenant. Evangelism played a crucial role in the social activism of the White family.170 As Adventists who expected the return of Christ, they felt an urgency to help prepare people to meet the Lord. Cognizant of society’s inequities, mother and son worked to remove hindrances that prohibited, or made it extremely difficult for, the less fortunate to accept Adventism. Ellen White’s comment on the Southern missionary field supports this analysis: “As men and women embrace the truth in this field, there will be abundant opportunity for relieving their pressing necessities. Unless this can be done, the work will largely prove a failure. To say, be ye warmed, and be ye clothed, and be ye fed, and take no steps to bring these things to pass, will have a bad influence upon our work. Object lessons will be of far more value than mere precepts.”171 This quote shows that her method of evangelism incorporated both holism and the covenant theme. Furthermore, it demonstrates that she understood the necessity of addressing both the physical and spiritual needs of people. The following is a comparative section. It examines the life and work of Katharine Drexel, a canonized saint of the Roman Catholic Church and contemporary of Ellen G. White, who conducted missionary efforts to assist African Americans in the South. The comparison shows that White’s statements concerning race relations were not inconsistent with contemporary liberal views of that era. Drexel’s experiences at the turn of the last century further illustrate the difficulties both non-Adventists and Adventist missionaries encountered in trying to improve the plight of blacks in the segregated South. The similarities in the strategy Drexel implemented and the plan White proposed emphasizes the latter’s equally progressive stance on race relations at that particular point in time. Hopefully, this comparative section will debunk the false assertion that Ellen G. White, a co-founder of the Seventh-day Adventist Church, held blatantly racist views and thus contributed to the noninvolvement and sometimes outright antagonism toward socioeconomic reform by the Seventh-day Adventist Church during the 1950s and 1960s.

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Born to Francis and Hannah Jane Drexel on November 26, 1858, in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, Katharine Mary Drexel was the couple’s second daughter. A little over a month later, Hanna Drexel died of complications incurred during childbirth. In 1860, Francis Anthony Drexel (1824–1885) married Emma Bouvier. A woman of deep piety, she setup an oratory, or place of prayer, in her home where family members frequently retired for moments of meditation and spiritual reflection. Emma encouraged all her children to participate in acts of charity. Consequently, they accompanied her as she distributed food and clothing to Philadelphia’s poor.172 These early experiences provided the foundation for Katharine’s future work, addressing the needs of the underprivileged. Francis Drexel’s activities also proved to be a source of inspiration for Katharine. As a wealthy financier, he made large contributions to charitable organizations. Moreover, Francis sat on the board of various nonprofit groups connected to the Philadelphia Archdiocese. In later years, as the mother superior of a religious order, Katharine would imitate her father’s administrative approach to charity. In 1872, James O’Connor (1823–1890) became the priest of Philadelphia’s St. Dominic’s Church, the home parish of the Drexel family. During his fouryear stay, O’Connor and Katharine developed a strong friendship. Following his appointment as bishop of Omaha, Nebraska, he continued to correspond with Katharine as her spiritual advisor. In these letters, she shared her thoughts on entering the religious life. Soon, Bishop O’Connor suggested that Katharine use her wealth to create a religious order dedicated to serving blacks and Native Americans. O’Connor came to Philadelphia and delivered his directive in person.173 Faced with the responsibility of founding a new religious order, Katharine expressed some apprehension. However, she laid these doubts aside once her confessor, Father D. J. McGoldrick, and Monsignor Joseph A. Stephan, the Jesuit director of the Bureau of Catholic Indian Missions, urged compliance with O’Connor’s counsel.174 In 1889, Katharine, in the company of Monsignor Stephan, visited Cardinal James Gibbons (1834–1921) and informed him of her intent to create a new religious congregation. Katharine also explained that she wanted her order to be an educational apostolate. At the time, white Southerners seemed to be more tolerant of schools for blacks than other agencies and institutions designed for their uplift. Ellen White and members of the Southern Missionary Society placed an emphasis on education as the primary means for improving the lives of African Americans in the South. It would also afford the opportunity for Adventists to share their religious beliefs in the hope of gaining converts. Likewise, the focus on teaching provided Katharine Drexel

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the opportunity to evangelize.175 In this manner Drexel’s strategy mirrored that of Ellen White, who made community service through religious education the basis of her program to improve the lives of African Americans.176 With the Cardinal’s blessing, Drexel began her religious training with the Sisters of Mercy. At the end of a six-month postulancy, she formally announced her intention to set up a new religious order. As Drexel drew up the plans for the congregation, her mentor, Bishop James O’Connor, died. The news of his death, in 1890, disheartened Katharine.177 However, with the help of Philadelphia’s Archbishop Patrick Ryan (1831–1911), she regained her fortitude and completed the plans for the order.178 In February 1891, Drexel took the vows of profession, marking her entrance into the religious life. This also denoted the first step toward the establishment of a new order—the Sisters of the Blessed Sacrament for Indians and Colored People.179 As a religious order serving the needs of ethnic minorities, the Sisters of the Blessed Sacrament faced many challenges. At the turn of the last century, both Indians and blacks received poor treatment in the United States. To complicate matters, racism manifested itself within the Catholic hierarchy.180 The case of Theresa Maxis (1810–1892), an original member of the Oblate Sisters of Providence—the world’s first order of black nuns—demonstrates this. After working with the Oblates, Maxis left to assist in the establishment of the Servants of the Immaculate Heart of Mary, a Catholic congregation based in Michigan and Pennsylvania. In Michigan she quarreled with Detroit’s Bishop Peter Paul Lefevre (1804–1869). In referring to Maxis, Lefevre, using a racial epithet, requested that Philadelphia’s Archbishop James Frederick Bryan Wood (1813-1883) expel her from the Immaculate Heart Convent in Pennsylvania. Before long, Maxis found herself banned from convents in both Michigan and Pennsylvania.181 The prevalence of racism, in the Catholic Church and the United States, forced Drexel to make difficult policy decisions regarding her congregation. As a rule, the Sisters of the Blessed Sacrament accepted only whites into their membership. Drexel instituted this policy for the following reasons. First, she did not want to draw away promising black candidates from existing African American orders, such as the Oblate Sisters of Providence, based in Baltimore, and the Sisters of the Holy Family, based in New Orleans. Second, racial prejudice made the recruitment of candidates for an integrated order difficult. For Drexel, convincing white women to devote their lives to serving Native and African Americans presented a daunting task, but the proposition that they live with them as equals presented itself as an impossibility. Third, a congregation composed of whites and nonwhites, living in

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close quarters, provided an opportunity for internal conflict, which Drexel preferred to avoid. Fourth, though many European orders of Catholic sisters had branches in Africa, Asia, and Latin America, none admitted local, indigenous women into their ranks. Instead, some created separate orders for nonwhite women.182 Finally, the South’s segregation statutes prohibited integrated orders. These reasons suggest that Drexel’s policy of admitting only whites into her order came from necessity, rather than a belief in black inferiority.183 Similarly, Ellen White, following the attack on the Adventist mission in Mississippi, found it prudent to revise her policy concerning missionary efforts to help African Americans in the South. The prevalence of racism in both the church and secular society forced both Drexel and White to take into consideration the biases of others. Consequently, White advised black and white Adventist missionaries, in the South, to conduct their work along racial divides.184 Speaking to Adventist missionaries in the South, White said: “Let as little as possible be said about the color line, and let the colored people work chiefly for those of their own race.”185 In advocating this position, she hoped to avoid arousing the prejudice of white Southerners and prevent incidents like that at Calmar. Overall, both women instituted their policies in response to a bitter and violent racial climate. As mentioned, Drexel selected the classroom as her venue for improving the lives of African Americans. Like other religious groups, the Sisters of the Blessed Sacrament worked to ensure that blacks received their right to an education. These missionary endeavors came at a time when Southern states slashed appropriations for black schools—resulting in a disparity in the funds allocated for the education of white versus black students.186 Religious organizations involved in the work of educating African Americans were largely self-supporting. Due to the prejudice against blacks, at the turn of the last century, these organizations could not rely on donations from the public. Furthermore, the federal government refused to provide funding for black schools at this time.187 Consequently, Katharine Drexel and others used their own resources to finance the education of African Americans. In a similar fashion, James Edson White, founder of the Southern Missionary Society of Seventh-day Adventists, estimated that he spent ten thousand dollars of his personal earnings, most of it from book royalties, on missionary projects aimed at helping black Americans.188 In 1894 Drexel purchased 600 acres in Rock Castle, Virginia, to build a school for black girls in honor of St. Francis de Sales (1567–1622). Before its opening in 1899, a suspicious blaze destroyed one of the buildings on the

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property. Constantly faced with the threat of arson, Drexel insured her educational facilities. Undaunted, the sisters opened the school, which went on to produce thousands of black educators for the African American community.189 On this point Drexel’s strategy resembled that of Ellen White, who proposed the establishment of black schools to train African Americans to work among their own race. In 1905 Drexel opened the Immaculate Mother Academy for African American girls in Nashville, Tennessee. Thomas Sebastian Byrne (1841–1923), the bishop of Nashville, Tennessee, tried to persuade Drexel to admit only Catholic students. Despite his urging, Katharine, in keeping with the congregation’s evangelistic mission, refused.190 In 1907 Drexel went to the Vatican to seek official recognition for her order and the approval of its constitution. After a series of meetings, Pope Pius X, born Giuseppe Melchiorre Sarto (1835–1914), recognized and approved the rule for the Sisters of the Blessed Sacrament for Indians and Colored People. When she returned to Philadelphia the congregation elected her as its first superior general. Encouraged by the Vatican’s vote of confidence, Drexel and her associates expanded their activities with the establishment of two additional black schools. In 1912 Drexel funded the construction of the Archbishop Ryan Memorial School in Atlanta, Georgia, followed by the St. Peter Claver School in Macon, Georgia. With the opening of the latter in 1915, the Georgia legislature began deliberations on a bill prohibiting whites from instructing African Americans—in both state and private schools.191 This demonstrates the length to which some white Southerners were willing to go to block efforts aimed at improving the plight of blacks in general. It also shows the astuteness and foresight of Ellen White’s counsel to Adventist missionaries to conduct their operations along racial lines. In advocating this position, she hoped to avoid the suspicion of prejudiced whites opposed to efforts aimed at improving the lives of blacks. The year 1915 marked the entry of the Sisters of the Blessed Sacrament into the field of higher education. In New Orleans whites living in the vicinity of Southern University, a state-run institution for blacks, demanded that the Louisiana legislature move the school to Baton Rouge. After the state government approved the relocation, African American Catholics in New Orleans faced a dilemma. For years, black Catholics attended Southern University to avoid the proselytization of Protestant institutions established for the education of African Americans. With the loss of Southern University, black Catholics were in a quandary concerning the higher education of their youth. New Orleans Archbishop James H. Blenk (1856–1917) appealed to Drexel for help.192 On hearing that the state planned to auction off the old Southern

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University campus, she agreed to participate in the bidding. Subsequently, Drexel successfully purchased the property with a winning bid of eighteen thousand dollars. In the fall of 1915, the Sisters of the Blessed Sacrament reopened the campus as Francis Xavier College, currently Xavier University, which holds the distinction of being the first black Catholic institution of higher learning in the United States. From its founding, Xavier University produced black educators that went on to serve African American communities throughout the country.193 Drexel’s social activism involved more than education. In addition to subsidizing the ministry of Augustus Tolton (1854–1897), the first black Catholic priest recognized in the United States, Katharine became a major financial contributor to the Catholic Interracial Movement.194 Likewise, Ellen G. White personally subsidized the ministry of several black Adventist ministers who were not receiving adequate financial support from the General Conference of Seventh-day Adventists.195 Moreover, she organized fund-raisers and sent monetary donations to the Southern Missionary Society to support various projects aimed at improving the plight of African Americans.196 Katharine Drexel used her wealth to construct Catholic churches for blacks in the South. In fact, her support for separate worship facilities came as the result of incidents in which white Catholics assaulted black parishioners. In 1925 she visited a church in Glencoe, Louisiana, where a fight broke out after an African American youth accidentally brushed up against a white man. Later, church members forcibly ejected a black man after he approached the rail to receive communion at the same time as whites. The previous year, a fight broke out when a black child dipped his finger in a font of holy water before a white man could. In Rayne, Louisiana, white Catholics barred African Americans from attending Sunday mass at the local church. When apprised of the situation, the Sisters of the Blessed Sacrament informed Jules Benjamin Jeanmard (1879–1957), the bishop of Lafayette, Louisiana, who ordered the parish priest to rescind the policy.197 Eventually the Josephite Fathers, a Catholic order dedicated to evangelizing African Americans, built a separate church to accommodate the blacks of Rayne. These incidents demonstrate the racism African Americans faced within the church that necessitated separate worship facilities. Given the prevalence of racial hostility at the turn of the last century, Drexel and Ellen White both supported the establishment of black churches, which allowed African Americans the opportunity to exercise their right to worship God in dignity, free from harassment.198 Drexel received several commendations in recognition of her work to improve the lives of African Americans.199 At the time of her death in 1951,

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the Sisters of the Blessed Sacrament operated sixty-one educational facilities (forty-eight elementary schools, twelve high schools, and one college) serving black and Native American communities in the United States.200 Through these institutions thousands of Native and African American students received the academic and intellectual training necessary for the future improvement of their social, economic, and political status. As a tribute to her legacy, Pope John Paul II (1920–2005), canonized Katharine Drexel on October 1, 2000.201

2.

Theology, Politics, and the Retreat from Social Activism

A quote from Ellen G. White, one of the main co-founders of the Seventhday Adventist Church, displays the progressive roots of early Adventism: “When the Holy Spirit moves, all prejudice will be melted away and we will approach God as one brotherhood. . . . The bright beams of the Sun of Righteousness will shine into the chambers of the mind and heart. In our worship of God there will be no distinction between rich and poor, white and black. All prejudice will be melted away. When we approach God, it will be as one brotherhood.”1 During the 1950s and 1960s, some white Adventist leaders used certain theological and philosophical concepts within Adventism to discourage political activism among church members. The roots of these ideas show how Adventist leaders used them to oppose the denomination’s entry into the civil rights movement. This chapter also discusses the concept of community awareness, as well as the intellectual and theological basis for Adventist activism, that together served as an antidote to certain notions within Adventism that discouraged political activity. Premillennialism influenced the denomination’s stance on politics. As premillennialists, Seventh-day Adventists believe that Christ’s Second Coming precedes the millennium (the thousand-year reign of peace discussed in Revelation 20:4–6). In the case of Adventism, this notion is directly attributable to Millerite thought. Since the Millerites eagerly anticipated Christ’s imminent return, they accepted the idea that the millennium occurs after the Second Advent. In keeping with this belief, Millerites, as forerunners of modern Adventism, embraced the notion that Christ’s return is the only remedy for society’s ills. Some Adventists viewed efforts to correct social and political

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problems as a waste of time, and a diversion of resources from its primary mission, evangelism.2 This presents a paradox for the Seventh-day Adventist Church. On one hand, as an advocate of premillennialism it holds the view that until Christ returns, bringing in a new age, no activity is capable of halting the progression of evil.3 On the other hand, like other denominations, it promotes Christian values and evangelism as the remedy for society’s problems.4 In addition to premillennialism, Adventists adhere to an apocalyptic historical eschatology, defined as a belief in the Second Coming of Christ and the destruction of the world.5 As a result, some Adventists lost interest in matters of sociopolitical reform. The experience of Joseph Bates, cofounder of the Seventh-day Adventist Church, serves as an example. Before joining the Millerite movement, Bates worked to advance the cause of abolition (that is, the abolishment of slavery in the United States). As an ardent Millerite, preparation for Christ’s return eventually supplanted his zeal for sociopolitical activism.6 Sectarian ecclesiology, the belief that Christians should not conform to the secular world, also influenced the denomination’s stance on politics.7 Like the concepts previously mentioned, Adventism adopted sectarian ecclesiology from Millerite thought. In expectation of Christ’s imminent return, Millerites regarded political involvement as a secular activity that distracts Christians from their spiritual development. Furthermore, they were of the opinion that Christ’s Second Coming coincides with the eradication of worldly government, which makes political activism pointless.8 Consequently, Adventists developed a political outlook favoring the separation of church and state. 9 In fact, Adventist leaders admonished members not to become involved in political affairs.10 Raymond Cottrell (1912–2003), a Seventh-day Adventist minister and associate editor of the Review and Herald (the official periodical of the church), condemned clerical participation in the 1963 March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom.11 His statement exemplifies Adventism’s opposition to political involvement. Commenting on this political demonstration, Cottrell declared: “When the church appeals to the strong arm of the state to enforce its opinions by law, it goes far beyond the example and the commission of its Founder. It abdicates its Heaven appointed task and takes up a work God never gave it to do.”12 Two years later, Cottrell reiterated the denomination’s position and stressed the church’s duty to evangelize rather than engage in sociopolitical reform. On this issue, the associate editor wrote:

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Seventh-day Adventists are of the firm conviction that political questions not directly involving religion or matters of conscience are strictly out of bounds for churches and church agencies. The increasing tendency of the majority religious bodies in the United States to take a public stand on strictly secular matters and to attempt to influence public policy with respect to them prostitutes their moral authority to affairs that Christ significantly omitted from the gospel commission. The apostles were instructed to teach and baptize, not to discuss politics or to lobby in Congress, lest they blunt their witness to the truth of heaven by becoming involved in controversial matters of an earthly nature.13 Cottrell employs a rather crude term to describe the activities of clerics working to bring about sociopolitical change, equating their actions with prostitution. Moreover, in the first sentence, he states that “political questions not directly involving religion or matters of conscience are strictly out of bounds for churches and church agencies.” This is a very curious statement. In the context of the civil rights movement, it seems to imply that issues of discrimination and social injustice are not questions of morality but are purely political, and therefore, outside the jurisdiction of the church. In other words, the church does not have the right to condemn, or speak out against, social injustice. The previous two quotes demonstrate the impact of sectarian ecclesiology on Adventist thought during the civil rights era. The denomination’s support for the separation of church and state stems not only from sectarian ecclesiology but from their belief that the United States will inevitably repudiate religious liberty.14 According to Adventist eschatology (the doctrine concerning last-day events), the federal government will enforce legislation demanding compulsory religious observance on Sunday.15 After the establishment of this law, those persons who continue to honor Sunday, instead of the seventh-day Sabbath, obtain the “mark of the beast.”16 Consequently, Adventists are suspicious of political movements that traverse the boundary of church-state separation. In fact, research shows that a majority of Adventists disapprove of church involvement in political matters.17 Sectarian ecclesiology presents an unwitting paradox for the Seventh-day Adventist Church, because it contributes to secularization.18 On one hand the denomination embraces sectarian ecclesiology to avoid secular contamination; on the other, its support of church-state separation relegates spirituality to the private sphere—leaving social issues subject to principles and values antagonistic to religious thought.19

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Sociologists classify Seventh-day Adventists as Christian fundamentalists, because they apply literal interpretations to Scripture and promote the infallibility of the Bible and its relevance in modern society.20 Studies of fundamentalist groups show that they are inclined toward Manichean thinking, classifying the world and its phenomena in strictly positive or negative terms.21 That is, the habit of interpreting situations as either good or bad, black or white, with no shades of grey in between. This tendency prohibits compromise on issues pertaining to morality and faith. Consequently, the merger of fundamentalism with eschatology gives rise to doctrines of separation, like sectarian ecclesiology.22 For the fundamentalist, secularism precipitates the need for separation because it challenges the preservation of traditional values. Thus, in an effort to maintain their identity, fundamentalists cling to doctrines that secularists associate with intolerance and exclusivity.23 Research indicates that Christian fundamentalists are more likely to back conservative political causes, rather than liberal ones.24 Likewise, traditional support for the status quo, among most Adventists, corroborates this finding.25 Francis David Nichol (1897–1966), a Seventh-day Adventist minister and editor of the Review and Herald, demonstrates the conservative tenor of some Adventist leaders with his portrayal of the civil rights movement as a bloody revolution bent on mayhem. Depicting this current threat to the sociopolitical status quo, Nichol writes: People long oppressed, people long left in ignorance, and people stirred to new ideas about the dignity of man have increasingly made their presence felt. In fact, nothing short of a revolution has taken place in [the] mid-twentieth century. And this revolution has frequently been marked by bloodshed. Sorrowfully we must add that even in America violence has too often been a factor. One of the most distinctive features of this revolution, at least in America, has been what are called Freedom Marches. And even more striking has been the fact that in the forefront of some such marches have been clergymen of various persuasions.26 Notice that in the last sentence, Nichol expresses his astonishment at religious leaders participating in the civil rights movement. On the issue of church involvement in support of civil rights for all United States citizens, regardless of ethnicity, it appears both Cottrell and Nichol disapprove. Indicative of the denomination’s conservatism, Cottrell and Nichol’s remarks support a laissez-faire attitude on sociopolitical issues.27

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The radical deterministic doctrine of God, which is the belief that the divine takes a proactive role in human history, influenced Adventist attitudes on social matters. Radical determinism comes from the fundamentalist tradition of applying literal interpretations to Scripture. Consequently, radical determinists take as fact biblical stories of God intervening in human affairs. In essence, this notion transfers the responsibility of challenging injustice on the terrestrial plane from human beings to God.28 The doctrine of the free-will image of man advocates the existence of a divine plan for humanity, as well as the belief that the condition of specific individuals or groups will not change unless God “moves,” or miraculously intervenes, to change their plight.29 In other words, God is aware of the choices and actions of human beings, but he will not overrule these expressions of free will unless they conflict with his plans. This concept, also known as occasionalism, originated with the philosopher Arnold Geulincx (1624–1669). Geulincx argued that the “Divine Mind” exercises complete control over the material world. He explained this in his billiards analogy. According to Geulincx, after a cue strikes a ball and it makes contact with another ball, it is not the laws of physics but God who causes the second ball to move.30 Likewise, Adventists who accept occasionalism believe that only God possesses the power to solve social problems. This, in combination with Adventism’s otherworldly fixation, explains the disregard for earthly matters, particularly those of a sociopolitical character like the civil rights movement.31 In his critique of Geulincx’s philosophy, Antoine Arnauld (1612–1694) presented the paradox of occasionalism. He pointed out that if God predetermines all actions in human society, as implied in the metaphysics of occasionalism, freedom ceases to exist. Furthermore, all occurrences, even evil ones, become a necessary manifestation of God’s will.32 The theologian and philosopher Søren Kierkegaard (1813–1855) rejected the deterministic quality of occasionalism, and made freedom the functional basis of his philosophical discourse.33 Although his works contributed to the development of existentialism, Kierkegaard’s philosophy of the ethical sphere lends itself to the Social Gospel, with its emphasis that Christians have a responsibility to alleviate the suffering of society’s poor and oppressed. Kierkegaard advocated a universal ethic of self-perfection based on a commitment to God and humanity.34 This philosophy emerged from his dissatisfaction with modern Christianity, which he characterized as listless and complacent. In contrast, Kierkegaard viewed primitive Christianity, which Jesus and his early disciples taught, as

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a spiritual revolution that challenged the sociopolitical status quo.35 Subsequently, he set out to develop a philosophy consistent with early Christian thought. Kierkegaardian ethics emphasized the moral obligation of Christians to resist evil. Accordingly, a person’s actions reflect the sincerity of their beliefs and moral values. Furthermore, Kierkegaard maintained that individuals need to understand that, based on their chosen values, they create the world in which they live. Once people accept this responsibility, present considerations become the basis for their decisions—not future expectations, or past events.36 Consequently, Kierkegaard’s philosophy requires Christians to address present concerns and live in a manner consistent with their professed morality. Another contribution to the Social Gospel came from the theologian Albrecht Ritschl (1822–1889), who redefined the Kingdom of God in strict ethical terms. To Ritschl, the kingdom refers to all those who extend the virtues of love and compassion, while tending to the needs of humanity— regardless of ethnicity, class, or gender. He also maintained that the Kingdom of God is a present reality, not an otherworldly abstraction. This definition bears the imprint of the philosopher Immanuel Kant (1724–1804) who, like Ritschl, believed that the real or present world is also a part of the Kingdom of God.37 Furthermore, Kant reasoned that religious activity, devoid of a practical aim, is a waste of time.38 In the United States, the Social Gospel movement developed as a response to the poverty, crime, and political corruption associated with the Gilded Age. Religionists, inspired through the optimism of the Progressive Era and modern science, set out to solve society’s problems. Advocates of the Social Gospel taught that the establishment of the Kingdom of God depended on Christians alleviating the suffering of society’s poor and oppressed.39 Scholars attribute the growth and popularity of this belief to the theologian Walter Rauschenbusch (1861–1918).40 As pastor of a Baptist church in one of New York City’s impoverished neighborhoods, he realized the importance of social reform within the overall mission of Christianity.41 Ultimately, Rauschenbusch came to the conclusion that sin contains a social component.42 Adherents of the Social Gospel viewed individuals as products of society, that social institutions play a crucial role in molding people.43 Thus, they believed corrupt institutions produce debased persons. To deal effectively with the sin problem, Social Gospel advocates proposed that the work of reform begin with institutions—not individuals. For them, Christianity involved alleviating the pain of the poor and oppressed, as well as transforming the institutions that produce oppression and poverty.44

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Rauschenbusch’s writings had a profound impact on Martin Luther King Jr. (1929–1968), who credited them, along with Gandhi, for providing the theological foundation for his own social activism.45 Prior to the Montgomery bus boycott, King observed a difference in the attitude of African American preachers toward sociopolitical issues. Black Christian ministers who professed belief in the Social Gospel generally took part in civil rights activities; those who opposed Social Christianity (that is, the Social Gospel) seemed indifferent to sociopolitical issues.46 This observation demonstrates the impact of theology on political involvement. Research shows that Christian fundamentalists identify Social Christianity with liberalism, which is defined as openness to new ideas like nonliteral interpretations of Scripture and biblical higher criticism.47 Consequently, Christian fundamentalists reject liberalism. Therefore, most Seventh-day Adventists, being fundamentalists, rejected the Social Gospel. Francis David Nichol’s statement castigating the Social Gospel component of the civil rights movement exemplifies this: Sometimes they [clerics supporting the civil rights movement] have made wide-sweeping pronouncements for release to the public press. In fact, such pronouncements and acts have been a part of the present over-all concept of many churchmen that one of the chief functions of the church is to reform the social order. This is known as the social gospel, and has increasingly marked our day, as personal evangelism to save men’s souls has departed. Against the emphasis on the social gospel we, in common with all conservative religious groups, have consistently raised our voices, and rightly so.48 Nichol’s use of the pronoun we implies that he speaks in a capacity of authority for all Seventh-day Adventists, affirming that the denomination rejects “what is known as the social gospel.” In relation to this statement, the research of historian David Chappell shows that white ministers opposed to integration criticized the civil rights movement for being aligned with the Social Gospel.49 Consequently, this creates the possibility that there was an underlying racial component involved in Nichol’s denunciation of the Social Gospel in relation to the civil rights movement. Nichol goes on to present evangelism as an alternative to Social Christianity. In response to a question from a reader of the Review and Herald concerning the conspicuous absence of Seventh-day Adventist ministers in civil right demonstrations, Nichol responds with a tinge of sarcasm and

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enunciates the denomination’s position that the primary role of the church is evangelism. We received a letter some time ago from a fervent reader who asked us where all the Adventist ministers were when a certain Freedom March was held—a march that included a number of clergy. We replied that we could not say just where all our ministers were at the time, but we did know that many of them were in the hard and dangerous places of the earth preaching the gospel to primitive, depressed peoples, seeking thus to lift them to higher levels. Other thousands of our ministers in the homeland were busy visiting the sick and afflicted and preaching the glad message of the soon coming of Christ. Preaching the “everlasting gospel” is our great assignment from Heaven.50 Obviously, the reader who posed the question did not expect Nichol and the staff of the Review and Herald to give a detailed accounting of the precise location of every minister affiliated with the Seventh-day Adventist Church, but rather wanted to know why the Seventh-day Adventist Church, as a professed Christian organization, were not showing their support for a movement aimed at ending racial discrimination and injustice. According to Adventist scholars Roger Dudley and Edwin Hernández, the prioritizing of evangelism over practical social concerns comes from Plato’s dualistic understanding of the body and the soul. In his teaching, Plato (427–347 B.C.E.) assigned the soul preeminent value over the physical body, because he believed the soul to be immortal. Likewise, he esteemed the otherworldly over the earthly.51 This aspect of Platonic thought is evident in mainstream Christian thought. However, this belief runs contrary to the understanding of the relationship of body and soul as articulated in the doctrine of the unconscious state of the dead, also known as “soul sleep.”52 Nevertheless, some Adventists like other conservative Christians, tout evangelism as a reason for excusing themselves from the sociopolitical arena.53 Ecumenism, a concept generally held in disdain among conservative Adventists, certainly made its presence felt in the civil rights movement. The idea of ecumenism originated in the mind of Hugo Grotius (1583–1645). Following the Protestant Reformation, Grotius taught that it was possible for Christians of all persuasions to unite on the basis of commonly held beliefs and traditions.54 During the civil rights movement, various denominations and religious groups participated in efforts to achieve social justice for African Americans. Martin Luther King Jr. commented on the ecumenical spirit

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he observed during the historic march from Selma to Montgomery: “When we marched from Selma to Montgomery, Alabama, I remember that we had one of the most magnificent expressions of the ecumenical movement that I’ve ever seen. Protestants, Catholics, and Jews joined together in a beautiful way to articulate the injustices and the indignities that Negroes were facing in the state of Alabama and all over the South on the question of the right to vote.”55 For King, this expression of Judeo-Christian solidarity brought a renewed relevance to the gospel message—that is, working to improve humanity through the eradication of injustice. Inevitably, ecumenism became a major plank in King’s sociopolitical platform.56 While visiting the Vatican in 1964, he appealed to the papacy to use its political and spiritual influence to promote the cause of civil and human rights in the United States. In response, Pope Paul VI (1897–1978), pledged his assistance.57 King’s hope of obtaining Catholic support came from the ecumenical and sociopolitical tone of the Second Vatican Council, which Pope Paul VI’s predecessor Pope John XXIII (1881–1963) convened in 1962.58 Ecumenism became a potent force in the Christian world, particularly in the civil rights era, but the Seventh-day Adventist Church, as a corporate entity, refused to participate. The denomination’s reluctance to involve itself in the ecumenical movement of the 1960s came from the latter’s emphasis on sociopolitical reform. In adherence to sectarian ecclesiology, Adventists viewed the political objectives of ecumenism as a violation of church-state separation. Consequently, they perceived the relationship between ecumenism and the civil rights movement as inappropriate. Mohandas K. Gandhi (1869–1948), Indian nationalist and spiritual leader who used a system of nonviolent disobedience to lead India to independence in 1947, influenced Martin Luther King Jr. and the civil rights movement. Gandhi’s experimental theology, presented in his autobiography The Story of My Experiments with Truth, sought to obtain absolute truth and self-purification through adherence to the principles of ahimsa (nonviolence) and satyagraha (truth and firmness).59 Within this system, he emphasized love and nonviolence as a means of obtaining social reform.60 For example, when Gandhi lived in Johannesburg, South Africa, he received reliable reports that two white law enforcement officers were frequently abusing Asian residents (East Indians, Chinese, and others) of the Transvaal. Gandhi reported the abuses to the Commissioner of Police, who issued arrest warrants for the two individuals in question. They went to trial and subsequently an all-white jury acquitted them. Although the outcome disappointed Gandhi, he did not allow personal

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resentment to develop against the two men. Subsequently, the police department fired the two officers. For a while, the two individuals were out of work, but eventually they found a promising job prospect with the municipality of Johannesburg. However, in order to get it, they needed Gandhi’s recommendation; he granted it, and the men obtained the jobs. From that time forward, Gandhi and the two former officers developed a mutual respect for one another. According to Gandhi, this experience taught him the meaning of ahimsa, which is an essential part of satyagraha. He also learned a basic truth: positive change comes about through love and forgiveness, not retaliation.61 This aspect of Gandhi’s theology impressed King.62 Through the advocacy of Martin Luther King Jr., Bayard Rustin, James Lawson, and others, Gandhi’s teachings contributed to the development of strategies and tactics employed in the civil rights movement.63 As Christian fundamentalists, it is possible that many Seventh-day Adventists did not support the movement because of its association with Gandhian thought, which drew heavily on Eastern religions like Hinduism and Buddhism.64 However, those Adventists who participated in the civil rights movement, prior to their activism, possessed an erudite knowledge and in-depth familiarity with Gandhi’s teachings.65 The philosophy of individualism—a belief in self-reliance and independence, stressing the primacy of the individual over collective society— influenced Adventist views on sociopolitical issues. Key contributions to the development of individualistic thought came from the following. The philosopher and Roman Catholic priest Marsilio Ficino (1433–1499) sought to merge Platonic philosophy with religious mysticism. He argued that the center of the universe resides in each human soul, which contains everything. Consequently, Ficino proposed that spiritual meditation possesses the power to unite an individual’s soul with God.66 Likewise, the physician and philosopher Paracelsus von Hohenheim (1493–1541) believed that humans possess the ability to understand the world, because each soul is a reflection of the universe. Therefore, he concluded that introspection is the source of all true knowledge.67 The Protestant Reformation, with its emphasis on personal responsibility, also contributed to the growth of individualism.68 George Fox (1624–1691), founder of the Society of Friends, commonly called the Quakers, taught that an individual’s personal relationship with Christ takes precedence over religious dogma and church membership.69 The philosopher Baruch de Spinoza (1632–1677) argued that the individual mind, through specialized training, possesses the ability to become like God.70 Finally, the theologian William Law (1686–1761) taught that a person finds God within the soul, after rejecting the outside world and its values.71

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Adventists embrace aspects of individualism for several reasons. First, the denomination’s adherence to apocalyptic historical eschatology necessitates an emphasis on individual preparation for Christ’s return. Second, the denomination maintains that evangelism—the saving of individual souls through the dissemination of the Gospel—constitutes the primary mission of the church. Third, as Christian fundamentalists, Adventists tend to oppose the Social Gospel. In contrast to the teachings of Social Christianity, some Adventists are of the opinion that individuals create society; therefore, the transformation of society lies in personal conversion.72 Consequently, the only way to bring about positive and lasting change is to convert every individual within society. Raymond Cottrell, editor of the Review and Herald, reiterates this position: “Protestants have generally considered that the role of the church in the world is to impress its members, individually, with the great fundamental principles of right and justice, and to leave them to apply these principles in the conduct of public affairs. . . . It is the legitimate work of the gospel to transform individual men and women, and through them to influence society as a whole. Church members may often, and properly, do as individuals that which it would be highly improper for the church to do in its corporate capacity.”73 The problem with the individualist approach is that it conflicts with Adventism’s doctrine of the free-will image of man, which maintains that only God can influence or change society. Fourth, Adventists inherited the Protestant Reformation’s emphasis on personal responsibility— expressed in the idea that individuals possess the power to appeal to God directly, without an intercessor.74 Finally, the Seventh-day Adventist Church, like other denominations formed in the United States, adopted the American values of self-reliance and independence.75 The denomination’s advocacy of individualism in relation to African American education appears in articles discussing the creation of the Oakwood Industrial School, currently Oakwood University, and its curriculum. In 1896, George Butler, the former president of the General Conference of Seventh-day Adventists, submitted an essay for publication in the Advent Review and Sabbath Herald in which he suggested that the denomination model its program for black education on Booker T. Washington’s (1856– 1915) individualistic philosophy of self-help.76 The following month, the journal published one of Washington’s articles.77 Two years later, James Edson White’s journal the Gospel Herald ran a three-part series that articulated Washington’s philosophy on African American education.78 The problem with Washington’s individualism lay in its failure to account for the impact of modern industry and mass production.79 Consequently, his method of self-

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help through vocational training proved to be outmoded.80 In all fairness, Seventh-day Adventists were not the only ones to embrace the individualistic philosophy of self-help. During the period of Washington’s ascendancy and domination over African American affairs from 1895 to 1915, several religious groups and secular organizations concerned with black education ascribed to his philosophy, which was in vogue at that time. Even though W. E. B. Du Bois (1868–1963) criticized American individualism, it retained a popular following among blacks and whites.81 Since American individualism influenced Adventist views on sociopolitical issues, an examination of Booker T. Washington’s philosophy and W. E. B. Du Bois’s criticism thereof is necessary. Washington was first and foremost a pragmatist. As a native Southerner, he was cognizant of the social and political idiosyncrasies within the Southern mindset82—that is, white supremacy and conservatism. Through observation and the cultivation of friendships with white Northern industrialists, Washington understood the spirit of commercialism and economic prosperity that possessed the Northern psyche of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries.83 He found a comfortable niche between the two and exploited it to his own advantage and that of the Tuskegee Institute (currently a university), which he established in 1881. On September 18, 1895, Booker T. Washington’s speech to the Atlanta Cotton States and International Exposition catapulted him to national prominence. Prior to delivering the historic address, Washington’s testimony before Congress helped secure the federal government’s financial assistance that made the trade fair possible.84 Subsequently, the exposition’s board of directors selected Washington, perhaps out of gratitude, as the lone African American speaker for the trade fair’s opening day festivities.85 This address, commonly referred to as the “Atlanta Compromise,” outlined his program for African American development and racial reconciliation. The speech was pro-business, in keeping with the fact that it was delivered in a commercial atmosphere celebrating American capitalism. The main criticism of the Atlanta Compromise is that Washington publicly abandoned the struggle for civil rights and social equality. However, one must bear in mind that Washington gave the address in the 1890s, a period in which race relations deteriorated and white-on-black violence increased. Moreover, it is important to remember that the Compromise of 1877 preceded the Atlanta Compromise. Therefore, it was in actuality the Republican party that gave up the struggle to protect the rights of black Southerners, leaving them at the mercies of their former oppressors.86 Consequently, Washington

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knew and understood that social equality was at present a taboo issue, and the white Southern establishment (that is, the Southern Democratic party) would not condone any rhetoric or political movement urging the social equality of whites and blacks. After recognizing the various dignitaries in attendance, Washington began his address with a confounding interpretation of the history of Southern Reconstruction. Speaking of emancipated blacks in general and inclusive terms, he said: “Ignorant and inexperienced, it is not strange that in the first years of our new life we began at the top instead of at the bottom; that a seat in Congress or the state legislature was more sought than real estate or industrial skill; that the political convention or stump speaking had more attractions than starting a dairy farm or truck garden.”87 This statement played to the mindset of white supremacists, who blamed black participation in the political process for the corruption associated with Southern governments during Reconstruction.88 It also appealed to their sentiment that blacks belonged on the bottom of the sociopolitical hierarchy, not on the top. Washington went on to relate an allegory about a ship lost at sea, and the crew’s subsequent search for fresh water to quench their thirst. Telling the story, he said: A ship lost at sea for many days suddenly sighted a friendly vessel. From the mast of the unfortunate vessel was seen a signal, “Water, water, we die of thirst!” The answer from the friendly vessel at once came back, “Cast down your bucket where you are.” A second time the signal, “Water, water, send us water!” ran up from the distressed vessel, and was answered, “Cast down your bucket where you are.” And a third and fourth signal for the water was answered, “Cast down your bucket where you are.” The captain of the distressed vessel, at last heeding the injunction, cast down his bucket, and it came up full of fresh sparkling water from the mouth of the Amazon River.89 In explaining the allegory, Washington disclosed components of his philosophy aimed at racial reconciliation and economic prosperity: “To those of my race who depend on bettering their condition in a foreign land or who underestimate the importance of cultivating friendly relations with the Southern white man, who is your next-door neighbour, I would say: ‘Cast down your bucket where you are.’”90 Here he repudiates the Great Migration, begun in 1879, in which thousands of African Americans, fed up with the difficulties of agricultural life, left the South seeking greater opportunities in the North and

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West, areas Washington calls “foreign land.”91 In this portion of his address he moves to secure the South’s traditional labor force, while promoting friendly relations between the races—seeking thereby to create an ideal atmosphere in the South favorable to the investments of white Northern industrialists.92 Applying the allegory to the situation of African Americans, Washington next turned his attention to occupational pursuits and entry into the marketplace: “Cast it down in agriculture, mechanics, in commerce, in domestic service, and in the professions. . . . when it comes to business, pure and simple, it is in the South that the Negro is given a man’s chance in the commercial world . . . . the masses of us are to live by the productions of our hands, and finally to keep in mind that we prosper in proportion as we learn to dignify and glorify common labour. . . . It is at the bottom of life we must begin, and not at the top.”93 Reiterating his previous point that the South is the place for blacks to seek economic prosperity, Washington argues that commercial success depends on the willingness of blacks to place themselves on the bottom rung of the socioeconomic ladder, and from there gradually climb up. He also declares that the ascent of blacks toward economic prosperity is contingent on their mastery of vocational skills, a philosophy put into practice at the Tuskegee Institute. The institution he founded would benefit from the general acceptance, among African Americans, of this educational philosophy. This call for black abasement naturally pleased the ears of white supremacists. Nevertheless, it is possible that Washington sought to allay white fear of black competition, and thereby decrease the level of animosity and violence toward African Americans. Employing a romanticized view of antebellum slavery favorable to the Southern establishment, Washington reminds his white listeners of the reliability of the black work force, as opposed to the unknown quality of immigrant labor. Addressing the Redeemers (that is, the Southern business class), he said: To those of the white race who look to the incoming of those of foreign birth and strange tongue and habits for the prosperity of the South, were I permitted I would repeat what I say to my own race, ‘Cast down your bucket where you are.’ Cast it down among the eight millions of Negroes whose habits you know, whose fidelity and love you have tested in days when to have proved treacherous meant the ruin of your firesides. Cast down your bucket among these people who have, without strikes and labour wars, tilled your fields, cleared your forests,

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builded your railroads and cities, and brought forth treasures from the bowels of the earth . . . As we have proved our loyalty to you in the past, in nursing your children, watching by the sick-bed of your mothers and fathers, and often following them with tear-dimmed eyes to their graves, so in the future, in our humble way, we shall stand by you with a devotion that no foreigner can approach, ready to lay down our lives, if need be, in defense of yours, interlacing our industrial, commercial, civil, and religious life with yours in a way that shall make the interests of both races one.94 Here Washington assured the business community that blacks were a reliable labor force suited to the demands of the Gilded Age. In their ongoing effort to lower expenditures and increase profits, the lure of cheap labor attracted Northern investors and business interests to the South.95 Washington undoubtedly sensed this trend and urged whites to employ African Americans, who hopefully would become the beneficiaries of the South’s economic order. In conceding the struggle for social equality, which was at present a dead issue, Washington lifted his hand with fingers spread far apart and said: “In all things that are purely social we can be as separate as the fingers,” then forming a clenched fist he continued, “yet one as the hand in all things essential to mutual progress.”96 Next, he appealed to Southerners to support his program of black education and racial reconciliation based on accommodation. Again, to reassure the Redeemers and white Northern investors, Washington rejected the idea of black political agitation and distanced himself from the notion of social equality. He said: “The wisest among my race understand that the agitation of questions of social equality is the extremest folly, and that progress in the enjoyment of all the privileges that will come to us must be the result of severe and constant struggle rather than of artificial forcing. No race that has anything to contribute to the markets of the world is long in any degree ostracized.”97 Thus Washington—in exchange for friendship and a chance at economic prosperity—conceded an issue that the Southern Democratic establishment was, at present, unwilling to consider. In contending that progress results from “severe and constant struggle,” he implied that the burden for success or failure depended on the individual effort of each black person (that is, self-determination). Therefore, if a black individual failed to achieve socioeconomic success it was because of his own lack of effort. It was Washington’s hope that success in the marketplace, through selfdetermination, would translate into future sociopolitical gains for African

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Americans. His talk of African Americans entering the “markets of the world” and undergoing “severe and constant struggle” is strikingly familiar to Herbert Spencer’s free marketplace of the world, where groups of people find themselves in a virtual life-and-death competition for economic resources. The ultimate goal is to exhibit their fitness in accumulating wealth. Those who are successful, or fit, will pass on their traits to the next generation, whereas those who are inferior, or unfit, will fade into extinction. Washington’s emphasis on wealth accumulation, at the expense of social and political concerns, suggests that he too subscribed to the ideology of social Darwinism. After all, he cultivated friendships with white industrialists and business leaders who undoubtedly supported laissez-faire economics, including Andrew Carnegie, the steel magnate, and William H. Baldwin Jr., general manager of the Southern Railroad. Booker T. Washington’s critics viewed his polices, which emphasized the accumulation of wealth at the expense of political rights and privileges, as an attack on black manhood (that is, the dignity of the African American people in general). According to Du Bois, “Mr. Washington’s counsels of submission overlooked certain elements of true manhood.”98 Responding to Washington’s apparent willingness to abandon the struggle for civil rights and racial equality in exchange for a chimera of economic success, Du Bois wrote: “In the history of nearly all races and peoples the doctrine preached at such crisis has been that manly self-respect is worth more than lands and houses, and that a people who voluntarily surrender such respect, or cease striving for it, are not worth civilizing.”99 Referring to the absence of political agitation in Washington’s program, he wrote: “Negroes must insist continually, in season and out of season, that voting is necessary to modern manhood.”100 For Du Bois and others of like mind, surrendering one’s political rights and privileges as Washington articulated in the Atlanta Compromise was tantamount to sociopolitical castration. Du Bois likened Washington’s program, fostering the reconciliation of North and South at the expense of black civil liberties, to someone aiding and abetting a crime. Consequently, he called on black men (that is, black people) to resist this assault on their manhood (dignity). Du Bois wrote: “It is wrong to encourage a man or a people in evil-doing; it is wrong to aid and abet a national crime simply because it is unpopular not to do so. . . . [I]f that reconciliation is to be marked by the industrial slavery and civil death of those same black men, with permanent legislation in a position of inferiority, then those black men, if they are really men, are called upon by every consideration of patriotism and loyalty to oppose such a course by all

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civilized methods, even though such opposition involves disagreement with Mr. Booker T. Washington.”101 To Du Bois and other critics, Washington’s espousal of unfettered capitalism compounded with the resultant emasculating effect of surrendering black sociopolitical rights would certainly place African Americans on the bottom, as called for in the Atlanta Compromise, and whites on top. Taking all of this into consideration, the critics completely understood the reason whites, in the immediate aftermath of Washington’s speech in Atlanta, rushed to anoint him as America’s black leader. Du Bois also took exception to Washington’s educational program. He believed that Washington’s program of vocational training robbed black youth of aspiration and the opportunity to obtain positions of leadership. On this issue, Du Boise wrote: “But so far as Mr. Washington apologizes for injustice . . . and opposes the higher training and ambition of our brighter minds, so far as he, the South, or the Nation, does this, we must unceasingly and firmly oppose them.”102 In contrast to Washington, Du Bois advocated a liberal arts education for black youth of ability, which he called “The Talented Tenth.” Du Bois wished to see blacks entering the professions and attaining positions of leadership in the African American community. These persons would also contribute greatly to the ongoing development of African American culture. However, in order for this to take place, Du Bois contended that black youth needed access to a broad-based education, not a narrow one limited to the vocations.103 In keeping with its conservative tradition based on rugged American individualism, Seventh-day Adventists maintained that the ultimate responsibility for success or failure remains with the individual.104 This outlook contributed to the belief that everyone possesses the ability to improve their plight through self-determination. When applied to the problem of racism, this notion blames the victim for their condition.105 Consequently, individualism desensitized some Adventists to racial injustice.106 Church interest invariably dominated the manner in which some Adventists approached politics.107 As a general rule, the denomination involved itself in political activity only to advance its own interests.108 In keeping with this, the Seventh-day Adventist Church supported religious liberty to maintain the denomination’s viability. For example, in 1888 the denomination successfully opposed U.S. Senator Henry William Blair’s bill to establish Sunday as the national day for religious observance.109 Likewise, it championed the defeat of blue laws (state statutes restricting commercial activity and labor on Sundays), which posed problems for the Adventist community. Church interest is also seen in the denomination’s support for the temperance movement

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and Prohibition. Adventists supported efforts to suppress liquor consumption because they viewed alcohol’s mind-altering effects as a hindrance to successful evangelism.110 Since the denomination only participated in causes that served its interests, it is possible that Adventism did not perceive social injustice as a threat to its well-being. In advocating nonparticipation or behind-the-scenes involvement in matters of public interest, the Seventh-day Adventist Church took a pragmatic approach to advancing its interests. Francis David Nichol’s statement helps substantiate this conclusion. Using the inclusive “we” and therefore speaking on behalf of the Seventh-day Adventist denomination, Nichol wrote: “We have ever felt that we can best reveal true Christianity, and thus best advance the Advent cause, by taking the more quiet and perhaps indirect approach to problems that so often arouse human passions.”111 In refusing to take a public stand on sociopolitical issues, some Adventists hoped to broaden the denomination’s appeal among social conservatives.112 Reuben Figuhr, president of the General Conference from 1954 to 1966, insinuated this in his column titled “A Letter from Our President.” Addressing the question of racial equality, Figuhr wrote: “Many questions agitate our tense world today. Among them is the race question. . . . Frequently letters come asking, what is the position of the Seventh-day Adventist Church in this matter[?] Some urge that an extreme position be taken, since it is felt by not a few that the question is a moral one. Others hold and urge an opposite view. From different areas come different urgings. It is clear that no statement satisfactory to all could ever be framed. The subject is too charged with emotionalism and age-old prejudice to make this possible.”113 Notice that Figuhr, the president of the General Conference, said the Seventh-day Adventist Church could not take a side on the issue of racial equality because the denomination, or to be more precise its leaders, could not articulate a statement “satisfactory to all.” In assuming a neutral stance on social justice, the Seventh-day Adventist Church revealed an inconsistency in its application of moral principles.114 Furthermore, the denomination’s pragmatic approach placed it in a reactive position to world events rather than on the cutting edge.115 This development became apparent as the denomination responded to advances in race relations made through the efforts of the civil rights movement. At the 1965 Spring Meeting of the General Conference Committee, church officials issued a recommendation that the denomination desegregate its facilities and institutions. Undoubtedly this action was a response to federal court rulings and legislative acts that struck down previous policies

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of racial segregation. The memorandum issued from the General Conference Committee of Seventh-day Adventists reads: We recommend, that the following principles and practices be adopted and carried out in our churches and institutions: 1. Membership and office in all churches and on all levels must be available to anyone who qualifies, without regard to race. 2. In our educational institutions there should be no racial bias in the employment of teachers or other personnel nor in the admission of students. 3. Hospitals and rest homes should make no racial distinction in admitting patients or in making their facilities available to physicians, interns, residents, nurses, and administrators who meet the professional standards of the institution. It is further recommended that these recommendations be given very serious consideration and that every effort be put forth to implement them as rapidly as is consistently possible.116 These recommendations followed two landmark events: the 1954 Brown v. Board of Education decision outlawing segregated public schools, and the Civil Rights Act of 1964 desegregating public facilities, which President Lyndon B. Johnson (1908–1973) signed into law. American Baptists, Southern Baptists, the Church of Christ, Catholics, Lutherans, Methodists, Unitarians, Presbyterians, and the Disciples of Christ began desegregating their institutions and facilities well in advance of the Seventh-day Adventist Church.117 Finally, the recommendations proposed at the 1965 spring meeting of the General Conference are just that—recommendations, not statements of organizational policy. Francis David Nichol’s commentary on the slow pace of social reform within the denomination demonstrates the impact of pragmatism on Adventist thought. [W]e have been striving quietly and continuously within our own ranks to work toward unity of the spirit in the bond of peace, for the Advent Movement includes many races and people. . . . Here at headquarters our representative committee on Human Relations has been busy for quite some time seeking to solve problems of race relations in terms of the gospel. The record clearly shows progress over the years, even though some may have sincerely felt that the progress has not been fast enough. But no one has ever yet found a better protection against explosion, a surer way to maintain unity, than to

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move measuredly in dealing with difficult matters, where sincere men may hold widely divergent views. . . . But the rate of speed is not so important as the direction in which one travels. . . . As has been true in earlier times, when long-held, divergent, viewpoints have created problems and tensions, even so today the way out of the problem has been by Christian patience and forbearance, and a sincere, sympathetic endeavor to understand differing viewpoints. A continued display of these rare Christian graces is vital to the full activation of this resolution, which, we might add, was especially prepared for North America.118 This statement clearly shows the impact of pragmatism on Adventist thought in the mid-twentieth century and how it slowed the denomination’s response to a social issue of great magnitude. In the first sentence of the statement Nichol mentions that the Advent movement consists of “many races and peoples.” At first glance, this disclosure seems to be superfluous and exceedingly unnecessary; however, it implies that, because the Adventist Church is multiethnic, the leadership must be careful not to offend the cultivated sensitivities of its members. Next, Nichol explains that the Human Relations Committee was diligently working to find a solution to the problem of race relations “in terms of the gospel.” This curious statement raises questions. Does the gospel contained within the New Testament condone injustice? Does it approve of racism and discrimination? Why was it taking the Human Relations Committee such a long time to find the answer to these questions “in terms of the gospel”? Surely the persons comprising this committee were adept biblical scholars of no ordinary degree; are we to believe that they were not cognizant of what the Bible teaches concerning relations among various peoples? The pragmatism evident when Nichol talks about moving “measuredly in dealing with difficult matters, where men may hold widely divergent views,” poses other questions. Why must the church move “measuredly” in situations where persons hold different views on an issue in question? When problems arise in the church, what is the final arbiter: the Bible, or the will of its parishioners? Seventh-day Adventists and other Christian fundamentalists believe that the Bible is the word of God and holds the answers to all of society’s problems, including those of the church. Once the biblical solution is apparent, it is the obligation of the parishioners to accept it and take steps for its immediate implementation in the church. Apparently, Nichol and the Adventist leadership abandoned this notion in an attempt to gratify the will

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of a particular segment of the denomination’s membership. In essence, the slow pace in race reform, which Nichol equates with “Christian patience and forbearance,” was a pragmatic strategy to appease and retain those members within the church who opposed integration. At the end of Nichol’s column he adds that the resolution for the desegregation of church facilities “was especially prepared for North America.” Why did Nichol include this qualification at the end of his commentary? Since his editorial piece dealt with General Conference Committee recommendations to desegregate church facilities, it is possible that Nichol and the Adventist world leadership, in pragmatic fashion, wanted to send a message to its affiliates in other parts of the globe that the denomination’s action undertaken in North America did not apply to them. In this way, they would not risk offending Adventists that condoned or supported racist regimes such as the one in South Africa and its policy of apartheid. Another disturbing development in mid-twentieth-century Adventism was the use of Noah’s legendary “curse of Ham” (also known as the Noahian curse, or Noah’s curse of Canaan) to justify discriminatory practices within the denomination. The passage recording the curse and the incident that precipitated it are found in Genesis 9:20–27: And Noah began to be an husbandman, and he planted a vineyard: And he drank of the wine and was drunken; and he was uncovered within his tent. And Ham, the father of Canaan, saw the nakedness of his father, and told his two brethren without. And Shem and Japheth took a garment, and laid it upon both their shoulders, and went backward, and covered the nakedness of their father; and their faces were backward, and they saw not their father’s nakedness. And Noah awoke from his wine, and knew what his younger son had done unto him. And he said, Cursed be Canaan; a servant of servants shall he be unto his brethren. And he said, Blessed be the Lord God of Shem; and Canaan shall be his servant. God shall enlarge Japheth and he shall dwell in the tents of Shem; and Canaan shall be his servant. As is evident in the passage, Noah was the father of Ham, Shem, and Japheth. Although Ham was the one who saw his father’s nakedness, Noah cursed Canaan, Ham’s son. All persons involved were blood relatives from the same immediate family; an attempt to categorize them into different races or ethnic groups is fraught with speculation. Nevertheless, in the early 1960s the Laymen’s Leadership Conference, an organization formed to bring an end to

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racial discrimination in the Seventh-day Adventist Church, received numerous reports, verbal and written, from black Adventists of instances in which white denominational leaders and ministers asserted that blacks, being the descendants of Canaan, were also cursed.119 For this reason, blacks were not allowed to hold key positions of significance and authority within the denominational hierarchy. Moreover, on account of “the curse,” blacks could not work in or enter certain Adventist facilities.120 In fairness, white Adventists were not the only ones to use Noah’s curse as a justification for racial discrimination. The historian David L. Chappell points out that a few Southern clergymen on the fringes of the pro-segregation movement inflated the “curse on Ham” to bolster their claim that “God created and intended to maintain racial distinctions.”121 However, most ministers, including some favoring segregation, admitted that there is no biblical evidence suggesting that Noah’s curse resulted in a change in Ham or Canaan’s complexion. They condemned the use of the Bible as a means to prove that God is color-conscious and asserted that any attempt to do so displayed “a staggering ignorance of God and His Word.”122 The history of the use of Noah’s curse as an indictment of persons of African descent is interesting. According to the distinguished scholar Thomas F. Gossett, the idea of blacks being the descendants of Ham, or Canaan, arose sometime between the second and sixth centuries C.E. It was during this period that the oral traditions of Jewish rabbis and scholars were collected and codified in the Babylonian Talmud. Gossett maintains that this extrabiblical source cites that Ham’s descendants, on account of the curse, are black.123 Moreover, it gives contradictory reasons for the curse. According to one legend, the curse of blackness came about because Ham defied a divine injunction to abstain from sexual relations aboard Noah’s Ark. Another relates the story that Ham resented his father’s desire to have another son. To prevent the conception and birth of another rival, he castrated Noah. As a consequence, Ham received the curse.124 For centuries, learned authorities in the western world refuted the racial implications of Noah’s curse.125 Even in the early period of the transatlantic slave trade, few treaties or pamphlets alluded to Noah’s curse as a justification for the enslavement of Africans. However, once slavery became an institution in the United States, some proslavery polemicists, who on religious principles rejected scientific racism, employed the Hamitic legend as a divine sanction for black slavery.126 Scholarly research affirms that churches and parochial schools promote exclusivity and disengagement from secular society.127 However, religious groups, in the hope of attracting new members, need to create ties with

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the outside world.128 Thus, it is possible that the interests of the surrounding community can in time become intertwined with those of the church.129 Accordingly, black Adventists forged bonds with the African American community.130 As a result, they became empathetic to the plight of other blacks. 131 Ironically, this empathy—in most cases—did not translate into active support for the civil rights movement. The lack of activism on the part of some black Adventists came from their theological views.132 This particular situation correlates well with the analysis of W. E. B. Du Bois. Recognizing the potential of American society to introduce competing claims for the loyalty of African Americans, Du Bois warned against the development of double consciousness. He defined this condition as a state of ambivalence within African Americans concerning their racial identity as blacks and their nationality as United States citizens.133 Similarly, Du Bois criticized religious indoctrination because he believed divided loyalties posed a threat to the full development of a unique and worthy black culture.134 Du Bois’s stance coincided with a larger movement within the African American community. During the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, a significant number of black intelligentsia rejected the conservative teachings of the church and its otherworldly fixation.135 Instead they focused their attention on addressing the immediate social, economic, and political problems within the African American community.136 Although the majority of Seventh-day Adventist participants in the civil rights movement did not denounce and reject their religious views, they did possess a strong attachment to the black community and church. This solidarity seemed to supercede any and all theological and ideological factors that took root in Adventism and that discouraged sociopolitical activity. The solidarity of black Adventists for the sociopolitical cause(s) of African Americans will be referred to in this study as community awareness, defined as the cumulative collection of shared experiences within a group, which prompts members of the group to come to the defense of their group when under attack from outside forces. Furthermore, black Adventist activists shared liberationist interpretations of the Bible (as long as these were firmly established on biblical principles) with other black religious leaders of the civil rights movement. An example of a biblical passage that is often interpreted in liberationist terms is Luke 4:18. Here, Jesus quotes directly from Isaiah 61:1–2. Consequently, the liberationist tradition has both an Old Testament and New Testament legacy. Isaiah 61:1–2 reads: “The Spirit of the Lord God is upon me; because the Lord hath anointed me to preach good tidings unto the meek; he hath sent me to

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bind up the brokenhearted, to proclaim liberty to the captives, and the opening of the prison to them that are bound; To proclaim the acceptable year of the Lord, and the day of vengeance of our God; to comfort all that mourn.” In this passage: the meek, the brokenhearted, the captives, and those that mourn are all synonyms for the oppressed of society. Therefore, some individuals understand Luke 4:18 and Isaiah 61:1–2 as calls to liberate those who suffer under the burden of social, economic, or political oppression. African American Adventists found an intellectual and theological foundation for their activism in the Golden Rule, which Christ set forth, denouncing injustice. The Golden Rule is found in Matthew 7:12: “Therefore all things whatsoever ye would that men should do to you, do ye even so to them: for this is the law and the prophets.” Simply put, the Golden Rule is to do unto others as you would have them do unto you. The Second Great Commandment was another theological support for their activism. Speaking of this commandment, Matthew 22:39 reads: “And the second is like unto it, Thou shalt love they neighbour as thyself.” These two verses do not condone injustice or racial discrimination. To the contrary, they admonish persons to treat others with respect and civility. On this premise, black Adventists believed that the struggle for civil rights was based on sound biblical doctrine. The activists found more support on theological grounds, such as Christ’s prayer for unity among his followers in John 17:11: “And now I am no more in the world, but these are in the world, and I come to thee. Holy Father, keep through thine own name those whom thou hast given me, that they may be one, as we are.” Black Adventists pointed out that here Christ called for unity among his followers, not racial separateness. On this issue, activists also found support in the Apostle Paul’s letter to the Galatians, which emphasized unity and equality within the membership of Christ’s church. Paul, in Galatians 3:28, says: “There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither bond nor free, there is neither male nor female: for ye are all one in Christ Jesus.” Elsewhere, Paul reaffirms the doctrine of equality among all church members in stating that God shows no respect or favoritism among persons. Discussing the impartiality of God, in Romans 2:11 Paul declares: “For there is no respect of persons with God.” Furthermore, the New Testament epistle of James contends that to have respect or show favoritism toward an individual or group at the expense of another is sin. James 2:9 reads: “But if ye have respect to persons, ye commit sin, and are convinced of the law as transgressors.” A strong denunciation of people hating other human beings, which includes prejudice and racism, is found in 1 John 4:20: “If a man say, I love God, and hateth his brother, he is a liar: for he that loveth not his

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brother whom he hath seen, how can he love God whom he hath not seen?” Consequently, Adventist activists understood that the church should be on the forefront of moral issues. For them the civil rights movement was not a political question but a moral one. These scriptures buttressed the argument of Adventist activists that racial discrimination within the denomination and society at large was wrong and that biblical principles warranted their social activism. So, in addition to community awareness, black Adventists found intellectual and theological supports to counter the conservative aspects of Adventist doctrine opposed to their social activism. White Adventists’ lack of support for the civil rights movement undoubtedly resulted from theological and ideological views, as well as segregationist influences within the Anglo-American community.137 Thus, segregated churches reinforced racial communal ties.138

The Emergence of Afro-Adventist Activism

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3.

Afro-Adventist Activism in the 1930s and 1940s

As stated in the previous chapter, community awareness, in conjunction with theological justification, liberationist interpretations of the Bible, and the example of the denomination’s founders and pioneers motivated the civil rights activism of some black Adventists. This chapter highlights the contribution of those Adventists, specifically Matthew Strachan and Irene Morgan, to sociopolitical reform in the 1930s and 1940s, and demonstrates how events in the interwar years (that is, between 1919 and 1939) increased community awareness among African Americans. In discussing how Strachan’s work with the Negro Department of the Seventh-day Adventist Church and the Southern Missionary Society enhanced his sociopolitical consciousness, and likewise how the Great Depression (among other factors) heightened Morgan’s community awareness, this chapter shows how community awareness helped Strachan and Morgan overcome certain conservative aspects within Adventism, which white church leaders in the 1950s and 1960s used to discourage the denomination’s members from engaging in sociopolitical activism. Born on May 8, 1875, in Washington, D.C., Matthew C. Strachan converted to Adventism as a youth, and attended the denomination’s college in Battle Creek, Michigan.1 In his early twenties, Strachan, an African American, joined James Edson White’s Southern Missionary Society.2 In 1899 he moved to Mississippi and worked for the society as a schoolteacher and Bible instructor.3 In 1902 Strachan conducted a camp-meeting (that is, an outdoor evangelistic crusade) for the black community of Jackson, Mississippi. For those individuals who expressed interest in learning more, he followed up the revival meetings with Bible studies in their homes.4 From his home in Jackson, Strachan operated a small community school serving the needs 93

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of the city’s black children.5 The following year, 1903, Strachan conducted another camp-meeting for the city’s black residents. Due to his efforts, the number of black Seventh-day Adventists increased in Jackson, Mississippi, and the attendance at the mission school grew. Consequently, the Southern Missionary Society, under the leadership of James Edson White, decided to erect a building in the capital of Mississippi, to function as both church and schoolhouse. Proceeds for its construction came from the black Adventists of Jackson, who contributed $100.00; the Southern Missionary Society, which donated $100.00; James Edson White, who gave $25.00; and Ellen G. White, who provided $10.00.6 the workers completed the building in 1903; within five years the school had two teachers and a student enrollment of forty-five.7 In 1906 Strachan was formally ordained as a minister in the Seventh-day Adventist Church.8 In 1907 the General Conference transferred him to Washington, D.C., where he pastored a local church and conducted camp-meetings for the black residents of the nation’s capital.9 During his career Strachan pastored a number of African American churches, and conducted evangelistic crusades for black communities in Mississippi, Alabama, Florida, Georgia, North Carolina, South Carolina, Tennessee, Maryland, New York, and the District of Columbia.10 In 1909 he became a charter member of the North American Negro Department of the General Conference of Seventh-day Adventists, which coordinated missionary activities within the African American community.11 Arthur Grosvenor Daniells (1858–1935), General Conference president from 1901 to 1922, sponsored the creation of the department. Interestingly, whites dominated the membership of this new administrative department. In fact, during the first nine years of its existence, the secretaries (that is, directors) of the Negro Department, those who controlled the financial aspect of the enterprise, were all white men: John W. Christian, from 1909 to 1910; A. J. Haysmer, 1910 to 1914; and C. B. Stephenson, 1914 to 1918. Finally, in 1918, on Stephenson’s recommendation, William H. Green, a Seventh-day Adventist minister and attorney, took the helm as the first black secretary of the Negro Department of the General Conference of Seventhday Adventists. The inaugural white membership of the Negro Department included John W. Christian, C. F. McGaugh, W. A. Westworth, Clarence Bantee, C. P. Bollman, James Edson White, F. R. Rogers, A. J. Haysmer, C. N. Woodard, W. H. Williams, C. M. Jones, and R. T. Dowsett. Besides Strachan, the black membership included William H. Green, D. E. Blake, Tazwell B. Buckner, Sidney Scott, Page Shepard, Thomas Murphy, and W. H. Sebastian.12

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The establishment of the North American Negro Department of the General Conference of Seventh-day Adventists coincided with the emergence of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP), which also took place in 1909. The catalyst for the establishment of the NAACP was a series of race riots that erupted around the turn of the last century, the most notable being the Springfield, Illinois, riot of August 1908. The impetus for this event was a white woman’s accusation that an African American man beat and raped her. Shortly after making this allegation, the woman testified before a grand jury that her previous statement was totally false. In fact, her assailant was a white man, whose identity she refused to disclose. Nevertheless, anger in the white community of Springfield, triggered by the false allegation, reached the point of no return. Sensing the situation slipping out of control, the governor called up various state militia units to restore order in the capital. The mob armed itself and proceeded to vent its rage on Springfield’s black community. The rabble looted and burned African American homes and businesses. Rioters seized a black barber and lynched him. They were about to set fire to the corpse when a militia unit from Decatur arrived and dispersed the crowd. The rampage reconvened the following evening. This time, the victim was an eighty-four-year-old African American who was married to a white woman for over thirty years. The mob lynched him within a block of the Illinois statehouse. The casualty count was two blacks lynched, four whites killed, and seventy persons injured. There were over a hundred arrests, but the leaders of the debacle were not punished.13 The riot shocked the sensibilities of many white Americans. They thought, how could this happen in Springfield, Illinois, of all places, the hometown of Abraham Lincoln the Great Emancipator? In response to the riot, Oswald Garrison Villard (1844–1928), the grandson of William Lloyd Garrison, organized a conference, in 1909, to discuss the deterioration of race relations in the United States and to set in motion a movement for the restoration of African American civil liberties. Among the white and black intellectuals who attended the gathering were W. E. B. Du Bois, educator and social activist; Mary White Ovington (1865–1951), social worker; William English Walling (1877–1936), writer and social commentator; Jane Addams (1860–1935), co-founder of Hull House and future Nobel Peace Prize recipient; Ida B. Wells-Barnett (1862–1931), journalist and anti-lynching crusader; and John Dewey (1859–1952), philosopher and educator. From this conference, the NAACP emerged. This civil rights organization pledged itself to promoting desegregation; improving the education of black children; and enforcement of the Fourteenth and Fifteenth Amendments to the United

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States Constitution, which guaranteed equal protection under the law for all citizens and granted voting rights to blacks. Over the years, the NAACP utilized the legal system and education to advance its civil rights agenda. Arthur B. Spingarn (1878–1971) served as the chairman of the legal committee, and Du Bois worked as the editor of the Crisis, the organization’s official publication. In later years, Matthew C. Strachan became an active member and leader within this organization. In 1913 Strachan sat on the committee that organized the North American Division of the Seventh-day Adventist Church.14 Moreover, he served at least twice as a delegate to General Conference sessions.15 At these meetings, delegates—themselves elected democratically by the denomination’s members—vote to select officers to serve in the General Conference, the highest administrative unit in the Seventh-day Adventist Church. From 1924 to 1929, Strachan pastored Harlem’s Second Seventh-day Adventist Church (currently the Ephesus Seventh-day Adventist Church).16 There, he worked closely with other black Seventh-day Adventists, such as James Kemuel Humphrey (1877–1952), pastor and founder of the First Harlem Seventh-day Adventist Church, and James Moran, principal of Harlem’s Adventist school, to enlarge the denomination’s presence within New York City’s African American community.17 Seventh-day Adventism was first introduced to blacks living in New York City in 1902. At that time, J. H. Carroll, a black Adventist convert from Roman Catholicism, began the process of organizing and conducting Bible study groups in his home. Most of those who attended were members of area Methodist and Baptist churches. Several of these individuals accepted the Adventist doctrines and were subsequently baptized into the Seventhday Adventist Church. Among the first converts was James Humphrey, an ordained Baptist minister and immigrant from Jamaica. Soon Carroll’s company of Adventist believers received formal recognition from the General Conference, allowing them to organize themselves into a church. The parishioners selected Humphrey to serve as their pastor. James Humphrey was a man of considerable charisma who also possessed great administrative and organizational skills. Under his leadership, evangelistic outreach aimed at the black communities of Manhattan and Brooklyn increased, and the number of Adventist converts multiplied. In fact, during his tenure as a pastor in the Seventh-day Adventist Church, Humphrey baptized no less than fifty persons each year. His activities in the first three decades of the twentieth century ultimately led to the establishment of four black churches in New York City, one being the First Harlem Seventh-day Adventist Church founded in

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1905. The location of the church building was 144 and 146 West 131st Street between Lenox and Seventh Avenues.18 In 1920 this congregation alone consisted of 600 members. Three years later the Greater New York Conference purchased Carlton Hall, a former social and entertainment venue located at 106 and 108 West 127th Street, for the establishment of a black parochial school.19 James Moran served as the institution’s principal from 1924 to 1928. In 1929, Arna Bontemps (1902–1973), a black Adventist who was also a leading literary figure in the Harlem Renaissance, succeeded Moran as principal of the school. He served there for a year before moving to Oakwood Junior College, where he worked briefly as a literature professor.20 Humphrey’s work, in conjunction with that of Matthew Strachan, contributed to the establishment of the Second Harlem Seventh-day Adventist Church in 1924. The church building was situated on the northwest corner of Lenox Avenue and 120th Street.21 Strachan served as the congregation’s first pastor. In 1930 the Second Harlem Church changed its name to the Ephesus Seventh-day Adventist Church and moved to a facility located on the northwest corner of Lenox Avenue and 123rd Street. In 1939 the Greater New York Conference purchased the edifice from the Reformed Low Dutch Church of Harlem.22 During Strachan’s tenure, black Adventists began demanding autonomy in the management of their resources and institutions. Several factors contributed to this development. First, African American Adventists contributed financially to the construction and upkeep of white Adventist institutions, yet the denomination denied them access to these facilities.23 Second, during World War I many African Americans embraced the democratic ideals that President Woodrow Wilson (1856–1924) voiced, particularly his argument supporting the self-determination of subject peoples.24 As an oppressed ethnic group, blacks in the United States reasoned that they also had the right to control their own destiny. When the nation finally entered the War, in 1917, the noble principles it articulated inspired optimism and patriotism within the African American community. In fact, James Humphrey sponsored a campaign in Harlem that resulted in the purchasing of $2,500.00 worth of War Savings Stamps.25 Nevertheless, when the expectation of improved race relations failed to materialize, as demonstrated in the race riots of the “Red Summer” of 1919, it gave rise to black postwar disillusionment.26 Third, African American veterans of World War I expressed a determination to obtain at home the same freedoms they had fought for and enjoyed abroad.27 This attitude influenced the entire black community and reenergized efforts aimed at social reform. Fourth, Marcus Garvey’s (1887–1940)

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Universal Negro Improvement Association of the early 1920s, headquartered in Harlem, encouraged blacks around the world to achieve economic and political independence.28 Fifth, the art and literature of the Harlem Renaissance, in the 1920s, promoted black assertiveness and pride, while rejecting, or at least challenging, white cultural influences.29 Sixth, African Americans began taking steps to secure better working conditions and higher wages through collective bargaining. A. Philip Randolph’s (1889–1979) establishment of the Brotherhood of Sleeping Car Porters and Maids in 1925 demonstrated the desire of blacks to take control over their livelihood.30 Seventh, the General Conference of Seventh-day Adventists, in its 1929 spring meeting, failed to institute the recommendation of African American church leaders to establish black conferences with administrative authority.31 If adopted, these semi-independent black conferences were to exist within the denomination’s organizational framework at the same level as the white local conferences. Finally, the Great Depression, which began in the fall of 1929, exacerbated the inequalities of American society and contributed to black disillusionment and desire for autonomy. In fact, this crisis brought about socioeconomic readjustment, meaning that whites desperate for work took the low-wage, service-sector jobs (janitors, maids, chauffeurs, gardeners, childcare providers, etc.) traditionally reserved for blacks. This trend forced many African Americans out of work, leaving them to struggle for their own survival. Realizing they could no longer depend on the caste system, which designated jobs according to social standing, African Americans demanded the creation of more black-controlled institutions designed to provide their community with long-lasting economic security and employment. In the late 1920s, James Humphrey founded the Utopia Health Benevolent Association. The organization’s chief project was the creation of Utopia Park—a nonsectarian, black-owned and -operated health, retirement, and recreational facility exclusively for blacks.32 Designs for the complex also included a school, an orphanage, and numerous private residences. The original site for the proposed project was Wappingers Falls, New York. That property was unavailable, so they set their sights on a tract of land in Atlantic Highlands, New Jersey, a small town situated on the Jersey shore approximately forty-five miles south of New York City.33 Apart from the fact that Utopia Park would potentially provide employment for blacks, Humphrey was also responding to the reality that the Seventh-day Adventist Church banned blacks from patronizing most of their facilities even though black Adventists, through tithes and offerings, contributed financially toward their upkeep.34 Humphrey had a promotional brochure drawn up titled “The Fortune Spot

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of America for Colored People,” and began to aggressively promote the Utopia Park project without the knowledge and consent of the white-controlled Greater New York Conference of Seventh-day Adventists of which he was an employee.35 Harlem’s Adventist community enthusiastically supported the venture. Before long, they raised thousands of dollars for the enterprise.36 Simultaneously, financial contributions from Harlem to the Greater New York Conference declined. This prompted the conference’s white leadership to launch an investigation. Hearing rumors of Humphrey’s involvement in a scheme to create a black resort, Louis Dickson, president of the Greater New York Conference, addressed a letter to Humphrey, dated August 13, 1929, requesting more information on the “alleged” venture. Humphrey replied in a rather curt manner, telling Dickson that it was none of his business. Incensed with Humphrey’s response, Dickson wrote back, demanding that the pastor provide him with a detailed account of the happenings in Harlem connected with the resort enterprise. This time, Humphrey did not reply. Subsequently, Dickson set in motion proceedings to reprimand the pastor of First Harlem. In a meeting of the Greater New York Conference Committee, on September 5, 1929, Dickson ordered Humphrey to explain his role in the plan to create a resort exclusively for black people. Humphrey’s statements before the committee provided very little information. As a result, the committee decided to refer the matter to a meeting of the Atlantic Union Conference Committee, scheduled for the 27th of October. In the interim, a conference employee went down to the office of the New York Commissioner of Public Welfare to obtain a license for street solicitation during the Christmas season. Noticing that the individual worked for the Seventh-day Adventist Church, the commissioner, James J. Kelly, asked him if he knew James Kemuel Humphrey and if Humphrey was a minister employed with the conference. After the conference employee responded in the affirmative to both questions, Kelly asked him for more information on Humphrey. Reluctant to answer, the employee made an appointment for Louis Dickson to meet with the commissioner the following day. When Dickson arrived for the meeting, Kelly showed him twenty-seven typewritten pages dealing with an ongoing fraud investigation concerning Humphrey and the Utopia Park project. Dickson, feeling compromised in the eyes of the commissioner and embarrassed by the information in the investigative report, moved quickly to have Humphrey disciplined. On October 27 the Atlantic Union Conference Committee met. Humphrey, although a member of the committee,

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was not present, and was the principal topic of discussion. Dickson brought charges against First Harlem’s pastor, and the committee unanimously issued a formal reprimand of Humphrey. Moreover, the committee counseled the Greater New York Conference to revoke Humphrey’s pastoral license until the fraud investigation of the Utopia Park project reached a satisfactory resolution, thus removing the reproach brought on the denomination from the pastor’s course of action. Four days later, the Greater New York Conference Committee met. During this meeting, various white pastors and conference officials reprimanded Humphrey and ordered him to cancel the Utopia Park project. When he ignored their demands, the conference revoked his pastoral license.37 On the evening of November 2, 1929, a cadre of the denomination’s white leaders—Louis Dickson, president of the Greater New York Conference; William Ambrose Spicer (1865–1952), president of the General Conference; C. K. Meyers, secretary of the General Conference; and E. K. Slade, president of the Atlantic Union Conference—met with the membership of the First Harlem Church to explain the disciplinary action taken against their pastor. During this five-hour meeting the members of First Harlem, rallying to Humphrey’s defense, criticized the denomination’s treatment of both him and the black Adventist community. In fact, the meeting became so intense that the membership of First Harlem threatened to forcibly eject Louis Dickson from the premises.38 The following month, the New York District Attorney cleared Humphrey of alleged wrongdoing in his promotion of the Utopia Park project. The hearing was the result of complaints filed against Humphrey from New York City’s Department of Public Welfare. Later, in response to ongoing murmurings within the community of Harlem, the commissioner of public welfare, James J. Kelly, issued an emphatic denial that he purposely orchestrated a campaign to damage Humphrey’s reputation.39 Despite the favorable outcome clearing Humphrey and the Utopia Park project, the Executive Committee of the Greater New York Conference, with the backing of the General Conference, on January 14, 1930, adopted a resolution to expel from the denomination all 900 members of the First Harlem Seventh-day Adventist Church and their pastor.40 Strachan’s views on the Utopia Park project, as well as the summary dismissal of his friend and colleague along with the First Harlem Church, are not known. However, after the showdown between the denomination’s leaders and Harlem’s Adventist community, the General Conference removed Strachan as pastor of the Second Harlem Church and reassigned him, in 1930, as the representative of the Negro Department to the Southern Union Conference.41 Strachan delivered

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his farewell sermon on the night of March 31, 1930, at Harlem’s Abyssinian Baptist Church.42 The Seventh-day Adventist Church had established the Oakwood Industrial School in Huntsville, Alabama, in 1896 for the purpose of educating African Americans, but the members of administration, faculty, and staff were predominately white. Over time, school administrators erected and maintained social barriers between the black students and the white employees. Segregated dining facilities, racial slurs, and the exclusion of blacks from positions of authority and prestige became commonplace. As an example, in the presence of members of the Oakwood staff, the young son of the junior college president once stretched out his little arm in the direction of the black students working in the field and, with a broad grin, exclaimed: “These are all my daddy’s niggers!”43 The students of Oakwood also resented the institution’s emphasis on vocational training, as articulated in Booker T. Washington’s educational philosophy. These African American students aspired to be leaders within their denomination and community, and they knew a narrow, limited curriculum would not prepare them for entry into white-collar professions such as law, medicine, education, and business. For them, it was imperative that they receive a broad-based education in the liberal arts. In this respect, the educational outlook of the Oakwood students reflected that of Du Bois. Ultimately, the students met and decided that until the administration instituted changes in both its racial policy and educational philosophy, they would not attend classes or engage in manual labor benefiting the commercial interests of the school. On October 15, 1931, the student body of Oakwood Junior College initiated a protest against discriminatory practices at the institution. This coincided with the 1931 student strike at Knoxville College in Knoxville, Tennessee, and the court case in Scottsboro, Alabama, where nine black youth were falsely accused of raping two white women. These events heightened racial tensions throughout the South and directly contributed to an enhanced community-oriented consciousness among African Americans at that time. The Oakwood student body organized what they referred to as the Committee of Twelve as the designated strike leaders. The Committee of Twelve included Alan A. Anderson, William Betts, Frank L. Bland, Stewart A. Brantley, Monroe A. Burgess Sr., Walter W. Fordham, Moses James, Ernest Moseley, Herman R. Murphy, A. Samuel Rashford, Fred B. Slater, and Vernon Small.44 The student body, under the leadership of its Committee of Twelve, demanded the installation of an African American as the institution’s chief executive,

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a liberal arts curriculum, and the courteous treatment of students. In the spring of 1932, the denomination and the white administrators of Oakwood Junior College capitulated to the demands of the student body. However, to save face, the school expelled some of the strike leaders: Anderson, Fordham, Murphy, Moseley, and Rashford. In addition, Oakwood’s white administration fired Arna Bontemps, the institution’s popular literature professor, because they suspected he assisted the students in planning the strike.45 Afterward, the Adventist Church made a pragmatic decision. To prevent further disruption, the denomination reassigned J. L. Tucker, the president of Oakwood Junior College, and other Anglo personnel to white Adventist schools, and filled their vacated positions with blacks.46 As a result, in 1932 Strachan’s New York associate, James Moran, became the first black president of Oakwood Junior College. After working as an evangelist in the Southern Union Conference, Strachan settled in Tampa, Florida. There he served as president of the Tampa Negro Voter’s League; in 1940 he became the president of the Tampa branch of the NAACP. Undoubtedly, his willingness to take a leading role in sociopolitical reform came from enhanced community-oriented awareness formulated through years of service as an Adventist educator and minister in the African American community. As president of Florida’s largest NAACP branch, Strachan set out to combat social injustice in the Tampa area, while increasing the influence of the national organization through membership drives and the establishment of new branches.47 Under his leadership, the Tampa NAACP convinced the city’s First National Bank to desegregate its elevators.48 The association forced the Tampa school board to install a drinking fountain in one of its black elementary schools.49 When the manager of a dress shop unlawfully strip-searched a black woman, the branch sued the establishment on the lady’s behalf and won a $500.00 judgment.50 They provided legal assistance in helping a black man press charges against a Tampa officer for police brutality.51 In addition, the Tampa NAACP successfully removed a black girl from an abusive white foster family.52 They convinced municipal officials to improve accommodations for African Americans at the city’s bus and railroad stations.53 When a white bus driver slapped a black woman, the Tampa NAACP sued on the victim’s behalf and won a $400.00 judgment.54 The association also assisted the Tampa Negro Voter’s League in registering three thousand African Americans to vote in Hillsborough County. Furthermore, in an effort to increase black participation in the political process, the Tampa NAACP filed a lawsuit against Florida’s white Democratic primary.55

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Under Strachan’s leadership, the legal team of the Tampa branch, with assistance from the legal firm of Bryan and Bryan, appealed the conviction of Edgar Flowers, a twenty-year-old African American accused of raping a white woman. Six months after the alleged incident, law enforcement officers in Hillsborough County arrested Flowers and charged him with the crime. Although he provided an alibi, the authorities beat him until he confessed. The state of Florida tried, convicted, and sentenced Flowers to death.56 Ultimately, the Florida Supreme Court rejected the appeal, which the Tampa NAACP filed on the defendant’s behalf. On June 26, 1944, Edgar Flowers died in Florida’s electric chair.57 Strachan also took part in the prosecution of a white security guard who killed the teenaged son of Reverend Harmon, an African American minister. Late one night the black youth, employed as a stevedore, proceeded to walk home from his job on the docks. On his way, he passed through Tampa’s business district. Since most establishments at this time were closed, or refused to admit blacks, he stopped to urinate in a vacated alley. As he emerged from the alleyway, an armed laundromat night watchman opened fire. Afterward, the security guard phoned law enforcement. When the police arrived, they viewed the body and called for the black undertaker. When the mortician arrived, he observed the scene and noted the position of the teenager’s body. On closer examination, he noticed that one of the bullets had severed the victim’s trachea. Consequently, the undertaker concluded that the youth died of asphyxiation. Bullet wounds were also found in the victim’s arm and thigh. Furthermore, the position of the body, as well as the site of the exit wounds indicated that the security guard shot the youth from behind, when the latter turned away from the building to get onto the sidewalk. Tampa’s coroner refused to conduct an inquest. At the preliminary hearing, the justice of the peace, who was also the coroner, arbitrarily declared the killing a justifiable homicide. The father of the deceased contacted Strachan, who placed the Tampa NAACP legal team on the case. The Tampa branch also acquired the services of the legal firm Bryan and Bryan. On behalf of Reverend Harmon, the legal team approached Justice Turner, requesting that he issue a warrant for the arrest of the night watchman. Initially Judge Turner refused, declaring the killing a justifiable homicide. Eventually, the association’s lawyers obtained a warrant for the watchman’s arrest, and began legal proceedings against him and his employer. A concurrent investigation revealed that the security guard had previously bragged about killing three other black youth on separate occasions. The Tampa branch brought the case before a grand jury, but it is not known if they obtained an indictment.58

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In the hope of facilitating the organization’s outreach and its response to civil rights violations, Strachan reorganized the Tampa branch into various districts. He also dispatched his vice president, Matthew Gregory, to Miami with the expressed purpose of establishing that city’s first NAACP branch.59 In 1943, Strachan invited Ella J. Baker (1903–1986), the NAACP director of branches, to conduct recruitment drives in Tampa.60 Under his watch, the membership of the Tampa NAACP increased substantially.61 The Strachan administration witnessed many achievements, but it also had its difficulties. In 1942, a dispute arose concerning the election of officers for the branch. This disagreement resulted in the creation of two competing factions within the Tampa NAACP. Norman Lacey and Dan Malloy argued that Strachan committed an error in the electoral process that nullified the results.62 They also accused him of presiding over the branch in a tyrannical manner, and fomenting discord among the members.63 The Strachan faction, which comprised the vast majority of the membership, maintained that Lacey and Malloy’s allegations were unfounded.64 Ella Baker tried to heal the rift between the factions. Nevertheless, tensions flared again when Strachan won the branch’s special election of 1944.65 Afterward, the Lacey and Malloy faction withdrew from the Tampa NAACP entirely and formed an unofficial branch.66 This situation prompted a series of legal battles between the national headquarters and the Lacey-Malloy faction.67 Despite the turmoil, Strachan served as the nationally recognized president of the Tampa NAACP until 1947. In recognition of his dedicated service, the Branch appointed him president emeritus.68 On August 22, 1951, Matthew Strachan died in Sanford, Florida.69 In retrospect, Strachan’s sociopolitical activities are important. According to sociologist Aldon Morris, the civil rights movement of the 1950s and 1960s is directly linked to the sociopolitical activism of the 1940s.70 During this time, as the leading civil rights organization, the NAACP aimed to encourage the American public to accord full rights and opportunities to blacks; fight social injustice through the legal system; support the passage of legislation defending civil liberties; defeat discriminatory bills; secure black voting rights; educate African Americans on civic responsibility; end lynching; and stimulate black cultural life.71 To accomplish these aims, the NAACP affiliated itself with black churches, which—for the most part— functioned independently from the South’s white power structure.72 As a result, the NAACP received financial backing and attained its local leadership from the ministerial ranks of the black churches.73 This explains why Strachan and other black Adventist ministers, including A. V. Pinkney,

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Monroe Burgess, Warren S. Banfield, and Randolph P. Stafford, became affiliated with the NAACP. An examination of the historical record suggests that the motivation behind Strachan’s sociopolitical activism came from a profound sense of community awareness. As a black evangelist and missionary, Strachan came into contact with African American communities in various parts of the country, consequently becoming aware of the social, economic, and political issues confronting black Americans. As an African American religious leader, Strachan undoubtedly felt an obligation to participate in sociopolitical activities benefiting his community. Similarly, Irene Morgan (1917–2007), a black Adventist laywoman, experienced a heightened sense of community-oriented consciousness. Born into a black Seventh-day Adventist family, Irene Morgan grew up in the midst of the Great Depression. She observed the growing socioeconomic disparity between whites and blacks. As the economic depression worsened, AngloAmericans took the low-wage jobs traditionally reserved for African Americans. This made the task of finding work extremely difficult for Irene’s father. To help support her family she dropped out of school and began working as a maid servicing white households.74 With the onset of World War II, the economic upheaval that rocked the nation in the 1930s subsided, giving desperate workers an opportunity to improve their financial standing. At the same time, the black community launched its Double “V” Campaign. This program called for victory over the double threats of racism at home and fascism abroad.75 In January 1941 A. Philip Randolph proposed a march on Washington to protest discriminatory hiring practices in the defense industry. To avert the demonstration, President Franklin Delano Roosevelt (1882–1945) issued Executive Order 8802, prohibiting discrimination in the defense industries.76 Furthermore, black soldiers returning from overseas began to express a determination to secure and exercise their full rights as United States citizens. This sentiment of militancy pervaded the African American community to which Irene Morgan belonged.77 In July 1944 Morgan purchased a five-dollar ticket and boarded a Greyhound bus in Gloucester, Virginia, bound for Baltimore, Maryland. Sometime prior to this, she experienced a traumatic miscarriage. On this July day, Irene was on her way to Baltimore, to see a fertility specialist. Morgan sat in an aisle seat four rows from the rear in the area reserved for black passengers. As the white section filled, the driver called on black riders to relinquish their seats to accommodate the white passengers. Thirty minutes outside of Gloucester,

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a white couple boarded. The bus driver demanded that Morgan and the black woman seated beside her give up their places to the white pair. Irene refused and compelled the lady next to her to remain seated. The driver proceeded to the town of Saluda, Virginia, where he stopped the bus and reported the incident. When a sheriff ’s deputy came aboard with a warrant for Morgan’s arrest, Irene tore it up and threw it out the bus window. Enraged, the deputy reached forward and grabbed Irene by the arm. As soon as he took hold, she kicked the officer in the groin. He hobbled off the bus; his partner came on board and wrestled with the suspect. In the melee, she tore off the deputy’s shirt. Ultimately, both officers managed to remove Morgan from the bus.78 Following a brief stay in jail for Irene, her mother posted the $500 bail for her release. In court, Morgan pled guilty to resisting arrest, but maintained innocence when charged with violating Virginia’s segregation law. Despite her attorney’s argument that segregated travel impeded interstate commerce, Irene lost. The court fined Morgan $100 for resisting arrest and $10 for violating the state’s segregation statute. Two NAACP lawyers, Thurgood Marshall (1908–1993) and William Henry Hastie (1904–1976), took up Morgan’s case and appealed it all the way to the U.S. Supreme Court. On June 3, 1946, the Court, in the case of Morgan v. Virginia, banned segregation on interstate travel. This legal victory inspired the Congress of Racial Equality (CORE) to conduct “Freedom Rides” in 1947 and 1961.79 Morgan’s decision not to relinquish her seat exemplified the militancy in African American society to fight racial discrimination.

4.

Lay Activism

As stated in the previous chapter, the sociopolitical activism of the 1940s gave rise to the civil rights movement of the 1950s and 1960s. Accordingly, this chapter examines the contributions of Seventh-day Adventist laypersons to the civil rights movement of the mid-twentieth century. Specifically, it discusses the activities of Alfonzo Greene, Terrance Roberts, and Frank Hale in combating social injustice both within their denomination and in mainstream, secular society. Based on information gathered from interviews and memoirs, this chapter presents the argument that community-oriented consciousness, theological justifications, liberationist interpretations of the Bible, and the example of Adventist founders and pioneers motivated the civil rights activism of these laypersons. Born on August 20, 1926, in Candor, North Carolina, Alfonzo Greene Sr. grew up in the home of his black Carolinian grandparents. In 1961, he received his bachelor’s degree from Andrews University, in Berrien Springs, Michigan. Later Greene enrolled in the Master of Business Administration Program at Western Michigan University in Kalamazoo; in 1966 he became the first African American to receive an MBA from that institution. As an educator, Greene taught at Kentucky State University in Frankfort and at Oakwood College in Huntsville, Alabama. Throughout his adult life, he worked in various capacities with the NAACP and the Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC).1 Greene’s first exposure to Adventism occurred at a North Carolina NAACP convention in 1948. There he met W. R. Saxon, a black Adventist who served as the vice president of the North Carolina NAACP and was the co-founder of the Asheville branch. Saxon, who worked as an insurance agent in Asheville, offered Greene a job, which he accepted. After a year in Asheville, the company reassigned Greene to Clinton, North Carolina. In 1 07

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his spare time he read pamphlets Saxon gave him on Seventh-day Adventist doctrines. Subsequently, Greene accepted the teachings of Adventism and desired to attend an Adventist church. He discovered that the denomination did not have a congregation in Clinton but had one in Fayetteville; in 1949 Greene became a baptized member of the black Adventist church in that city. Three years prior to his conversion, Greene began his activities in sociopolitical reform. African Americans in Montgomery County, North Carolina, had not voted since the end of Reconstruction in 1877. When Greene reached the required voting age, he decided to let nothing deter him from participating in the political process. In 1946 he went along with another black man to the office of voter registration in Montgomery County’s Rocky Spring township. When they arrived, the clerk told them that he did not have the authority to register blacks. Greene retorted that he was an American citizen, and therefore the clerk had authority to register him. He told the registrar that blacks deserved the right to register to vote like anyone else, and before leaving warned that, on their return the upcoming week, he expected the clerk to have the authority to register them; if not, they planned to file a lawsuit. Greene’s temperament was consistent with the militant attitude and spirit that pervaded African American society following World War II. This sentiment developed among black soldiers who fought abroad, defending American liberty against the threat posed by fascism. On their return, these African American war veterans were adamant in exercising all their rights and privileges as United States citizens. Eventually, this militancy spread to various sectors of African American society. Greene and his associate went to see the commissioner of elections. They informed him of the clerk’s refusal to register them. The commissioner said that he understood their grievance and hoped to rectify the situation. When the two men returned the following week to Montgomery County’s office of voter registration, the clerk told them they needed to answer some questions. He explained that North Carolina law required voters to be literate and able to comprehend the state constitution. Subsequently, the registrar asked them to recite the preamble of the document. Having memorized it in grade school, both recited it perfectly. After answering other questions, the clerk placed their names on the voting roll. Elated, Greene went back to his community and brought others to the courthouse for registration. He recalled this as his first venture into the civil rights movement. Later that year Greene joined the NAACP, and rose quickly through the ranks of the state organization. In 1949 he became vice president of the North

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Carolina NAACP, a position he held until he left for college in 1952. As one of the youngest vice presidents in the history of the state organization at twentythree years of age, he organized the first NAACP branch in Clinton, North Carolina. Greene remained active in the NAACP during and after college. In Michigan he worked as an officer in a local branch. While teaching at Kentucky State University, Greene served on the executive board of the Kentucky NAACP. He is currently an active member of the Huntsville, Alabama, branch. In these various capacities Greene raised money for the organization’s legal fund, served on committees redressing discrimination in schools, and investigated complaints of unfair hiring practices and other workplace irregularities. In 1952 Greene entered Emmanuel Missionary College (currently Andrews University), an Adventist institution in Berrien Springs, Michigan. Unbeknownst to him, the college enforced a policy of segregated housing. Prior to his arrival, Greene learned the school operated a trailer park for married students. He purchased a trailer and moved his family to Berrien Springs. Seeing that Greene and his family were African Americans, college administrators refused to admit them into the trailer park. However, moved with compassion, a white Adventist who owned a lot near the campus allowed Greene and two other black families to move their trailers onto his property. At the time, state law allowed only two trailers on a single lot. If there were more than two, the owner of the lot had to obtain a trailer park license. Adventist officials from the college reported the violation to Michigan’s housing authority. The lot’s owner informed the students that he could not afford the expense of establishing a trailer park. As a result, Alfonzo’s family had to relocate. Greene searched for available housing near the college, but was unsuccessful. Ultimately, he sold the trailer, purchased an outlying property, and built a house on it. The housing crisis disrupted Greene’s studies—in fact, it caused him to drop out of school for five years before resuming his education. In 1961 Greene graduated from college and moved to Huntsville, Alabama. During the 1960s, Alabama outlawed the NAACP.2 As a result, Greene joined the Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC) in 1962. This also happened to be the same year that Martin Luther King Jr. conducted a civil rights rally in Huntsville.3 Huntsville’s Community Service Committee, a local civil rights organization, under the leadership of Sonnie W. Hereford III, a black physician, and Ezekiel Bell, a black Presbyterian minister, managed to secure the use of the Oakwood College gymnasium for the event where, on March 19, 1962, King addressed an audience numbering approximately

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two thousand. In the speech, he emphasized the need to establish a global or international perspective, strive for excellence, and engage in nonviolent protest against socioeconomic and political injustice. During this mass meeting, the Huntsville Community Service Committee received almost $2,000 in donations. Consequently, the rally spawned interest in the SCLC, and reenergized the civil rights movement in Huntsville.4 In 1965 Greene took part in Huntsville’s Selma Sympathy March, which occurred a week after Alabama State Troopers attacked civil rights marchers at the Edmund Pettus Bridge in Selma, Alabama. This incident in Selma (also known as “Bloody Sunday”) received widespread television and newspaper coverage, and a growing number of Americans, both white and black, subsequently began to empathize with the civil rights movement. Alfonzo tried to persuade Oakwood’s faculty and staff to participate in the march and other activities associated with the civil rights movement in Huntsville, but most refused. According to Greene, their unwillingness to participate in sociopolitical activism arose from a fear of retaliation (from white secular society and the white leadership of the Seventh-day Adventist Church), as well as certain Adventist theological notions. Nevertheless, he managed to convince three Oakwood staff persons to join him in the Selma Sympathy March. Later that year, Greene took a group of Oakwood students to the Huntsville Central Seventh-day Adventist Church. He did this in an effort to integrate the exclusively all-white congregation. The incident that prompted Greene’s action took place on November 7 of the previous year. On that day, two black female faculty members of Oakwood College, Jannith Lewis, the head librarian, and Irene Meredith, a professor of mathematics, decided to attend the worship service at Huntsville Central. When the two ladies approached the front entrance to the church, Mr. Tripple, the head deacon, stopped them and told them that they could not enter the church. The women insisted that the deacon allow them to enter and he grudgingly allowed them in. As soon as the ladies entered the main sanctuary and took their seats, the pastor of the church, known as Elder Roy, stopped his sermon and addressed the black women. Roy told the ladies that the Central Church was not integrated. He proceeded to quote Ellen G. White’s statement in Testimonies to the Church, Volume 9: “Let us follow the course of wisdom. Let us do nothing that will unnecessarily arouse opposition—nothing that will hinder the proclamation of the gospel message. Where demanded by custom or where greater efficiency is to be gained, let the white believers and the colored believers assemble in separate places of worship.”5 Afterward, he requested that the

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women leave.6 Embarrassed, the two ladies left and went back to Oakwood College, where they told others of their experience. After hearing about the incident, Greene decided to take action. In the company of Oakwood students, he entered the foyer of the Huntsville Central Seventh-day Adventist Church. The church deacons put them out. The next week, Greene returned with more students; this time, church administrators decided to close the entire facility. Greene called Channel 31, Huntsville’s local television station, and asked them to come and film the confrontation between the black students and the white members of the Huntsville Central Church. The following week, Oakwood’s president held an emergency meeting of the faculty and staff. At the assembly, the president ordered them not to go to the Huntsville Central Church on Saturday. Greene challenged the order. Standing up, he told the chief administrator that, as an adult, he had the right to go wherever he pleased. In response, the president told him that he could not take the students. Greene replied that he respected the president’s authority over the students. Moreover, Greene assured the president that he would not take any of them to the church. On Saturday morning, Greene met with the students and told them what transpired at the faculty and staff meeting. One of the students asked him if he intended to go to the white church. Greene replied in the affirmative. The students told him they would also be at Huntsville Central. Sure enough, the Oakwood students arrived, among them John F. Street (1943–) the future major of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.7 Together with Greene, the students entered into the foyer of the church. An Adventist minister confronted the group and promised to resolve the problem if they agreed to leave. That week, the members of Huntsville Central voted to allow blacks into their church. Evidently, demonstrations and unwanted media coverage forced this white Adventist congregation to integrate. The SCLC assisted Greene in providing transportation for the students in their struggle to integrate the Huntsville Central Church. During this period Greene met Ralph David Abernathy (1926–1990), who conducted a rally in support of the Oakwood students. Greene worked with other well-known civil rights leaders, such as Thurgood Marshall, NAACP attorney and U.S. Supreme Court justice; Walter White (1893–1955), executive secretary of the NAACP; Roy Wilkins (1901–1981), executive secretary of the NAACP; Robert Lee Carter (1917–),NAACP attorney and federal judge; and Constance Baker Motley (1921–),NAACP attorney and federal judge. The inspiration behind Alfonzo Greene’s activism came from his childhood experience, which was also a factor in the development of community-

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oriented consciousness. Greene’s grandfather habitually read newspapers and magazines and frequently talked with his grandson about racial inequality, social injustice, and other issues impacting the African American community. This made a lasting impression on Greene and instilled within him a sense of community awareness. Ultimately, this sparked Greene’s desire to become an active participant in the civil rights movement through synthesizing his faith and moral obligation. Like Greene, social consciousness inspired Terrance Roberts, another black Adventist, to participate in sociopolitical reform. Born in 1941 in Little Rock, Arkansas, to black Seventh-day Adventist parents, Roberts attended one of the denomination’s black churches in that city.8 In his teens, he apparently became a member of the NAACP Youth Council.9 He submitted a request to transfer from the city’s black high school to its all-white counterpart. In 1957 the school board selected Roberts, a fifteen-year-old eleventh grader, and eight other black students to integrate Little Rock Central High School.10 Soon, people referred to the group as the “Little Rock Nine.” Following a turbulent desegregation process, the Roberts family relocated to California. There Terrance attended the University of California at Los Angeles, where he received degrees in sociology and social welfare. Afterward, he went on to earn a doctorate in psychology from Southern Illinois University in Carbondale. Roberts’s involvement in the civil rights movement was the result of the May 17, 1954, U.S. Supreme Court decision outlawing racial segregation in public schools. Ten days after the Court’s ruling in Brown v. Board of Education, the Little Rock school board announced its plan to desegregate the city’s schools. Tentatively scheduled for the fall of 1957, they proposed to begin the integration process in the senior high schools and gradually implement it in lower levels. Although the board took this step toward desegregation, some African Americans felt that the plan lacked decisiveness and urgency. This sentiment is consistent with the militant attitude that pervaded various sectors of the African American community. As previously mentioned, this militancy arose from black veterans of World War II—like William Roberts, Terrance’s father.11 After the war, these veterans joined civil rights groups in large numbers, infusing them with a spirit of determination and militancy.12 In 1956 black parents, with the assistance of NAACP lawyers, filed suit against the Little Rock Board of Education demanding the immediate integration of all schools. A federal court decided that the board’s plan to commence integration the following year showed good faith (that is, a willingness to comply

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with the Supreme Court ruling). However, in the event of future litigation the court decided to retain jurisdiction.13 African Americans were not the only group apprehensive about the school board’s plan to desegregate its facilities. Segregationists opposed all measures to integrate the public schools.14 During the 1954 Arkansas gubernatorial race, Orval Eugene Faubus (1910–1994) scored a political victory when he declared his opposition to school desegregation.15 In the spring of 1957, Governor Faubus supported the passage of bills in the Arkansas legislature impeding integration. These measures called for the establishment of a sovereignty commission to protect the rights of the state from federal encroachment; the right to abstain from attending racially integrated schools; allocating state funds to fight discrimination lawsuits; and the mandatory state registration of all civil rights groups. In a vote of eighty-eight to one, the Arkansas House of Representatives approved the bills.16 In August 1957 Samuel Marvin Griffin (1907–1982), the governor of Georgia, and Roy Vincent Harris (1931–1983), a pro-segregationist politician from Georgia, held a rally in Arkansas opposing school integration.17 Five days later, the Mothers’ League of Little Rock Central High filed a suit seeking an injunction to preempt the desegregation of the school scheduled for September 4, 1957. A state court granted the injunction. On August 30, 1957, attorneys for the NAACP appealed the decision in federal court and the injunction was promptly overturned.18 On September 3, 1957, Governor Faubus ordered the Arkansas National Guard to prevent Terrance Roberts and the other black students from entering Little Rock Central High School. That evening, Daisy Bates (1914–1999), president of the Arkansas State Conference of NAACP Branches and a leading advocate for the Little Rock Nine, phoned Dunbar Ogden Jr., a white Presbyterian minister who served as president of Little Rock’s Interracial Ministerial Alliance. Bates asked if he could get some ministers to accompany the students to Central High. The next day Ogden, along with a white minister from the National Council of Churches and two black Methodist preachers, escorted eight of the nine pupils to the high school. The absence of Terrance’s pastor suggests that he did not support Roberts’s involvement in the integration of Central High School.19 When the pupils arrived at the school, the guardsmen refused to let them enter. After an unsuccessful attempt to meet with the Little Rock superintendent of schools, the students and their advocates went to the office of the United States Attorney. Officials took statements from the students and referred them to the Federal Bureau of

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Investigation (FBI). There Roberts and the others provided a detailed report of what transpired at the high school.20 On September 20, 1957, attorneys for the NAACP argued in federal court for an injunction to stop the governor and the Arkansas National Guard from interfering with the integration of Central High. The court accepted their arguments and granted their request. Two days later, Little Rock police escorted Terrance and the other eight students into Central High through a side entrance. Reports quickly circulated in the white community that the blacks were inside, and within minutes an enormous crowd formed in front of the school, threatening to forcibly extract the African American students. The situation deteriorated rapidly. Fearing for their safety, the police chief ordered the removal of the Little Rock Nine from Central High through a rear exit. After loading them into squad cars, the officers drove the students to Bates’s home.21 The next day, the Little Rock Nine made no attempt to enter Central High. However, that afternoon, President Dwight Eisenhower (1890–1969) federalized the Arkansas National Guard and sent in the army to prevent interference with court-mandated integration.22 On the morning of September 25, federal soldiers accompanied the black students as they entered Central High. When classes dismissed, troops escorted the Little Rock Nine to the Bates home. This routine continued for several days.23 In October, Arkansas guardsmen replaced the federal soldiers stationed inside the school. Subsequently, harassment of the black students intensified. One day, Terrance and another African American student descended a flight of stairs near the vice principal’s office. Two white youths approached them from behind, and in passing knocked the books out of their hands. When Roberts and his friend bent over to pick up their textbooks, two boys came from behind and kicked them. Soon other students joined in the harassment and kicked the black pupils’ books down the hallway. The vice principal, hearing the commotion, emerged from her office and grabbed two of the white culprits. Guardsmen, posted a few feet away, observed the entire incident but did not intervene. The two perpetrators received a three-day suspension. On their return, one of them punched Roberts in gym class and threatened to beat him up after school. Terrance reported the incident to the school’s authorities. The administration told Roberts they could do nothing unless he provided an adult witness to corroborate the story.24 On another occasion, a group of students encircled Terrance on the ball field. While they screamed racial epithets, a boy carrying a baseball bat advanced toward him. Throughout this tense moment, Roberts made

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persistent eye contact with his would-be assailant. As the two stood face to face, the boy mumbled a derogatory phrase, dropped the bat, and walked away. Roberts maintained that his refusal to become a victim, coupled with a determination to face the would-be assailant as an equal, prevented the attack.25 Before the close of the academic year, the Little Rock school board petitioned a federal court to remove the black students from Central High and postpone the integration process until January 1961. Surprisingly, the court granted the request. Lawyers for the NAACP immediately filed an appeal. In August 1958, the Eighth United States Circuit Court of Appeals reversed the previous court’s decision. While the state filed an appeal with the U.S. Supreme Court, Governor Faubus convened a special session of the legislature and submitted a new package of bills designed to subvert desegregation. On September 11, 1958, the Court issued an unanimous decision allowing the black pupils to return to Central High. On hearing the news, Faubus signed into law the measures passed during the special session. One of them gave the governor the authority to close the state’s public schools. In an effort to prevent integration, Governor Faubus closed all of Little Rock’s public high schools. The white community placed immense pressure on the families of the Little Rock Nine. Eventually the strain became too great for the Roberts family, and they moved to California. In the summer of 1959, a federal court declared the Arkansas statute that granted the state’s governor the power to close public schools unconstitutional.26 Among the factors that contributed to Roberts’s community-oriented consciousness were his affiliation with the NAACP Youth Council; the lingering spirit of the Double “V” Campaign, which motivated African Americans to obtain victory over fascism abroad and discrimination at home; and the militant influence of a father who served in World War II. For Terrance, community awareness outweighed the conservative theological and ideological aspects that encroached upon Adventism with the passing of the church’s founders. Community-oriented consciousness also motivated Frank Hale, a black Adventist layman. Born March 24, 1927, in Kansas City, Missouri, to Frank and Novella Hale, black Adventists, Frank W. Hale Jr. grew up in the church. In January 1944 he commenced his studies at Oakwood College in Huntsville, Alabama. However, due to deficiencies in the institution’s academic curriculum, Hale transferred to Union College in Lincoln, Nebraska, where he received a bachelor’s degree in 1950. The following year Hale obtained a master’s degree from the University of Nebraska in Lincoln. Four years later,

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he earned a doctorate in speech and political science from Ohio State University in Columbus. During his career, Hale worked at Oakwood College in Huntsville, Alabama; Central State University in Wilberforce, Ohio; Ohio State University in Columbus; and Kenyon College in Gambier, Ohio. From 1966 to 1971, he served as the president of Oakwood College. Hale’s involvement in sociopolitical reform began in 1950 at the University of Nebraska. There, he joined the Student Action Council, which initiated a program to integrate public facilities in Lincoln. Hale participated in demonstrations that desegregated some of the city’s restaurants and hotels.27 This experience helped prepare him for future efforts to end segregation in Adventist institutions, and return Adventism to its holistic mission. In 1960 Hale represented Central State College (elevated to university status in 1966) at a conference for human rights held on the campus of the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor. During a recess, he visited Adelphian Academy, a Seventh-day Adventist boarding school for girls in Holly, Michigan. There, Hale sought to obtain information for his daughter, who would soon be of age to attend. In an interview with the school’s dean, Hale received the impression that African American students were not welcome at the institution. The Adventist administrator told him that, out of a student body of three hundred, there were only three blacks. Hale asked if the academy had a quota limiting the number of African American students. The dean replied in the affirmative, and suggested that black students admitted to the institution must come from an upstanding family with a professional background. Afterward, Hale learned that other Adventist academies had similar policies. He also discovered that blacks were routinely turned away from the denomination’s hospitals, nursing homes, churches, and recreational facilities. This information prompted Hale to take action.28 On January 7, 1961, at a gathering of the Chicago Oakwood Alumni Association, Hale articulated a strategy to correct social injustice in the Seventhday Adventist Church. His plan involved the creation of an organization for black laypersons that would establish a network to facilitate the reporting of discriminatory acts; seek ways to improve interracial fellowship; work to integrate local church schools; agitate for equal employment opportunities; and demand the admission of blacks in all Adventist institutions of higher learning. On February 26, 1961, the group met at the Neighborhood House in Columbus. At the assembly, Hale presented a three-page outline identifying what he believed to be the principal causes of racial discord within the denomination: a lack of interracial dialogue; bypassing opportunities to create institutions to improve race relations; abandoning the values of Christian

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love and inclusiveness; catering to the wishes of ultraconservatives; and failure of the church to follow Ellen White’s counsel in The Southern Work— specifically, her support for reparations and the establishment of institutions to improve the lives of African Americans. After his presentation, the Laymen’s Leadership Conference (LLC), as it became known, developed a platform that included some of the points he mentioned. They called on the denomination to adopt a positive stance on race relations; open its institutions of higher learning to blacks; discontinue the quota system; provide equal employment opportunities to all persons irrespective of ethnicity; cease racial discrimination in its churches; create interracial youth camps; establish human relations institutes; and give heed to biblical principles on matters of race. Finally, the group demanded that the Seventh-day Adventist Church institute the previous initiatives as soon as possible.29 From the outset, the LLC received phone calls and letters informing them of various discriminatory acts committed against African Americans: accounts of black students denied admission to white schools; African Americans barred from white churches; the collusion of church leaders with segregationists; Adventist pastors using the biblical narrative of Noah’s curse to justify racism; and discrimination in hiring.30 Some Adventists opposed the work of the LLC because of the pressure it placed on the denomination to address sociopolitical issues. They argued that taking a partisan position was incompatible with the church’s gospel commission to evangelize the world. In response, Hale contended that the church should take the lead in setting community standards, not the other way around. Furthermore, as a Christian denomination professing to have a special message for the world, it was imperative that the Seventh-day Adventist Church make its position known on sociopolitical and ethical matters.31 In preparation for the General Conference Autumn Council, the LLC board voted that its representatives present nine recommendations to church leaders: that the General Conference issue a public statement encouraging all Adventists to reexamine the concepts of love and Christian fellowship; that ministers emphasize the teachings of Christ when discussing race relations; pastoral training for developing a positive attitude toward multiculturalism; the establishment of human relations institutes in all union conferences of North America; the removal of racial barriers in the hiring process within all of the denomination’s institutions; condemnation of the existence of racial discrimination and segregation in all Adventist healthcare and educational facilities; the abolishment of racial quota systems limiting the number of

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black students in Adventist academies and grade schools; the removal of ethnicity as a factor in granting church membership; and finally, that the General Conference prepare a treatise articulating Adventism’s stance on race relations in light of social changes in the mid-twentieth century.32 On October 23, 1961, representatives of the LLC met with several of the denomination’s top leaders and delivered these recommendations. Five days later, the General Conference of Seventh-day Adventists released a statement to the Associated Press and United Press International expressing its conviction that racial segregation is incompatible with Christian doctrine. This communication announced the denomination’s intent to reform its hiring practices, and to expand opportunities for minority members to engage in overseas missionary endeavors. Following the declaration, the LLC monitored the church for infractions and supported a nationwide effort encouraging black Adventists to enroll their children in the denomination’s white schools. In addition, it urged African Americans to seek admittance to all Adventist institutions of higher learning in the United States.33 According to Hale, the conservatism of the Adventist Church caused it to lag behind other Christian organizations on matters of social reform and racial understanding.34 Several denominations and their affiliates denounced segregation prior to the 1961 General Conference communiqué. These included the United Church of Christ (1956), the Methodist Church (1956), the Presbyterian Church (1956), the American Baptist Convention (1956), the American Unitarian Association (1957), the Disciples of Christ (1957), and the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops (1958).35 Between 1950 and 1958, the National Council of Churches passed twenty-four resolutions condemning racial segregation.36 Furthermore, Southern Baptists and Southern Presbyterians, denominations known for their conservatism, went on record in the mid-1950s supporting integration.37 After the 1961 General Conference announcement, the LLC continued to receive reports that Adventist institutions were not implementing reform measures.38 Hale sent letters to the national press accusing the denomination of reneging on its commitment to integrate.39 Furthermore, he set in motion plans for a protest at the 1962 General Conference session in San Francisco.40 Soon the LLC received the support of black Adventist ministers who were eager to let it be known they were not content with social conditions in the denomination.41 Negotiations between the LLC and white Adventist leaders ensued.42 The LLC called off its demonstration when the church agreed to recommit itself to integration and to elect an African American to the vice presidency of the General Conference.43

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The political pressure Frank Hale and the LLC placed on the Adventist Church forced the denomination to reexamine its position on ethics and social justice. During its 1965 Spring Council, the General Conference focused attention on desegregating its institutions in the United States. Soon, the denomination’s Atlantic and Pacific Unions initiated full integration. Institutions of higher learning such as Southwestern Union College (currently Southwestern Adventist University) and Southern Missionary College (currently Southern Adventist University) began opening their doors to African Americans. In addition, schools and boarding academies in the Southern Union Conference started to accept black students. Furthermore, the denomination’s healthcare facilities began the process of integrating their staff and admitting nonwhite patients.44 In 1970 Spectrum, an Adventist journal, featured an article from Frank Hale titled “Commitment v. Capitulation.” The opinion piece points out that at the time of the writing there were still racial inequities within the denomination.45 Hale argues that the General Conference Committee resolution to desegregate Adventist facilities, passed during its 1965 spring meeting, is not worth the paper it is written on if it is not implemented.46 He also states that integration alone is not enough to bridge the gulf of inequality that still exists within the Seventh-day Adventist Church.47 Moreover, Hale contends that this persistent inequality blunts the effectiveness of the church’s witness to the world—that the denomination cannot spread the gospel (that is, evangelize) when there is a continual presence of bitterness, discord, and racism within the organization.48 Hale cites the Second Great Commandment and the Apostle Paul’s writings on unity in his appeal to the Adventist Church to rectify the gross racial inequalities within it.49 Next, he identifies with and memorializes the liberationist aspect of Christianity. Hale mentions the mission and martyrdom of Martin Luther King Jr. He also states: “And so today, as in yesteryear, there is a small but determined cadre of black men and women who are dedicating their energies, and in many cases their lives, to the unfinished task of liberating black people from the psychological, cultural, social, and economic shackles that have rendered them powerless for centuries.”50 In the context of the article, this passage implies that liberating the oppressed is a part of the Christian ethic. Accordingly, Hale calls on the denomination to make restitution in the form of adequate black representation in all departments, institutions, and leadership positions of the church.51 Furthermore, he requests that the Seventh-day Adventist Church pay financial restitution to its black membership in the amount of $5,500,000, the allocation going toward scholarships,

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missionary projects, and the maintenance of historically black Adventist institutions like Oakwood College and the Riverside Hospital in Nashville, Tennessee.52 As a rationale, he quotes the following from the pen of Ellen G. White: “The American nation owes a debt of love to the colored race, and God has ordained that they should make restitution for the wrong they have done them in the past. Those who have taken no active part in enforcing slavery upon the colored people are not relieved from the responsibility of making special efforts to remove as far as possible, the sure result of their enslavement.”53 Incidentally, Hale maintains that Ellen G. White’s progressive views, supporting reparations and the establishment of institutions to improve the lives of black Americans, inspired his sociopolitical activism.54 As exemplified in his life experiences and writings, Hale’s motivation for activism was due in large part to the example of Adventist founders and pioneers; community awareness developed from personal experiences with racism and knowledge of injustices perpetrated against black Adventists; a liberationist interpretation of the Bible; and other intellectual and theological justifications for sociopolitical involvement.

5.

Ministerial Activism in the South Central Conference

The South Central Conference of Seventh-day Adventists is a regional conference made up of predominately black churches in Mississippi, Alabama, Tennessee, Kentucky, and the portion of Florida located west of the Apalachicola River. Unlike the previous chapter, which focused on the activism of laypersons, this one evaluates the civil rights activities of three ministers from the South Central Conference—Charles Dudley, Charles Joseph, and Earl Moore—and documents the fierce opposition they encountered from the Seventh-day Adventist Church because of their activism. Like the previous chapter, this one demonstrates that community awareness, liberationist interpretations of the Bible, as well as intellectual and theological justifications motivated these black Adventist ministers to participate in the civil rights movement. For the ministerial activists, these factors trumped certain conservative elements within Adventism that the denomination’s leaders used to discourage church involvement in sociopolitical activities. Born on February 1, 1927, in South Bend, Indiana, to Joseph and Julia Dudley, Charles Edward Dudley Sr. and grew up there. His mother, who was previously married, had an older son named Albert Gaynes Thompson. In 1929, Joseph Hermanus Laurence, a Seventh-day Adventist minister, conducted a successful camp-meeting in South Bend. Among the converts was Albert Gaynes Thompson, an African Methodist Episcopal minister. Around the time of his conversion to Adventism, Thompson was a student at Wilberforce University in Xenia, Ohio. Afterward, Thompson transferred to Oakwood Junior College in Huntsville, Alabama, where he studied to enter the Seventh-day Adventist ministry. On graduating, he became the pastor of the Beacon Light Seventh-day Adventist Church in Kansas City, Missouri. 121

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Thompson served in this capacity until his untimely death in 1938. However, before his passing, Thompson witnessed the baptism of his mother, Julia Dudley, and his younger half-brother, Charles Dudley, into the Berean Seventh-day Adventist Church of South Bend.1 In 1943 Charles Dudley began studies at Oakwood College, two years later he transferred to Emmanuel Missionary College (currently Andrews University), an Adventist institution in Berrien Springs, Michigan. Though it was closer to his family’s home in South Bend, racial segregation at the institution prompted Dudley to return to Oakwood College where he received his bachelor’s degree in 1947. Afterward, he entered the ministry. During his career, Dudley pastored black Adventist churches in Alabama, Mississippi, Tennessee, Louisiana, and Texas. For approximately thirty-two years he served as president of the South Central Conference of Seventh-day Adventists. Consequently, Dudley holds the distinction of working as an administrator longer than anyone in the history of the denomination. In recognition of his service, he received an honorary doctorate from Andrews University in 1992.2 Dudley’s sociopolitical activism began in 1947, when he took a busload of young people to an Adventist youth congress. On the way, they stopped in Centerville, Tennessee. Disembarking, they decided to order refreshments at an ice cream stand near the black waiting room. When the group reached the counter, the white attendant acted as if he did not want to serve them. Daniel Howard, a member of the group, spoke up and told everyone in the group to order something. Grudgingly, the waiter filled the counter with ice cream, milkshakes, and floats. Howard then told the group not to touch any of it and to simply leave it on the counter. Without paying a cent for the refreshments, they returned to the bus. Dudley recalls this as his first protest against discrimination. Prior to this incident, Dudley had the opportunity to observe the work of Theodore Roosevelt Mason Howard (1908–1976), a black Adventist physician and civil rights activist. Howard, born and raised in Murray, Kentucky, was an inquisitive child who loved learning. Consequently, he caught the attention of Will Mason, a prominent white physician and member of the Seventh-day Adventist Church. Mason paid for Howard to attend Oakwood Junior College. On completing his studies there, the physician sent him to the College of Medical Evangelists (currently known as Loma Linda University Medical Center), another Seventh-day Adventist institution in Loma Linda, California, for surgical training.3 After his graduation, Howard

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served as the medical superintendent at the Riverside Sanitarium in Nashville, Tennessee.4 Howard relocated to the state of Mississippi where in 1947, at Mound Bayou in Bolivar County, he established the Friendship Clinic to serve the medical needs of blacks living in the Delta region.5 In an effort to raise the sociopolitical consciousness of African Americans in the area, he founded the Regional Council of Negro Leadership (RCNL) in 1951.6 Among its members were Charles Evers (1922–); Medgar Evers (1925–1963), Mississippi NAACP field secretary; and Aaron Henry (1922–1997), state president of the Mississippi NAACP and leader of the Mississippi Freedom Democratic Party. This civil rights organization frequently held political rallies on the clinic grounds. Future civil rights leaders Fannie Lou Hamer (1917–1977) and Amzie Moore (1911–1982) were among those who attended these political functions.7 Notables who spoke at the rallies included William L. Dawson (1886–1970), an African American U.S. Congressman from Illinois; Archibald J. Carey Jr., a black minister and alderman of Chicago; Charles Diggs (1922–1998), an African American U.S. Congressman from Michigan; Thurgood Marshall, an attorney for the NAACP and future U.S. Supreme Court justice; and George W. Lee (1904–1955), a black Baptist minister and civil rights advocate from Belzoni, Mississippi.8 Moreover, among those who provided the headlining musical entertainment were Mahalia Jackson (1911–1972), a renowned gospel singer, and Charles Edward Dudley Sr. In 1955 Howard assisted in the prosecution of J. W. Milam and Roy Bryant, white men implicated in the murder of Emmett Till (1941–1955). Howard’s activities inevitably drew the ire of white locals, who threatened to kill him.9 These death threats caused him to flee to Chicago, where he began to speak out against injustice and discrimination within the Seventh-day Adventist Church. Following a series of personal conflicts with white Adventist officials, he left the denomination. Dudley maintains that Howard’s efforts to improve the lives of impoverished and disenfranchised blacks in Mississippi, as well as his outspokenness regarding racism in the Seventh-day Adventist Church influenced him tremendously. In retrospect, Howard’s activities cast a favorable impression on Dudley, inspiring him to participate in future efforts aimed at addressing the needs of the African American community. At the 1962 General Conference session in San Francisco, Dudley supported the Laymen’s Leadership Conference (LLC) in its protests and demonstrations against discriminatory practices within the Adventist Church. During the session, the group, under the direction of Frank W. Hale Jr. and

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his assistant Mylas Martin IV, protested the refusal of Mount Vernon Academy, an Adventist school, to admit black students. They also demanded that the General Conference select a black person to be among its ranking officials. As a result of this, delegates at the session elected Frank L. Peterson (1893–1969), an African American, to serve as vice-president of the General Conference of Seventh-day Adventists.10 As the chief administrator of the South Central Conference, Dudley had the opportunity to work with Leroy Leiske, who served as president of the Southern Union Conference of Seventh-day Adventists from 1964 to 1965. The Southern Union Conference consists of all local and regional conferences within the states of Mississippi, Alabama, Florida, Georgia, North and South Carolina, Tennessee, and Kentucky. Leiske, a white man, was strongly committed to desegregation. When he took office, Leiske told his white constituents that he intended to integrate everything in the Southern Union Conference. White powerbrokers in the audience who heard this promptly planned their strategy for his removal. Leiske integrated Southern Missionary College and authorized the hiring of nonwhite faculty. He also allowed the black presidents of the regional conferences to become voting members of the institution’s governing board. As a result, Charles Edward Dudley Sr. and Warren S. Banfield Jr., president of the South Atlantic Conference of Seventh-day Adventists, became the first African American voting members of the Southern Missionary College Board. After a mere thirteen months on the job, the Southern Union Conference removed Leiske from the presidency. In 1965 Dudley, in his capacity as president of the South Central Conference, received reports about an integration struggle involving Adventists in Huntsville, Alabama. That year, two black women from Oakwood College decided to visit the denomination’s white church in Huntsville. On Saturday they went to the Huntsville Central Seventh-day Adventist Church, but the white membership did not allow them to stay in the facility. On campus, the story of what occurred to the women spread. The following week, a group of Oakwood students attempted to enter the same church. A deacon met them at the door and said, “I have a gun in my pocket that has six bullets for six niggers!”11 The crass and vile manner in which the white membership of Huntsville Central treated their black co-religionists shocked Dudley. The report strengthened his resolve to combat racial discrimination and injustice in the Seventh-day Adventist Church. That same year, Dudley supported members of the South Central Conference who sued the denomination because many Adventist academies refused to admit black students. U.S. Attorney General Nicholas Katzenbach

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(1922–) and the Meridian, Mississippi, branch of the NAACP joined the suit. Katzenbach phoned the General Conference and expressed his dismay that eleven years after the Brown v. Board of Education ruling a supposedly Christian denomination, like the Seventh-day Adventist Church, still practiced racial segregation in its educational facilities. Then he bluntly asked the General Conference leaders if they planned on integrating their facilities. Following a lengthy silence on the other end, Katzenbach told them that they did not have to desegregate, but if that was their decision they would no longer enjoy certain forms of federal assistance like tax exemptions. A General Conference official told Katzenbach they needed time to confer with the Alabama-Mississippi Conference (currently the Gulf States Conference of Seventh-day Adventists).12 Katzenbach told them to expect a phone call from him in two weeks. In the interim, the denomination’s leaders apprised the Alabama-Mississippi Conference of the situation and the latter voted to integrate their schools. As scheduled, Attorney General Katzenbach called the General Conference and asked for a decision. They told him that the Alabama-Mississippi Conference had decided to desegregate its schools. Katzenbach added that it had better be for not just Alabama and Mississippi, but for all Adventist facilities, period. In its 1965 spring meeting, the General Conference Committee issued a resolution recommending the immediate desegregation of all denominational facilities and institutions. Later, Dudley told a group of white Adventist leaders not to expect any praise from him on the passage of the resolutions, because they let the federal government play the role of the Good Samaritan. He also told them that they (that is, the General Conference) did not do that on their own initiative, but they did it because the law said so. Dudley points to this lawsuit as one of the events that set in motion the gradual desegregation of the Seventh-day Adventist Church. In 1968 Dudley took part in the Poor People’s Campaign, the brainchild of Martin Luther King Jr. Following King’s assassination, Ralph Abernathy took up the idea and brought it to fruition. During this event, Dudley transported demonstrators from Mississippi, Tennessee, and Virginia to Washington, D.C. He also dispatched a medical van from the South Central Conference to provide healthcare for the occupants of Resurrection City, a shantytown setup on the National Mall. Dudley stayed in Resurrection City for six weeks. There he received an urgent message from the Southern Union Conference demanding his immediate presence at headquarters. On Dudley’s arrival, white Adventist officials asked him what he was doing in Washington, and why South Central’s medical van was in the

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nation’s capital. Before he could answer, the white leadership posed a rhetorical question that implied that the black conferences were no longer useful to the denomination. They then proceeded to accuse him of practicing the Social Gospel. Dudley replied that he was in Washington at Resurrection City because his people were there; that his people included Adventist and non-Adventist persons of color from the states comprising the South Central Conference; and that, as the president of the South Central Conference, he authorized the van with its medical team to take care of his people at Resurrection City. Shortly thereafter, Dudley returned to Washington and rendered aid to his people. In the aftermath of the Poor People’s Campaign, the federal government gave the South Central Conference $50,000 to research the condition of African Americans in five Mississippi counties. Dudley recalls the danger Adventists encountered in carrying out this mission. On one occasion, conference workers were canvassing a home when a group of whites came and surrounded it. One of the workers managed to get out of the house and phoned the office of John Cornelius Stennis (1901–1995), a U.S. senator representing Mississippi. Within half an hour, the crowd dispersed. During the 1970s Charles Dudley, in the company of his wife, Etta, traveled extensively in Africa. There he learned that white Adventist missionaries were in the practice of telling Africans that blacks in the United States wanted nothing to do with them. Consequently, some Africans developed a negative attitude toward black Americans. On one occasion Gibson Nkosi, a native African and Adventist minister, asked Dudley why African Americans refused to come to their land and share the gospel with them. Dudley told Nkosi that was not true, and explained that nearly all of the missionaries to Africa were white because the denomination’s leaders had set it up that way. However, with the emergence of African nationalism in the 1950s and 1960s, the leaders of African nations began requesting black missionaries. This caused the denomination to alter its discriminatory practices in granting missionary licenses, and to grant African Americans the opportunity to participate in Adventist missionary activities in Africa. Dudley assured Pastor Nkosi and other Africans he came into contact with that blacks in the United States do care about the welfare of their brothers and sisters in Africa. Like other activists, the sociopolitical activism that Dudley exhibited came mostly from a heightened community-oriented consciousness. As a child, he learned from his family to appreciate the value of freedom. They also taught him to stand up for his rights, and to be proud of his black heritage. Moreover, observing the sociopolitical activism of the former Adventist

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Theodore Roosevelt Mason Howard reinforced his community awareness. The following quote reflects Charles Dudley’s affinity for the African American community and his repugnance for racism. Dudley says: “My concept is that you ask the Lord to help you do your thing for your people. The white folk in the Adventist Church are worse than those outside the church. Racism still exists in the denomination, albeit in a subtle way.” This statement shows the prominent role community-oriented consciousness played in Dudley’s activism. Community awareness also fueled the actions of Charles Joseph, a black Adventist minister of the South Central Conference. Born on July 30, 1936, in Centerville, Alabama, Charles Joseph was the child of Walash and Avie Joseph. In 1941 Charles’ mother, Avie Joseph, converted to Adventism. Her son later joined the denomination. In 1957 Joseph earned a bachelor’s degree in chemistry and agriculture from Oakwood College. Following graduation, he began advanced studies in chemical engineering at the Illinois Institute of Technology in Chicago. Before long, he withdrew and returned to Oakwood to pursue a career in the ministry. In 1960 Joseph continued his theological training at Andrews University in Berrien Springs, Michigan. On obtaining his master’s of divinity degree, in 1962, he began working in Mississippi as a Seventh-day Adventist minister for the South Central Conference. In 1974, Joseph earned a doctorate of divinity from Vanderbilt University in Nashville, Tennessee. From 1977 to 1986 he served as president of the Lake Region Conference of Seventh-day Adventists, made up of predominately black churches in Illinois, Indiana, Michigan, Minnesota, and Wisconsin.13 As a result, African Americans hold most of the leadership positions within this administrative unit. Joseph’s sociopolitical activism began in the late 1950s. As a graduate student living in Chicago, he found employment as a bus driver in the city’s transit system. The transportation department’s lack of black administrators aggravated Joseph, so he had his views on the matter published in a local newspaper. In the article, he argued that a glass ceiling prevented minorities from attaining administrative positions within the municipal department of transportation. Consequently, Joseph called on the city to provide equal opportunity for both employment and promotion. While living in Mississippi during the 1960s, Joseph joined the National Urban League, the NAACP, the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC), and the Congress of Racial Equality (CORE). Of these groups, he developed a close working relationship with SNCC and CORE. Joseph helped organize some of their activities in Mississippi, including petitioning

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officials to desegregate public housing, campaigning for improved childcare facilities, advocating the Head Start Program, and agitating for black voting rights. He also contacted members of Congress to persuade them to support the civil rights initiatives of SNCC and CORE. In Mississippi, longstanding legislative requirements prevented blacks from exercising their right to vote.14 Charles Joseph and other civil rights activists in Greenwood frequently challenged these measures. Joseph recalls his registration attempt at the Leflore County Courthouse. The white clerk asked him to quote various sections of the state constitution from memory. Joseph, agitated from the registrar’s request, told him to recite the passages. Due to this affront and total disregard for Southern etiquette, the clerk had the court constable detain Joseph. On being released, he asked for a record of his arrest. The constable told Joseph that he was not arrested, but if he did not leave the premises immediately he would soon find himself in jail. Joseph defiantly retorted that he intended to stay there until they issued him an arrest record. Joseph wished to make his incarceration a matter of public record, so he could challenge the grounds for his detention in court. However, local authorities refrained from making a formal arrest. Joseph participated in several protest marches: the 1963 March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom; the 1965 Selma to Montgomery March; the 1966 March Against Fear; and the 1968 Poor People’s March. During the march from Selma to Montgomery, he recalls four Adventist students from Pacific Union College in Angwin, California, who drove to Selma to participate in the protest march. The four Bay Area college students were Paul Cobb, a black Adventist; Milton Hare, a descendant of white Adventist ministers and educators; Will Battle, a black Adventist; and Fernando Canales, a Hispanic Adventist who was originally from Nicaragua.15 Joseph also remembers meeting Charles Teel, a white Adventist and educator, who took part in the civil rights movement in Alabama.16 Nevertheless, the most memorable demonstration Joseph participated in occurred at the Leflore County Courthouse in Greenwood, Mississippi. At this protest, the police unleashed dogs on the demonstrators. In the commotion, Joseph rescued a Methodist minister from a German shepherd that severed the latter’s Achilles tendon. In 1964 college students descended on Mississippi for the Freedom Summer campaign—an initiative designed to increase black participation in civil government.17 Being a resident activist, Joseph briefed incoming students and civil rights leaders on the sociopolitical situation in Greenwood, as well as other parts of the Mississippi Delta. In gratitude for their assistance, he customarily invited them to have a meal at his home. On several occasions,

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Joseph entertained fellow CORE members Michael Schwerner (1939–1964) and James Earl Chaney (1943–1964), two of the three civil rights workers murdered in the summer of 1964. He also became acquainted with a host of civil rights activists, including Andrew Goodman (1943–1964), Stokely Carmichael (1941–1998), H. Rap Brown (1943–), John Lewis (1940–), A. Philip Randolph, Ralph Abernathy, Andrew Young (1932–), Fred Shuttlesworth (1922–), and Martin Luther King Jr. As pastor of the Greenwood Seventh-day Adventist Church, Charles Joseph allowed civil rights groups to use the facility for rallies and meetings. Consequently, the building became a target for criminal maleficence. Unable to rely on local law enforcement for protection, Joseph acquired the assistance of the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI). On Saturdays, agents set up a defensive perimeter around the church. Joseph’s consent in permitting civil rights activists to use an Adventist facility alarmed the denomination’s white leaders. Some demanded that he cease holding functions of a political nature in the church. Others warned that if he persisted, the government would eventually revoke his tax-exempt status. Nevertheless, Joseph’s employment with the South Central Conference, a black administrative unit, shielded him from direct accountability to white Adventist leaders. Therefore, he dismissed their commands and admonishments. Joseph’s civil rights activism prompted his opponents to make an attempt on his life. On his way from Greenwood to Itta Bena, Mississippi, a car pulled up alongside Joseph’s vehicle. As the automobile passed, an unknown assailant fired a shot into his car and sped away. The bullet shattered the driver’s side window and narrowly missed Joseph. When he returned home, Joseph received a phone call. The voice on the other end said, “We missed you nigger, but we gonna get you.” Joseph’s detractors initiated an intense campaign of harassment. During an Adventist camp-meeting, a crop duster dropped leaflets containing a plethora of vulgarities and threats directed at Joseph. As the frequency and number of death threats increased, he made arrangements for his wife to leave Mississippi until things calmed down. In 1965, Charles Joseph accepted a ministerial position in Jackson, Mississippi, and left Greenwood. Shortly thereafter, he notified his wife that it was safe for her to return. In Jackson, Joseph acquired a home next door to that of Charles Evers, the brother of slain civil rights activist Medgar Evers. Occasionally Joseph’s employment required him to leave Jackson to attend administrative meetings at its headquarters in Nashville, Tennessee. After arriving home from one of these gatherings, he learned that in his absence an unknown party of whites had driven by and proceeded to fire

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numerous gunshots at his home and that of Charles Evers. Amazingly, no one was hurt. Responding to the healthcare needs of Mississippi’s impoverished African American communities, Charles Joseph and Earl Moore, another black Adventist minister, organized a fund-raising trip called “The Mississippi Story.” The men visited black Seventh-day Adventist churches in Arizona and California, where they reported on the deplorable conditions existing within some Mississippi counties. With the donations they received, the ministers purchased a van and outfitted it with medical supplies. Black healthcare professionals assisted Joseph and Moore in using the vehicle to bring medical services to African Americans in underdeveloped sections of Mississippi. Furthermore, they employed it during protests and demonstrations, to provide medical treatment for civil rights activists. In 1967 Joseph and Moore took the ambulance to Detroit, Michigan, to help victims of the riots. The following year, despite objections from white Adventist officials, the South Central Conference utilized the van to provide care for participants in the Poor People’s March. On May 14, 1970, Charles Joseph took part in a demonstration at Mississippi’s Jackson State College (elevated to university status in 1974). He recalls standing with local activists and students behind a barricade on Lynch Street. Across from them were a group of city policemen, Mississippi state troopers, and National Guardsmen. According to Joseph, one of the troopers fired a shotgun. The blast struck high school student James Earl Green in the chest, killing him instantly. As the protestors fled, guardsmen and state troopers fired additional rounds, killing Phillip Lafayette Gibbs, a student at Jackson State. In all, the barrage killed two people and wounded twelve others.18 Joseph’s willingness to participate in the civil rights movement resulted from personal experiences with discrimination that raised his sociopolitical consciousness and strengthened his commitment to fight social, political, and economic injustice. Joseph corroborates this in the following statement: “I agreed that whatever could bring about change in terms of eliminating prejudices, as well as oppressive kinds of arrangements and institutions, should be done. I agreed that it needed to be done and that I could not stand along the sideline and watch it happen. I needed to get involved. So I did.” Moreover, Joseph’s community-oriented consciousness overrode the conservative factors that encroached upon Adventism with the passing of the denomination’s founders, which white Adventist leaders in the 1950s and 1960s used to dissuade political activity on the part of church members.

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Earl Moore, a black Adventist minister of the South Central Conference, was born February 9, 1925, in South Carolina, and grew up in a single-parent home. Later, Earl’s mother moved the family to Brooklyn, New York. In 1955 Moore received his bachelor’s degree from Oakwood College; the following year he earned a master’s degree in theology from Emmanuel Missionary College (currently Andrews University) in Michigan. After graduation, Moore started working as a minister for the Lake Region Conference of Seventh-day Adventists. Eight years later, the denomination transferred him to the South Central Conference, where he became the head of the community services department. In 1985 Moore earned a master’s degree in public health from Loma Linda University in Loma Linda, California.19 Moore’s introduction to Adventism occurred in 1945. After receiving an honorable discharge from the United States Army at the close of World War II, he returned home to Brooklyn. One Saturday morning Moore awoke to find his mother preparing to leave. He inquired as to where she was planning to go; she replied that she intended to go to church. Expressing his amazement, Moore asked her if she was really going to church on Saturday. She answered yes and left. Moore’s mother had always been a deeply religious person, so her going to church on a Saturday morning did not cause him immediate concern. Nevertheless, the following week it happened again. Moore reminded his mother that it was early Saturday morning and inquired as to where she intended to go. She told him that she was on her way to Sabbath School. Puzzled, Moore asked his mother to explain. His mother told him that she had become a Seventh-day Adventist. Fearful that his mother belonged to some type of cult, Moore demanded that she explain herself. His mother told him that she did not have time to go into the details at that moment because she did not want to be late for church. Moore woke up his brother and asked him if he knew that their mother was a Seventh-day Adventist. His brother replied that he knew. Moore asked him what they were going to do about it. Moore’s brother told him that they were not going to do anything, because their mother was a grown woman and she could do whatever she pleased. Later Moore informed his aunt and a Baptist minister, but the news did not appear to trouble them. In fact, the pastor told him that his mother was right and that Saturday was the Sabbath. The minister’s comments infuriated Moore. When his mother returned from church she explained her reasons for becoming a Seventh-day Adventist, but they failed to put Moore’s mind at ease. He searched the Bible for evidence to prove his mother wrong. In his research, Moore came to the conclusion that his mother’s new beliefs came

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from biblical principles. This conviction eventually led to his conversion and baptism into the Seventh-day Adventist Church in 1949. As a World War II veteran, Moore qualified for the GI Bill, which subsidized the educational expenses of returning soldiers. Though ambivalent about the prospect of attending college, he applied for the grant and received it. In a subsequent interview, an Army staff officer asked Moore what college he wanted to attend. Having heard of only one Adventist institution of higher learning, he indicated Oakwood College. The interviewer asked what he wanted to major in. As a new convert to Adventism, Moore, at the time, felt very spiritual, and he replied that he wanted to study for the ministry. Due to his uncertainty about attending college, Moore did not send the paperwork to Oakwood for processing; he placed the forms on his nightstand and forgot about them. When his mother decided to move to New Jersey, Moore opted to stay in New York. However, on weekends he drove to New Jersey and brought his mother back to New York City, to attend worship services there. One Saturday, without his assistance, she went to church in the borough of Brooklyn. Spotting his mother in the congregation, Moore asked why she did not call him to pick her up for church. His mother said that the Lord had impressed her to come and persuade him to attend Oakwood College. This disclosure startled Moore, because he had not told anyone about his interview and acceptance into the GI program. That evening, he made up his mind to study theology at Oakwood. Moore’s career as a minister and activist began in 1956. As pastor of an Adventist church in Ecorse, Michigan, he joined an ecumenical group that tackled an assortment of racial issues that included school desegregation and diversity in law enforcement. In 1964 Moore became the head of community services for the South Central Conference of Seventh-day Adventists. He soon recognized the need for medical care among African Americans living in rural Mississippi. Moore met with Charles Joseph, a ministerial colleague, and discussed plans for the creation of a mobile medical unit. To raise money for the project they visited black Adventist churches in various parts of the country, seeking financial contributions. They collected approximately $38,000 in donations. In 1966 Moore and Joseph purchased a van and equipped it for medical service. The ministers also acquired the assistance of volunteer doctors and nurses. In 1968 Moore took the medical unit to Memphis, Tennessee, to provide care for those involved in the garbage workers’ strike. After a while, he left and went to Jackson, Mississippi, to have repairs done on the van. While there, Moore stayed at the home of Charles

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Joseph, who—as noted earlier—lived next door to the brother of Medgar Evers. When word arrived of Martin Luther King Jr.’s assassination, Moore and Joseph went to Evers’s home. As the three conversed, the telephone rang and Charles Evers answered. It was Sen. Robert F. Kennedy (1925–1968), the former U.S. attorney general and brother of slain president John F. Kennedy (1917–1963). In an effort to curtail anger within the black community, Kennedy asked him to deliver a message on national radio. Evers told Kennedy that he would. Before hanging up, Moore overheard Evers say: “I hope that it’ll help, but this is a tragedy that America does not need.” Sensing that violence was imminent, Moore left for Memphis the next day to provide medical care for the injured. In May and June 1968, Moore volunteered his services to the Poor People’s Campaign. When the Poor People’s March came through Nashville, he contacted James Bevel (1936–), an SCLC organizer and associate of the SNCC. Moore told him he had a medical van for use. Bevel welcomed the assistance. Subsequently, Moore accompanied the demonstrators from Tennessee to the District of Columbia. There, he remained for six weeks providing medical services to the inhabitants of Resurrection City. In Washington, Earl Moore and Charles Dudley received a telegram from the Southern Union Conference demanding that they return to headquarters to explain their activities in the Poor People’s Campaign. They flew to Atlanta to meet with Adventist officials. The presidents of the white Adventist conferences informed them that some of the denomination’s white members, in viewing news reports, noticed South Central’s medical van at Resurrection City. The Southern Union Conference received several phone calls and letters inquiring as to why an Adventist medical van was at Resurrection City, and if the black brethren (that is, black Adventists) had lost their way. At that point, Dudley, president of the South Central Conference told the white officials that they had not lost their way, but found it. He went on to tell them that for a very long time black Adventists had not become involved in sociopolitical issues, because the whites acted as if anything the blacks did to alleviate poverty and discrimination was against church policy. As soon as Dudley concluded his remarks, Moore asked to speak. Referring to the question concerning why the South Central van and medical team was at the demonstration, Moore told them that they were there to represent their people—meaning the impoverished black people of Marks, Mississippi, and other places. He went on to accuse the white Adventists of discrimination against blacks. Moore contended that because white Adventists refused to help the black people, they as black Adventists must step in and address

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the needs of their own people. Next he told the white conference presidents that the medical van belonged to the South Central Conference; and therefore, it belonged to the black Adventist people. Moore went on to exclaim that he purchased the vehicle with money donated from black Adventists and there was no “white money” in that van. Finally, he reaffirmed his intent to continue using the medical van for the benefit of black people. After giving their explanations, Moore and Dudley returned to Washington and resumed their work assisting the people of Resurrection City. The combative nature of Moore’s response is consistent with the fact that he was a black veteran of World War II. As stated previously, when African American soldiers returned from the overseas conflict, they were determined to exercise all their rights and privileges as United States citizens. This militant determination, characterized as opposition to all forms of discrimination and injustice, pervaded many sectors of the black community. During the 1960s, Moore became a member of the NAACP and the SCLC. He also provided financial support to the National Urban League. While living in Nashville, Moore also participated in sit-ins organized through the SNCC. In 1983 he joined the Concerned Black Clergy of Atlanta. For ten years Moore served as vice-president of that organization, which involved itself in sociopolitical issues affecting the city’s African American community. In 1999 two black Adventists from the Atlanta area requested a meeting with Moore. The two told him that they sought his counsel concerning ongoing discriminatory practices at their place of employment, a local aircraft company. Befuddled from the disclosure, Moore replied that he understood that the aircraft company paid well and offered good benefits. The two employees told him that the company offered adequate compensation but that it discriminated in hiring, promotions, and in other ways. Moore suggested that they consult Joseph Lowery (1921–), a former president of the SCLC. Lowery heard the arguments of the disgruntled employees and advised them to sue for discrimination in the workplace; Moore assisted them in obtaining legal counsel. The Equal Employment Opportunity Commission found merit in their complaint, but the court threw the case out—leaving the plaintiffs with no recourse. Moore maintains that the presiding judge, before hearing the case, had already decided not to grant any more class action suits for workplace discrimination, and made sure that the case did not advance. Two years later Moore noticed an article in the newspaper announcing the hiring of an African American as vice-president of operations for the aircraft manufacturer. He also learned that the company had hired the executive to improve its relationship with the black community. Moore called the new

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administrator, offered his congratulations, and arranged a meeting between the executive and Atlanta’s black leaders. At the gathering, a representative to the Georgia legislature told the black executive that, the day before, a white supervisor had duct-taped the mouth of a black female employee. The state representative asked the administrator if he was aware of the incident; the vice-president indicated that he knew. The legislator then asked him what he intended to do about it; the administrator remarked that he intended to do nothing. The assembly was shocked and disheartened at his admission. Sensing their unease, the executive said, “I do not intend to do anything because I have already done it.” He said that he had fired the supervisor yesterday; that some of the ex-supervisor’s white colleagues approached him asking if their friend was dismissed because he taped a black woman’s mouth; and that his response was that their ex-colleague was terminated not because the victim was black, and that he would still have been fired if the victim were white. His response pleased the city’s black leaders. The Adventists who brought the original suit subsequently told Moore about the improvement in race relations at the company, particularly in the areas of hiring and promotions. Shortly thereafter, the vice-president asked Moore and Lowery to speak with the company’s chief executive officer about doing something for the two Adventist personnel. After their meeting with the CEO, the employees received compensation. As with many of his predecessors and contemporaries, Earl Moore’s humanitarian efforts and sociopolitical involvement came from a strong sense of community-oriented consciousness. This awareness in large part resulted from his status as a black veteran of World War II; his leadership of the community services department of the South Central Conference; his work among impoverished African Americans in rural Mississippi; and his contact with black Adventist parishioners who brought the needs of the community (that is, medical care, jobs, workplace equality, and political representation) to the forefront of his consciousness. Together these factors overruled the conservative philosophical and theological aspects that discouraged sociopolitical activism, which infiltrated Adventism with the passing of the church’s founders and pioneers.

6.

Ministerial Activism in the South Atlantic and General Conferences

The South Atlantic Conference of Seventh-day Adventists is a regional conference made up of predominately black churches in North Carolina, South Carolina, and Georgia. At one time it also included Florida. This chapter examines the civil rights activities of two ministers from the South Atlantic Conference, Warren S. Banfield Jr. and Franklin Hill II, as well as those of Edward Earl Cleveland (popularly known as E. E. Cleveland), a black Adventist evangelist and administrator with the General Conference of Seventhday Adventists. It documents the fierce opposition their activism encountered from certain elements within the church. Like the previous chapter, this one demonstrates that community awareness as well as intellectual and theological justifications motivated these black Adventist ministers to participate in the civil rights movement. For these ministerial activists, those factors trumped certain conservative factors within Adventism that some of the denomination’s white leaders used, in the 1950s and 1960s, to discourage church involvement in sociopolitical activity. Born on April 6, 1922, in Charleston, West Virginia, to black Adventist parents, Warren St. Claire Banfield Jr. grew up in the denomination. In 1943 he graduated from Oakwood Junior College. Banfield continued his studies at Pacific Union College in Angwin, California, where, in 1946, he earned a bachelor’s degree in theology. Three years later he pursued advanced studies at the Seventh-day Adventist Theological Seminary in Washington, D.C. Following his ordination in 1951, Banfield became a minister in the South Atlantic Conference; from 1956 to 1962 he pastored the Mount Calvary Seventh-day Adventist Church in Tampa, Florida. During his tenure, Banfield took time to address the economic and sociopolitical needs of the city’s black 136

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community. In 1957 and 1958 he served as president of the Tampa branch of the NAACP. Banfield also chaired the Industrial Relations Committee of the Tampa Urban League, which had the responsibility of finding employment opportunities for the city’s black residents. In recognition of his service to the African American community, he received the NAACP Frontiers of America Community Service Award in 1959 and 1963. In 1962 Banfield moved to Atlanta, where he served as president of the South Atlantic Conference till 1971. From 1971 to 1976 Banfield worked as the associate secretary of the Southern Union Conference of Seventh-day Adventists.1 Afterward, he helped establish the Human Relations Department for the North American Division—dedicated to solving problems of race, class, and gender within the Adventist Church. In Tampa, Banfield became involved in civil rights organizations. Soon his skills as a leader and administrator caught the attention of the black community. When the president of the Tampa NAACP resigned, Banfield assisted in the search for a replacement. Before the search ended, he left to attend an Adventist workers’ meeting in another city. In his absence, Tampa’s Black Interdenominational Ministerial Alliance recommended that Banfield become the next leader of the city’s NAACP. Members of the Tampa branch accepted the nomination and voted on it. When he returned, Banfield learned of his election to fill the presidential vacancy. Initially hesitant to take the job because of the ramifications it posed to his relationship with the Seventh-day Adventist Church, Banfield consulted some of his Adventist ministerial colleagues about the advisability of serving as president of an NAACP branch. They all cautioned him against it, arguing that accepting a position of leadership in the NAACP jeopardized the wellbeing of the church and the safety of its members. Furthermore, they told him that the denomination did not believe in getting involved in sociopolitical activity. Banfield found these reasons disagreeable and accepted the presidency.2 As a local NAACP official, Banfield kept the city’s political power structure informed of the needs of the black community. In addition, he set the city’s civil rights agenda, organized local demonstrations, raised funds, and planned community meetings. Banfield also brought in guest speakers to energize the organization. He recalls the time Adam Clayton Powell Jr. (1908–1972), a black U.S. congressman and pastor of Harlem’s Abyssinian Baptist Church, accepted his invitation to speak. Powell spoke on nearly all the important issues confronting blacks in North America. He also talked at length about his civil rights experiences in New York City. Powell stressed the importance of action, challenging his audience not to be complacent

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or submissive. Banfield maintains that Powell gave them strategies and techniques to get out of the sociopolitical quagmire in which they found themselves. During Banfield’s tenure as president of the Tampa NAACP, a number of white Adventists took exception to his activities. They initiated a letterwriting campaign to the denomination’s headquarters in Silver Spring, Maryland, charging that Banfield’s activism stigmatized the reputation of the Seventh-day Adventist Church, which made it difficult to evangelize. Reuben Figuhr, president of the General Conference, attached a message to the letters and forwarded them to John Wagner Sr., president of the South Atlantic Conference. The communication instructed Wagner to “Go down there and see what you can do with that young man Banfield.” After reading the letters, Wagner sent them to Banfield with a note that read: “Keep up the good work!” Wagner’s show of support left an indelible impression. Banfield maintains that the security the black conferences provided allowed him to remain in the ministry. Banfield contends that other denominations moved ahead so rapidly to bring down racial barriers that Adventists began to stick out like a sore thumb.3 He also points out that conservatives in the denomination made it difficult to make changes as quickly as it needed. When Banfield took the helm of the South Atlantic Conference, he became privy to the sentiments of high-ranking Adventist officials. When Southern Missionary College (currently Southern Adventist University) began hiring black faculty, a white administrator told him, “You know we wouldn’t have voluntarily integrated this college. The Holy Ghost didn’t make us do this. We were not responding to the Holy Spirit. We were responding to political pressure. If the government wouldn’t have threatened to cut off our accreditation, or funding, we would have never integrated this school as soon as we did.”4 In the 1970s Banfield suggested that the North American Division create a department to address social problems within the denomination. Adventist officials agreed, and the Office of Human Relations for the North American Division came into being, with Banfield as its first director. Under his guidance the office put forward a sixteen-point plan to address matters of race within the church.5 To increase interracial dialogue, the plan proposed exchanging pulpits (that is, black ministers preaching in white churches and vice versa). It also promoted opportunities for minority leadership in church administration, particularly at the union conference level. Furthermore, it aimed to break down barriers that prevented nonwhites from attending Adventist schools. Subsequently, employment opportunities for African

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Americans and Hispanics within the denomination’s educational system gradually increased, and the practice of separating students based on ethnicity became less common.6 As the head of human relations for the North American Division, Banfield, in the late 1970s, sat on the committee that formulated the denomination’s doctrinal manifesto titled Seventh-day Adventists Believe: A Biblical Exposition of 27 Fundamental Doctrines, which the General Conference approved in 1980. During their deliberations, Banfield pointed out that the book did not contain a statement dealing with Christian brotherhood or race relations. He argued for the inclusion of a doctrine based on the Apostle Paul’s statements advocating unity and equality among Christians, regardless of ethnicity or gender. The result was doctrinal point number thirteen, “Unity in the Body of Christ.” This Seventh-day Adventist doctrine, adopted in 1980, states: “In Christ we are a new creation; distinctions of race, culture, learning, and nationality . . . must not be divisive among us. We are all equal in Christ, who by one Spirit has bonded us into one fellowship with Him and with one another; we are to serve and be served without partiality or reservation.”7 Throughout the 1970s, black Adventists continued to express dismay at the lack of minority representation in the higher ranks of the church.8 African American Adventist leaders like E. E. Cleveland and Calvin Rock pressed for the creation of black-controlled union conferences within the denomination’s administrative system. Banfield sided with those who opposed the formation of black, or regional, union conferences. His stance came from the belief that the civil rights movement was a fight for integration. He viewed the establishment of black union conferences as a continuation of “separate but unequal,” and a departure from the vision of Martin Luther King Jr. Furthermore, he reasoned that the plentitude of existing union conferences would inevitably provide job opportunities for blacks as the ethnic diversity of the North American Division increased. In retrospect, Banfield thinks that the union conference level was the ideal place for black Adventists to learn how to work with other groups. Banfield’s commitment to integration and social justice came in part from his personal experiences with racism. When visiting white Adventist churches, he had to sit on the back row or in the balcony.9 At the close of one evangelistic series, Banfield had asked one of the denomination’s white churches if he could use their baptistery to baptize African American converts; The church had refused because they did not want blacks to defile their place of worship. Some of the African American churches Banfield

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ministered to did not have schools of their own, so when he sent the children to white Adventist academies, the administrators turned them away.10 Banfield remembers attending segregated meetings of the Southern Union Conference where African American pastors were not allowed to stay at the same hotels as white ministers.11 Later, Banfield learned that the hotels did not stipulate this policy; a manager from one of the establishments told him that the denomination had requested that blacks stay at a separate facility. These and other encounters with discrimination, as well as the detrimental impact of racism on the psyche of his parishioners, are what motivated Banfield to become a civil rights activist. Similar community awareness sparked the sociopolitical consciousness of Franklin Hill II, a black Adventist minister with the South Atlantic Conference. Born March 1, 1923, in Chattanooga, Tennessee, to Franklin and Flora Lee Hill, Franklin Hill II grew up in the city of his birth. In 1929 his mother converted to Adventism, followed later by her son. From 1942 to 1946 Hill studied at Oakwood College, where he received a bachelor’s degree in theology. On graduating, he became a minister in the South Atlantic Conference. During his career, Hill pastored black Adventist churches in Florida, North Carolina, Georgia, Texas, Tennessee, and Wisconsin.12 In 1946 Hill joined the Black Interdenominational Ministerial Alliance of St. Augustine, Florida. Apart from providing a forum for the dissemination of ministerial ethics, the organization worked to unite the African American community behind programs designed to correct such social and political problems as police brutality, segregated schools, and the disenfranchisement of blacks. At its meetings, the Alliance provided opportunities for political candidates to speak on issues relevant to African Americans. The group used its revered status in the African American community, as well as political leverage (that is, its ability to organize and implement boycotts, protests, and demonstrations), to persuade the city’s white politicians to keep promises made to black residents. In the early 1960s Hill became the pastor of the First Seventh-day Adventist Church of Savannah, Georgia. When he joined that city’s Black Interdenominational Ministerial Alliance, his sociopolitical involvement intensified. Hill and his family took part in protest marches and sit-ins. Over the objection of white Adventist leaders, he gave permission for civil rights groups to hold meetings at his church. In 1963 Hill allowed Martin Luther King Jr. to conduct a civil rights rally at the church. His decision is notable, because other denominations—fearing retaliation—refused to let King use their facilities for the mass meeting.

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Hill became a member of the Savannah branch of the NAACP. Soon he and Hosea Williams (1926–2000) became good friends. Williams, an organizer for the SCLC and vice-president of the Savannah NAACP, placed voter registration and citizenship education at the top of his civil rights agenda.13 He also adopted King’s strategy of nonviolent direct action; Hosea organized the sit-ins and protest marches in which Hill participated.14 On joining the SCLC staff in 1963, Williams facilitated the arrangement for King to speak at the First Seventh-day Adventist Church in Savannah, Georgia, where his friend served as pastor. According to Hill, the denomination’s conservative views discouraged other black Adventists in Savannah from taking part in the civil rights movement. He recalls meetings in which the white leadership of the Adventist Church warned the black ministers not to become involved in political affairs. As a result, Hill and other socially progressive Adventists felt isolated. Hill’s activism came from a well-developed community-oriented consciousness nurtured in groups like the Black Interdenominational Ministerial Alliance and the NAACP. These organizations promoted sociopolitical awareness. For Hill, community-based programs took precedence over the conservative ideological and theological aspects guiding modern Adventism that some white Adventist leaders, in the 1950s and 1960s, used to discouraged political activity. Likewise, community consciousness helped motivate E. E. Cleveland’s social activism. Born March 11, 1921, in Huntsville, Alabama, to black Adventists William and Eunice Cleveland, Edward Earl Cleveland grew up in the denomination. In 1939 he began studies at Oakwood Junior College in Huntsville. Two years later, Cleveland graduated and entered the ministry, specializing in evangelistic outreach. In 1950 the Southern Union Conference selected him to join its department of evangelism. Four years later Cleveland became the first African American appointed to an office in the General Conference of Seventh-day Adventists, where he worked for twenty-three years as the associate director of the General Conference Ministerial Association. In addition to his administrative duties, Cleveland taught religion at Oakwood College, where he established a campus chapter of the NAACP.15 Cleveland is the recipient of various accolades. In 1989 Harold Guy Hunt (1933–), governor of Alabama, cited him as the state’s most distinguished black clergyman.16 Four years later, Morehouse College in Atlanta inducted Cleveland into its prestigious Martin Luther King Jr. Board of Preachers.17 In 2001 Robert E. Cramer Jr. (1947–), a U.S. congressman from Alabama, paid tribute to him in the House of Representatives.18

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Early in life, Cleveland’s parents instilled in him the importance of community. William Cleveland, a veteran of World War I, took his son to meetings of the Negro Voters’ League at which Edward heard speeches advocating black participation in the political process.19 During the Great Depression, his father gathered perishable foodstuffs from grocery stores and distributed them in African American neighborhoods. William Cleveland’s action alone prevented the starvation of several black persons in Huntsville. The Clevelands also opened their home to the destitute and to stranded black travelers. The family became known for their charity and hospitality.20 It is important to remember that, during the Great Depression, scores of unemployed, penniless blacks and whites traveled across the country desperately searching for jobs. In the Deep South and in other parts of the country, African Americans were not allowed to patronize motels, and frequently did not have money to pay for lodging. Many stranded African American travelers depended on the kindness of local blacks to provide them with food and shelter. William Cleveland also instructed his children not to ride segregated buses and streetcars. Edward and his siblings walked a fifteen-mile round trip to and from school.21 Cleveland felt that it was undignified for him or his family to subject themselves to racial discrimination. Determined to fight— figuratively—for the liberty to exercise his rights and privileges as a United States citizen, he undoubtedly passed this militancy on to his children, which helped them develop a keen community-oriented consciousness. When E. E. Cleveland entered the ministry, his involvement in social reform increased. In 1943 he attended an Adventist workers’ meeting in Charlotte, North Carolina. At the gathering, the white pastors sat on one side of the church and the blacks on the other. When the time came for them to deliver reports on their local congregations, only the white ministers spoke. This situation perplexed Cleveland, so he made up his mind to do something about it. At the next meeting, he sat with the whites and delivered a report. His action shocked the assembly.22 The following year, a number of black Seventh-day Adventists— across the country—called for the immediate integration of the denomination’s facilities. This demand arose in large part as a result of an event that occurred during the winter of 1943–44. Lucille Byard, a devout black member of the Linden Boulevard Seventh-day Adventist Church in the Springfield Gardens section of the borough of Queens in New York City, suddenly became ill. She asked her husband, John Byard, a very fair-skinned African American Adventist who was often mistaken for white, to take her to the Washington Sanitarium, a Seventh-day Adventist medical facility located

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in Takoma Park, Maryland. Lucille believed that Adventist institutions were the best, so she wanted to go to a healthcare facility operated through the denomination. Her husband phoned the institution and made all the necessary arrangements for Lucy’s care. The couple took a train from New York to Washington, and a taxi took them directly to the sanitarium (currently Washington Adventist Hospital). When the couple entered the medical facility, the staff immediately recognized that the expected patient was black. A white hospital administrator simultaneously pulled John Byard aside and ordered the staff to put the sick woman on a gurney and roll her out into the hallway next to the exit. Puzzled, John Byard inquired if there was a problem. The administrator replied that there certainly was: the Washington Sanitarium was strictly for whites and would not treat his colored wife. Mr. Byard explained that he and his wife were Adventists, and that he called beforehand to make all the arrangements. The manager was unmoved. Out of frustration and anger John raised his voice, saying that there was no good reason for the sanitarium not to admit his wife. With a defiant air, the administrator told John to take Lucille to the Freedman’s Hospital at Howard University, which catered to colored people. Mr. Byard told the manager that his wife was gravely ill and tired from a day of traveling. Being that it was now the dead of winter, he explained that a trip back to the District of Columbia, the location of Freedman’s Hospital, could possibly worsen his wife’s condition. Despite his pleas and recriminations, the Adventist administrator refused to yield his position of refusing to admit Lucille. Reluctantly, Mr. Byard phoned Freedman’s Hospital and asked if they had room for another patient. On the other end was J. Mark Cox, a black Adventist physician interning at Freedman’s Hospital. Byard explained to him the entire situation. Cox was delighted to help, and he assured Byard that the hospital had adequate accommodations for his wife. After speaking with Cox, John Byard phoned the cab company and made arrangements for a taxi to pick up him and his wife and transport them to the Freedman’s Hospital situated on the corner of Fifth and “W” Streets NW. While all this was taking place, Lucille was out of sight, not far from the exit where the numbing breeze of a winter’s night occasionally rushed down the hallway with the intermittent opening and closing of the facility’s massive front double doors. No one on the sanitarium staff thought or cared to provide Mrs. Byard with a comfortable blanket. Hours passed before John returned to his wife’s side. After a while, the taxi arrived. Byard and the driver helped Lucille into the backseat of the car as fast as they could, and then

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they took off for Freedman’s. John Byard knew that his wife’s condition was not improving, so he refrained from explaining to her why she had not been admitted. On arrival at Freedman’s Hospital, Cox greeted the pair and the hospital staff assisted Lucille out of the bitter cold and up to her room. Cox helped John with the paperwork involved in checking his wife into the hospital. The physicians started treating Lucille, but to their dismay her condition deteriorated rapidly. Soon, they realized that Mrs. Byard had pneumonia. Within a few days she was dead. Mr. Byard had his wife’s body sent to New York City for the funeral and subsequent burial. News of Lucille Byard’s passing and the events surrounding her death caused a gut-wrenching, visceral reaction in black Adventists that no words of sympathy or palliative medicines could assuage. Unbeknown to the denomination’s whites, Mrs. Byard was a fixture in the black Adventist community of New York City. In fact, at the turn of the twentieth century, she had been one of the persons responsible for introducing Adventism to blacks living in the New York metropolitan area. Anticipating a crowd of mourners, funeral organizers decided to hold the service at Harlem’s Ephesus Seventh-day Adventist Church. No less than thirteen ministers eulogized her in front of an audience of hundreds. After the burial, black Adventists across the country united in their demand for the immediate desegregation of all church facilities and institutions. The denomination’s black leadership organized a committee for the Advancement of the Worldwide Work among Colored Seventh-day Adventists, which drew up a list of demands and submitted it to the General Conference. Adventist officials took up the matter at the General Conference Spring Meeting, in April 1944 in Chicago. In expectation, Joseph T. Dodson, an African American from the Ephesus Seventh-day Adventist Church in Washington, and Addison V. Pinkney, a black Adventist and director of the Philadelphia NAACP, produced and distributed an agenda for participants, titled “Shall the Four Freedoms Function Among Seventh-day Adventists?” James Lamar McElhany (1880–1959), president of the General Conference from 1936 to 1950, read the demands of the committee for the Advancement of the Worldwide Work among Colored Seventh-day Adventists, as well as Pinkney and Dodson’s agenda, which called for the complete and immediate integration of the church. In McElhany’s address to the General Conference Committee, he provided the denomination’s white leaders with two choices: integration, or the creation of black regional conferences—allowing African Americans to exercise more control over their affairs. Unable to stomach the idea of a fully integrated Church, Jay J. Nethery, president of the Lake Union

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Conference, persuaded most of his white colleagues to vote for the establishment of semi-independent regional conferences for blacks. On April 10 the measure passed, and the black regional conferences came into being. Initially, the denomination organized seven regional conferences in the United States. First was the Lake Region Conference, organized in 1945 and headquartered in Chicago, with J. Gershom Dasent as president and Fred N. Crowe as secretary-treasurer. Its territory included Illinois, Indiana, Michigan, and Wisconsin. The Northeastern Conference was also organized in 1945, headquartered in New York, with Louis H. Bland as president and O. L. Irons as secretary-treasurer. Its territory included Connecticut, Maine, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, New York, Rhode Island, and Vermont. Four more conferences were organized over the course of 1946: the Allegheny Conference (the District of Columbia, Virginia, West Virginia, Maryland, Delaware, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, and Ohio), headquartered in Pottstown, Pennsylvania, with John H. Wagner, Sr. as president and Frank L. Bland as secretary-treasurer; the South Atlantic Conference (North and South Carolina, Georgia, and Florida east of the Apalachicola River), headquartered in Atlanta, with Harold D. Singleton as president and L. S. Follette as secretary-treasurer; the South Central Conference (Mississippi, Alabama, Kentucky, Tennessee, and Florida west of the Apalachicola), headquartered in Nashville, with Herman R. Murphy as president and Vongerthe Lindsay as secretary-treasurer; and the Southwest Region Conference (Arkansas, Texas, Oklahoma, Louisiana, and New Mexico), headquartered in Dallas, with Walter W. Fordham as president and Vincent L. Roberts as secretary-treasurer. The Central States Conference was organized in 1952 in Kansas City, Missouri, with Thomas Milton Rowe as president and James Jones as secretarytreasurer. Its territory included Colorado, Iowa, Kansas, Minnesota, Missouri, Nebraska, North Dakota, South Dakota, and Wyoming. Although the denomination refused to integrate, some African American Adventists (such as Charles E. Dudley Sr. and E. E. Cleveland) found contentment in the concept of black regional conferences. With the creation of these administrative units, they had a voice in how the denomination operated in their communities. It also provided them with new job opportunities.23 For the first time, black Adventists could aspire to be conference presidents, treasurers, and secretaries. Shortly after becoming an official of the Southern Union Conference, Cleveland took part in a committee meeting on the campus of Southern Missionary College in Collegedale, Tennessee. He recalls being one of only seven blacks in attendance. Around noon, V. G. Anderson, president of the

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Southern Union, announced that it was time for everyone to line up and make their way to the cafeteria. Cleveland got in line. Looking around, he noticed that the other African Americans remained seated. As a new addition to the committee, Cleveland did not know that blacks were not allowed in the dining hall. His white colleagues began whispering. Cleveland’s action caught the attention of the president, who approached with a stern expression on his face. Cleveland, now fully aware of the issue, decided not to move. Face to face, the two stared at each other without saying a word. At last, Anderson ordered the other blacks to get in line. This marked the first time African Americans dined in the cafeteria at Southern Missionary College.24 When Cleveland joined the administrative staff of the General Conference in 1954, he received an invitation to speak at a workers’ meeting held at the Florida Hospital, an Adventist healthcare facility in Orlando, Florida. Delighted at the prospect of conducting a three-day seminar, he accepted. In the company of his wife and children, Cleveland drove from Washington to Orlando. After checking his family into a motel, he proceeded to the hospital auditorium. Three hours into his talk, Cleveland paused and told the audience he needed to cut the lecture short in order to get his family and return to have dinner there in the hospital cafeteria. The president of the Florida Conference of Seventh-day Adventists sprang to his feet and left the room. He did not re-enter until Cleveland concluded his presentation. The conference president pulled Cleveland aside and told Earl there was a problem: the hospital’s manager threatened to shut down the cafeteria if Cleveland and his family came there to eat. The president, although embarrassed, asked him to reconsider until he could work something out. He promised to desegregate the entire facility and bring in a new manager committed to integration, but the change could not take place until the following day. Desperate to keep the situation under wraps, the president implored him to eat someplace else, pending implementation of the new policy. Cleveland, now fully cognizant of the dilemma, took the president at his word and they shook hands. The next day, the Florida Conference of Seventh-day Adventists fired the hospital’s administrator and instituted a program to integrate the entire facility.25 In 1955 Cleveland went to East Africa to conduct an intensive evangelistic effort. The General Conference noticed that its Adventist congregations in East Africa consisted mainly of impoverished persons from the sparsely populated interior. Conversely, Anglican and Roman Catholic churches in the region had a considerable number of wealthy, educated Africans in their diocese. To increase the denomination’s urban membership, the General Conference dispatched one of its most talented African American evangelists

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to Kampala, Uganda. There, Cleveland conducted an evangelistic series that attracted some well-to-do Africans. Eventually, the East Africa Division of Seventh-day Adventists learned that Cleveland was in the process of preparing thirty-five black Africans for baptism.26 This development worried the division’s white administrators, because they felt that black Africans lacked the mental sophistication to grasp the finer points of the denomination’s theology. The president of the East Africa Division flew to Kampala to discuss the situation with Cleveland. The official told him that he had to deliver some disappointing news: the denomination’s African policy was that black Africans had to undergo a series of long and intensive tutorials prior to baptism and acceptance into the Adventist Church. To make sure Earl understood, the white official asked him a series of questions: Do you understand that this is the East African Division policy? Do you understand that under this policy you cannot baptize those black Africans? Cleveland told the division’s chief administrator that he understood. Satisfied, the president got back on the plane and left. As soon as he was gone, one of the student missionaries asked Cleveland if he still intended to baptize the people. He replied: “Did the sun rise this morning?” Cleveland’s response delighted the missionary. The number of Seventh-day Adventists in Uganda grew, and the revenue collected from the church in Kampala steadily increased. The success of Cleveland’s missionary effort in Uganda prompted the East Africa Division to change its baptismal policy. In addition to holding a visiting professorship at Oakwood College in Huntsville, E. E. Cleveland headed the denomination’s Department of Church Missions, which oversaw the student missionary program. Consequently, from time to time he dealt with racial problems. Once, a Japanese Adventist official, on the recommendation of a white counterpart, requested that the denomination stop sending black student missionaries to Japan. When informed of the situation, Cleveland protested. As a result, the General Conference issued a memorandum to its Asian affiliates, threatening to discontinue the student missionary program to Asia unless they accepted all student missionaries regardless of race. The Japanese promptly withdrew their objection to black missionaries. Another case involved the white director of a Seventh-day Adventist mission in Nepal, who rejected the application of an African American student wanting to do missionary work in that country. In the rejection letter, the director wrote that the Nepalese shunned blacks because they were incompatible with their culture. After a thorough investigation, Cleveland learned that the government of Nepal did not advocate, condone, or practice

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such a policy. He sent a letter to the Southern Asia Division calling for the expulsion of the mission director; they complied.27 Following the assassination of Martin Luther King Jr. on April 4, 1968, violence erupted in many cities across the United States. Arriving in Washington, Cleveland found it ablaze. Upon learning that there were food shortages, Cleveland (with the assistance of John Trusty, a black Adventist) turned the city’s First Seventh-day Adventist Church into a food distribution center, where volunteers under their direction fed thousands of destitute persons during the crisis.28 Cleveland took part in the Poor People’s Campaign—in fact, he sat on the committee responsible for the planning of Resurrection City.29 The chairperson asked Cleveland to assume responsibility for feeding the demonstrators, but because his employment with the General Conference required him to travel frequently, he declined. However, he promised to provide the committee with $15,000 to help cover food expenses, and also pledged to provide blankets and cots. After the meeting, Cleveland scheduled an appointment with Robert H. Pierson (1911–1989), president of the General Conference from 1966 to 1979, to ask for the money and supplies.30 Pierson granted his request and gave him authorization to use one of the denomination’s eighteen-wheeler trucks to transport the cots and blankets. Through Cleveland’s assistance the residents of Resurrection City received the food and supplies they needed.31 At the close of the Poor People’s Campaign, Cleveland and Walter W. Fordham, a black Adventist minister and administrator, arranged to have the leftover food distributed in impoverished areas of the South, with the Seventh-day Adventist Church paying the bill.32 In the 1970s, Cleveland and Calvin Rock spearheaded a movement for the creation of black regional union conferences within the Seventh-day Adventist Church.33 This corresponded with the emergence of the Black Power movement in the late 1960s and early 1970s. Black Power advocates emphasized the need for blacks to consolidate their political and economic resources to obtain power, and thereby free themselves from white oppression.34They encouraged African Americans to take control of their financial resources, select their own leaders, organize their own programs, and establish their own institutions. Cleveland believed that black Adventists likewise needed more control over the spending of their monetary contributions. Establishment of these regional union conferences would end the white monopoly on financial management, thus releasing funds for programs benefiting the African American community.35 Although the movement did not succeed in creating these black union conferences, it provoked change

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within the existing administrative units; gradually, African Americans rose to authoritative positions in the denomination’s hierarchy.36 Nevertheless, Cleveland maintains that this development resulted from the movement for separate union conferences.37 In other words, the prospect of loosing power at the union conference level, through the creation of black union conferences, forced the denomination’s white leaders to commence a program of gradual integration within the existing administrative structure. In the 1980s, Cleveland served on the human relations committee of the General Conference.38 Subsequently, he managed to persuade the denomination to reexamine the issue of mixed-race marriages. In Canada, a white Adventist minister agreed to officiate at the wedding of a black woman to a white man. However, at the last moment, he reneged. The incident, reported in local papers, caused an uproar. Cleveland obtained the article and showed it to Neal Wilson Jr. (1920–), president of the General Conference from 1979 to 1990. Wilson called a meeting of the committee; the group voted to revoke the credentials of any minister refusing to marry Adventist couples composed of persons from different races.

Conclusion

As shown in this study, a number of black Seventh-day Adventists made significant contributions to the civil rights movement. The principal motivators behind their sociopolitical activism included community awareness (also known as community-oriented consciousness); the example of Adventist founders and pioneers; liberationist interpretations of the Bible; as well as intellectual and theological justifications. Nevertheless, the fact is that most Adventists, regardless of ethnicity, refused to participate in civil rights politics. The denomination’s nonparticipatory stance on politics came from certain factors within Adventism that became more prominent with the passing of its founders and pioneers. These include premillennialism, the belief that the Second Coming of Christ takes place before the millennium; apocalyptic historical eschatology, the doctrine dealing with the Second Coming of Christ and the end of the world; sectarian ecclesiology, the notion that Christians are not to conform to the secular world; the radical deterministic doctrine of God, the supposition that God takes a proactive role in human affairs; the free-will image of man (also known as occasionalism), credence in the existence of a divine plan for humanity; evangelism, the idea that the sole purpose of the church is to disseminate the gospel for the salvation of souls; individualism, championing the primacy of the individual over collective society; pragmatism and church interest, the processes of decisionmaking in which one seeks to advance his or her own cause; conservatism, an ideological point of view that promotes maintaining the status quo; and Christian fundamentalism, faith in the infallibility of the Bible and its relevancy in modern society. These factors, affiliated with Adventism, conflicted with popular views within the civil rights movement such as the Social Gospel, the belief that Christians can establish the Kingdom of God on Earth through their efforts 150

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to eliminate suffering and oppression; ecumenism, the movement to promote cooperation and better understanding among different religious groups or denominations; liberation theology, a school of thought that interprets the gospel as a call to free people from political, social, and economic oppression; and Gandhi’s experimental theology, a belief system aimed at obtaining absolute truth and self-purification, which drew heavily on Eastern religions like Hinduism and Buddhism. Adventist leaders emphasized these differences to oppose the denomination’s entry into the civil rights movement. Ellen G. White, a principal co-founder of the Seventh-day Adventist Church, advocated racial equality and reparations for African Americans. However, at the turn of the last century, with the rise of Jim Crow segregation and increased violence toward blacks, she modified her policy on race relations, counseling Adventist missionaries in the South to work among their own ethnic groups. Moreover, she advocated and supported the construction of separate schools and worship facilities for blacks. White gave this advice in the hope of avoiding violent confrontations, and preserving the safety and wellbeing of both white and black Adventists. In many ways, White’s strategy in dealing with racial segregation mirrors that of Katharine Drexel, a Catholic known for advocating black rights. Both supported the establishment of black educational facilities, which Southern whites tolerated more than other institutions for the improvement of African Americans; both contributed to the construction of black churches, which allowed African Americans to exercise their right to worship in a dignified manner, free of harassment. In summary, White and Drexel instituted these policies to avoid conflicts in the racially charged atmosphere of the American South. The comparison of Drexel and White shows that the latter held progressive views on race relations for her time. The difference between Seventh-day Adventist and Roman Catholic approaches to sociopolitical issues lies in the fact that the former is a product of American society and culture. Accordingly, it adopted the American ideal of the separation of church and state. As a result, Adventists have always felt uneasy when addressing political problems. In contrast, as a centralized conglomerate of ecclesiastical and state power, the Roman Catholic Church, with its seat in the nation-state of Vatican City, has no qualms in voicing its opinion on sociopolitical matters. For this reason Catholicism was, in the twentieth century, frequently on the forefront of movements involving social and ethical problems with political consequences. Community awareness played a vital role in motivating black Adventist participation in civil rights politics. Some gained this community-oriented

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consciousness through personal experiences with racism. For instance, a policy of segregation at Emmanuel Missionary College, an Adventist institution, prevented Alfonzo Greene Sr. and his family from moving into the school’s whites-only trailer park.1 In Alabama, white members of the Huntsville Central Seventh-day Adventist Church refused to allow Greene and a group of black college students to worship in their facility.2 When Frank Hale Jr. inquired about Adelphian Academy, an Adventist boarding school, the institution’s administrator told him that they had a quota that restricted the number of black students admitted into the institution.3 Like Greene, Charles E. Dudley Sr. encountered segregation as a student at Emmanuel Missionary College (currently Andrews University), an Adventist institution. The experience was so disconcerting that he returned to Oakwood College, the denomination’s only black institution of higher learning.4 On two separate occasions Charles Joseph’s white adversaries tried to kill him, because he campaigned for the right of blacks to exercise their civil liberties.5 When Warren S. Banfield Jr. visited white Adventist churches in the 1950s and 1960s, he had to sit on the back row or in a balcony reserved for blacks. Once, Banfield asked a white Adventist church if he could use their baptistery to baptize prospective converts from the African American community; the church refused because they did not want blacks to defile their sanctuary. At ministerial conferences, the denomination’s leaders made arrangements with hotel managers to prohibit Banfield and other African American ministers from residing at the same establishments as their white counterparts.6 Overall, personal encounters with racism served to increase the community awareness of these black Adventists, which in turn motivated their activism. Events during the interwar years also contributed to community-oriented consciousness among black Adventists. These included President Woodrow Wilson’s argument, during and after the First World War, supporting the self-determination of subject peoples; Marcus Garvey’s call, in the early 1920s, for blacks to achieve financial and political independence; A. Philip Randolph’s establishment of the Brotherhood of Sleeping Car Porters and Maids in 1925—signifying the desire of blacks to take control of their livelihoods through collective bargaining; the promotion of African American assertiveness and pride in association with the Harlem Renaissance of the 1920s; the General Conference’s denial of a request for the creation of black Adventist conferences in 1929; James Humphrey’s Utopia Health Benevolent Association and his summary dismissal from church employment, as well as the expulsion of the entire First Harlem Seventh-day Adventist Church in 1930; the Oakwood Junior College student strike of 1931; and the Great

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Depression (1929–1941), which exacerbated the socioeconomic inequalities of American society. World War II also encouraged the development of community-oriented consciousness among black Adventists. This is evident in the cases of Irene Morgan, Alfonzo Greene, and Terrance Roberts, who were undoubtedly influenced, in one way or another, from the Double “V” Campaign of the war, which aimed to annihilate racism in the United States and fascism abroad.7 When black veterans of the two wars returned to the States, they brought with them an unyielding determination to resist discrimination and to obtain the freedoms they fought for overseas. This is particularly true in the aftermath of WWII, when African American veterans joined civil rights groups, like the NAACP, in large numbers.8 The militant attitude they brought to the civil rights movement permeated African American society—and was not lost on black Adventists like E. E. Cleveland, the son of a WWI veteran; Earl Moore, a veteran of WWII; and Terrance Roberts, the son of a WWII veteran. This study demonstrated that family socialization played an instrumental role in conveying community awareness to the next generation of activists. Alfonzo Greene’s grandfather educated him on various issues impacting the African American community, including racial inequality and other forms of social injustice.9 Charles Dudley’s family instilled in him the values of freedom, standing up for one’s rights, and black pride.10 Likewise, E. E. Cleveland’s parents taught him to resist discrimination and to respond to the needs of the African American community.11 In retrospect, these childhood lessons formed the foundation for their future activities in combating discrimination within the Seventh-day Adventist Church and secular society. Community-oriented consciousness among black Adventist ministers received a boost from dialogue with African American parishioners who shared their concerns regarding racism in the church and American society. During his career as an evangelist for the Southern Missionary Society and the Negro Department of the General Conference, Matthew Strachan came into contact with numerous black communities in the United States. Consequently, he was knowledgeable concerning the economic and sociopolitical issues confronting African American society. As a black religious leader, Strachan felt an obligation to participate in initiatives benefiting his community. Similarly, Warren S. Banfield Jr. observed the detrimental effect racism had on the psyche of his parishioners. Accordingly, he maintains that this is what motivated him to become a civil rights activist.12 This factor repeats itself in the experiences of Charles E. Dudley Sr., Charles Joseph, Earl Moore, Franklin Hill II, and E. E. Cleveland.13 Although Frank W. Hale Jr. was not a

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minister, his Laymen’s Leadership Conference kept him in contact with black Adventists across the country. As reports of discrimination against African Americans flowed into the offices of the LLC, it increased Hale’s community awareness and strengthened his resolve to fight discrimination in the Seventh-day Adventist Church. Overall, the black Adventist activists discussed in this book found their motivation through community awareness. This consciousness came about from various factors: personal experiences with racism, historical developments, family socialization, and dialogue between black church leaders and their parishioners. Historically, Oakwood College (currently a university) in Huntsville, Alabama, did not serve as a staging area or training ground for black Adventist sociopolitical activism. For many years Oakwood was the only option for blacks wishing to attend an Adventist institution of higher learning. Most of the persons discussed in this project attended Oakwood College. Based on their testimonies, community-oriented consciousness—acquired through the means previously addressed—motivated their participation in the civil rights movement. Greene’s testimony points out that the leadership of Oakwood College in the 1950s and 1960s, with the exception of Frank Hale, discouraged sociopolitical activity among the faculty and student body. Moreover, the college did not offer assistance to the students that participated in the anti-discrimination protest at the Huntsville Central Seventh-day Adventist Church. Oakwood’s curriculum, in accordance with the conservative factors commonly associated with the denomination, did not include coursework on the Social Gospel, liberation theology, or the teachings of Gandhi.14 Consequently, black students that exhibited a predilection toward sociopolitical activism acquired their community-oriented consciousness elsewhere and brought it with them to Oakwood College, where they shared this knowledge with peers. Women like Ellen G. White and Irene Morgan played an important role in Adventist sociopolitical activism. As far as this research shows, these women did not have separate activist agendas from the men. Likewise, there does not appear to be a notable difference in the level of sociopolitical activism between Northern and Southern black Adventist activists. In summary, this study shows that mixed forces motivated some African American Adventists to participate in civil rights politics. These determinants included community awareness or community-oriented consciousness; the example of early Adventist founders and pioneers; liberationist

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interpretations of the Bible; as well as intellectual and theological justifications. Consequently, the previously mentioned factors superseded the ideological and theological aspects affiliated with modern Adventism that discouraged most church members from participating in sociopolitical activity.

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Introduction 1. Holley Fisher, “Oakwood College Students’ Quest for Social Justice before and during the Civil Rights Era,” Journal of African American History 88, no. 2 (Spring 2003): 110–25. 2. The present discussion includes this unpublished essay because it was the earliest attempt to address the reaction of Seventh-day Adventists to the civil rights movement. Furthermore, a Seventh-day Adventist authored this paper and it is currently housed in the archives of Andrews University (an Adventist institution) in Berrien Springs, Michigan. 3. James Lewis Kyle Jr., “SDAs and the Civil Rights Movement: The First Decade, 1977,” typed manuscript (photocopy), 1–15, University Archives, James White Library, Andrews University, Berrien Springs, Michigan. 4. Roger L. Dudley and Edwin I. Hernández, Citizens of Two Worlds: Religion and Politics among American Seventh-day Adventists (Berrien Springs, MI: Andrews University Press, 1992), 4, 5. 5. Ibid., 229. See also Edwin I. Hernández, “Religious Commitment and Its Political Consequences among Seventh-day Adventists in the United States” (diss., University of Notre Dame, 1989), 168. 6. Dudley and Hernández, Citizens of Two Worlds, 219, 220, 227, 228. See also Hernández, “Religious Commitment,” 168, 169, 174. 7. Zdravko Plantak, The Silent Church: Human Rights and Adventist Social Ethics (New York: St. Martin’s, 1998), 2. 8. Ibid., 208. 9. Hernández, “Religious Commitment,” 13. Hernández maintains that the beliefs and practices of Seventh-day Adventists in various parts of the world adhere closely to doctrinal norms. 10. Dudley and Hernández, Citizens of Two Worlds, 4. 11. Ibid., 5. 12. The administration of the Seventh-day Adventist Church adheres to the following organizational structure: local church, local or regional conference, union conference, division, and general conference. The General Conference of Seventh-day Adventists is the highest administrative unit in the Seventh-day Adventist Church. The South Central Conference of Seventh-day Adventists is a regional conference within the denomination made up of predominately black churches in Kentucky, Tennessee, Alabama, Mississippi, and Florida west of the Apalachicola River. As a result, African Americans hold most of the leadership positions in this conference.

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13. The South Atlantic Conference of Seventh-day Adventists is a regional conference within the denomination made up of predominately black churches in North Carolina, South Carolina, and Georgia. Prior to January 1981, the South Atlantic Conference held administrative authority over black churches in the state of Florida.

Chapter 1 1. Paul K. Conkin, American Originals: Homemade Varieties of Christianity (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1997), 119. 2. Ibid. 3. In this volume, all biblical references come from the King James Version because it was readily available to most Protestant Christians of the early to mid-nineteenth century. The Adventist pioneers likely used this version of the Bible in their studies and from it formed their doctrines. 4. Ibid., 118. Ellen G. White, The Great Controversy: Between Christ and Satan (1911; reprint, Boise: Pacific Press, 1950), 329. 5. White, The Great Controversy, 347. 6. Uriah Smith, The Prophecies of Daniel and the Revelation, rev. ed. (Hagerstown: Review and Herald Publishing, 1972), 210. 7. Ibid., 208, 209. See also Conkin, American Originals, 118, 119. 8. Smith, Daniel and the Revelation, 209. 9. Ibid., 162–64, 193–223. See also White, The Great Controversy, 317–42. 10. White, The Great Controversy, 329, 330. 11. Conkin, American Originals, 118. 12. Ibid., 119. See also White, The Great Controversy, 332. 13. Conkin, American Originals, 120. 14. Ibid. 15. Ibid. 16. Ibid., 121. 17. Ibid. 18. Ibid. 19. Ibid. 20. Ibid., 122. See also Zdravko Plantak, The Silent Church: Human Rights and Adventist Social Ethics (New York: St. Martin’s, 1998), 12. 21. Ibid. 22. Conkin, American Originals, 122. 23. Ibid., 125. See also Ellen G. White, Early Writings (1882; reprint, Hagerstown, MD: Review and Herald Publishing, 2000), xviii. 24. Ibid. Here the two sources present variant spellings of the name O. R. L. Crozier. In Conkin’s volume the spelling is Crosier; however, in the Historical Prologue to White’s volume the spelling is Crozier. The spelling in this text correlates with that presented in the White volume. 25. Ibid. 26. Ministerial Association of the General Conference of Seventh-day Adventists, Seventhday Adventists Believe: A Biblical Exposition of 27 Fundamental Doctrines (Hagerstown, MD: Review and Herald Publishing, 1988), 312–31. Chapter 23 discusses the Adventist doctrine concerning the heavenly sanctuary and the judgment. See also “Seventh-day Adventist Church: Fundamental Beliefs,” General Conference of Seventh-day Adventists, www.adventist.org/beliefs/ fundamental/index.html; accessed 8 July 2008. This document discusses the twenty-eight

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fundamental beliefs of the Seventh-day Adventist Church. The sanctuary message subtitled “Christ’s Ministry in the Heavenly Sanctuary” appears as doctrine 24 in the list. 27. Smith, Daniel and the Revelation, 640–43. See also Plantak, The Silent Church, 12; Ellen G. White, Early Writings, 243. According to Seventh-day Adventists, the investigative judgment began in 1844 and continues until an unspecified time just prior to Christ’s return. 28. White, Early Writings, xvii, xix, 36, 280. Seventh-day Adventists also cite Revelation 14:6–7 as biblical proof for the investigative judgment. 29. Sakae Kubo, introduction to The Silent Church by Zdravko Plantak (New York: St. Martin’s, 1998), xi. 30. Ministerial Association, 27 Fundamental Doctrines, 332–47. Chapter 24 discusses the Adventist doctrine concerning the literal Second Coming of Christ. See also White, The Great Controversy, 636–45; “Fundamental Beliefs,” General Conference of Seventh-day Adventists, www.adventist.org/beliefs/fundamental/index.html; accessed 8 July 2008. The literal Second Coming of Christ (subtitled “Second Coming”) appears as doctrine 25 in the list. 31. Ministerial Association, 27 Fundamental Doctrines, 248–66. Chapter 19 discusses the Adventist doctrine concerning the seventh-day Sabbath. See also “Fundamental Beliefs,” General Conference of Seventh-day Adventists, www.adventist.org/beliefs/fundamental/index. html; accessed 8 July 2008. Belief in the seventh-day Sabbath, subtitled “Sabbath,” appears in the document as doctrine 20. 32. White, Early Writings, xx. 33. Ibid. 34. Ibid., xx, xxi. 35. Conkin, American Originals, 127. See also White, Early Writings, xxi. 36. Conkin, American Originals, 126. 37. Ibid., 127. See also White, Early Writings, xxii. 38. Conkin, American Originals, 127. 39. White, Early Writings, xxi. 40. Conkin, American Originals, 127. See also White Early Writings, xxi. Conkin’s volume implies that Joseph Bates personally introduced the Sabbath doctrine to James and Ellen White. However, the Historical Prologue of White’s book states that the couple learned of the Sabbath doctrine from reading Bates’s tract. 41. Ministerial Association, 27 Fundamental Doctrines, 248–66. See also “Fundamental Beliefs,” General Conference of Seventh-day Adventists, www.adventist.org/beliefs/fundamental/ index.html; accessed 8 July 2008. 42. Ibid. See also White, Early Writings, xxii–xxiv. 43. Conkin, American Originals, 127. 44. Ibid., 134, 135. 45. Ibid., 135. See also White, Early Writings, xxxi. 46. Information provided from the General Conference of Seventh-day Adventists Department of Archives and Statistics in Silver Spring, Maryland. 47. Conkin, American Originals, 141. 48. For administrative purposes the Seventh-day Adventist Church places Mexico in its Inter-American Division, even though it is in North America. 49. Information provided from the North American Division of Seventh-day Adventists Department of Archives and Statistics in Silver Spring, Maryland. 50. Conkin, American Originals, 130. See also White Early Writings, 59, 60. 51. “History of Spiritualism,” National Spiritualist Association of Churches, www.nsac.org/ history.html; accessed 18 July 2008. 52. Karen Farrington, The History of Religion (New York: Barnes & Noble, 2001), 180. 53. Ibid., 180, 181.

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54. Ministerial Association 27 Fundamental Doctrines, 348–60. Chapter 25 discusses the Adventist doctrine concerning the unconscious state of the dead. See also Conkin, American Originals, 130; “Fundamental Beliefs,” General Conference of Seventh-day Adventists, www .adventist.org/beliefs/fundamental/index.html; accessed 8 July 2008. Belief in the unconscious state of the dead (subtitled “Death and Resurrection”) appears in the document as doctrine 26. 55. Ministerial Association, 27 Fundamental Doctrines, 348–60. See also White, The Great Controversy, 546–50; “Fundamental Beliefs,” General Conference of Seventh-day Adventists, www.adventist.org/beliefs/fundamental/index.html; accessed 8 July 2008; 56. White, The Great Controversy, 550. 57. Ibid., 549. 58. Plantak, The Silent Church, 6, 76, 77. See also Roy Branson, “Ellen G. White—Racist or Champion of Equality?” Review and Herald 147, no. 15 (April 1970): 2, 3; Ronald D. Graybill, E. G. White and Church Race Relations (Washington: Review and Herald Publishing, 1970), 13–16. 59. Ellen G. White, Testimonies for the Church, vol. 9 (1909; reprint, Mountain View: Pacific Press Publishing, 1948), 214. 60. Roy Branson, “The Crisis of the Nineties,” Review and Herald 147, no. 17 (April 1970): 4, 5. See also Graybill, Church Race Relations, 17–34; Plantak, The Silent Church, 77; C. Vann Woodward, Origins of the New South, 1877–1913, 2nd ed. (Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 1971), 354; George M. Fredrickson, Racism: A Short History (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2002), 86, 87; W. E. B. Du Bois, A Soliloquy on Viewing My Life from the Last Decade of Its First Century: The Autobiography of W. E. B. Du Bois (New York: International Publishers, 1968), 121. 61. George M. Fredrickson, White Supremacy: A Comparative Study in American and South African History (New York: Oxford University Press, 1982), 180. See also John Hope Franklin and Alfred A. Moss Jr., From Slavery to Freedom: A History of African Americans, 8th ed. (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 2004), 286–88. 62. Graybill, Church Race Relations, 22. 63. Woodward, Origins of the New South, 55. 64. Franklin, From Slavery to Freedom, 289, 290. See also Fredrickson, White Supremacy, 183; Woodward, Origins of the New South, 51. 65. Fredrickson, Racism, 100–102. 66. Ibid., 101. 67. Woodward, Origins of the New South, 352. 68. Kenneth M. Stampp, The Era of Reconstruction 1865–1877 (New York: Vintage, 1965), 6–9. See also James Ford Rhodes, History of the United States from the Compromise of 1850 to the McKinley-Bryan Campaign of 1896, vol. VII (New York: Macmillan, 1920), 168–70; Claude Bowers, The Tragic Era: The Revolution after Lincoln (New York: Blue Ribbon, 1929); William Archibald Dunning, Reconstruction, Political and Economic, 1865–1877, (New York: Harper & Brothers, 1907); William Archibald Dunning, Essays on the Civil War and Reconstruction, new ed. (New York: Harper & Row, 1965). 69. Ibid. 70. Fredrickson, Racism, 101. 71. Ibid. See also Franklin, From Slavery to Freedom, 289, 290; Fredrickson, White Supremacy, 239. 72. Fredrickson, Racism, 101. 73. Woodward, Origins of the New South, 327. 74. Ibid., 51. 75. Fredrickson, Racism, 101. 76. Fredrickson, White Supremacy, 181. 77. Woodward, Origins of the New South, 180–84. See also Franklin, From Slavery to Freedom, 259, 307.

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78. Branson, “The Crisis of the Nineties,” 4. See also Graybill, Church Race Relations, 17–34; Franklin, From Slavery to Freedom, 280, 281; Fredrickson, White Supremacy, 183. 79. Stampp, Era of Reconstruction, 17. 80. Ibid., 19, 20. 81. Ibid., 20. 82. Ibid. 83. Madison Grant, The Passing of the Great Race; or, The Racial Basis of European History (New York: Scribner’s, 1916), 77–79. 84. Woodward, Origins of the New South, 98, 114. See also Franklin, From Slavery to Freedom, 281; Du Bois, A Soliloquy, 141. 85. Woodward, Origins of the New South, 42–46. 86. Stampp, Era of Reconstruction, 186, 187. 87. Woodward, Origins of the New South, 219. 88. Franklin, From Slavery to Freedom, 294. 89. Stampp, Era of Reconstruction, 199–204. See also Woodward, Origins of the New South, 51–55; Du Bois, A Soliloquy, 122, 208, 209; Franklin, From Slavery to Freedom, 275, 280. 90. Ida B. Wells-Barnett, On Lynchings (New York: Humanity, 2002), 201, 202. 91. Ibid., 201. See also Du Bois, A Soliloquy, 208, 209. Although Du Bois’s figure of 235 lynchings in 1892 is slightly lower than that quoted by Wells-Barnett, it is still large. 92. Franklin, From Slavery to Freedom, 345. 93. Plantak, The Silent Church, 77–79. See also Graybill, Church Race Relations, 53–68; Branson, “The Crisis of the Nineties,” 4–6. 94. Ronald D. Graybill, Mission to Black America (Mountain View: Pacific Press, 1971), 18, 28, 30, 36, 42, 69, 82, 98, 116, 127. See also Charles Edward Dudley Sr., Thou Who Hast Brought Us Thus Far On Our Way (Nashville: Dudley, 2000), 133. 95. Graybill, Mission to Black America, 21. 96. Ibid., 20. 97. James Edson White, “The Morning Star,” The Gospel Herald 1, no. 1 (May 1898): 1, 2. See also Graybill, Mission to Black America, 24, 40. 98. White, “Use of Funds,” The Gospel Herald 1, no. 1 (May 1898): 7. 99. White, “The Morning Star,” 1. 100. Ibid., 1, 2. 101. Graybill, Mission to Black America, 70. 102. Ibid., 44, 45. 103. Ibid., 50. 104. Ibid. 105. Ibid., 51. 106. James Edson White, “The Southern Missionary Society,” The Gospel Herald 1, no. 5 (December 1898): 46. 107. Graybill, Mission to Black America, 73. 108. Mervyn A. Warren, Oakwood! A Vision Splendid 1896–1996 (Collegedale, TN: College Press, 1996), 9. See also John R. Jones and Frances Roberts, “Huntsville and Oakwood College,” Adventist Heritage: A Journal of Adventist History 17, no. 1 (March 1996): 4–6. Warren’s volume states that the size of the property originally purchased was 360 acres; the Jones and Roberts article places the size of the property at 350 acres. The acreage in this text corresponds with the Warren figure. 109. Graybill, Mission to Black America, 69, 70. 110. Ibid., 75. 111. Ibid., 76. 112. Ibid., 85. 113. Ibid., 86.

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114. Ibid., 73. 115. Ibid., 99. 116. Ibid., 101. 117. James Edson White, The Southern Work: Mob Violence (Battle Creek: Review and Herald, 1899), 1–6. See also James R. Nix and Fylvia Fowler Kline, ed., The Spirit of Sacrifice and Commitment: Experiences of Seventh-day Adventist Pioneers (Silver Spring, MD: Stewardship Department of the General Conference of Seventh-day Adventists, 2000), 172, 173, 177. 118. Graybill, Mission to Black America, 128. 119. Ibid., 130. 120. Ibid., 85. 121. James Edson White, Battle Creek, to Ellen G. White, Cooranbong, 25 May 1899, transcript in the hand of James Edson White, Ellen G. White Estate, General Conference of Seventh-day Adventists, Silver Spring, MD. See also James Edson White, Yazoo City, to Ellen G. White, Cooranbong, 14 May 1899, transcript in the hand of James Edson White, Ellen G. White Estate, General Conference of Seventh-day Adventists, Silver Spring, MD; Graybill, Mission to Black America, 130; Graybill, Church Race Relations, 57; Nix and Kline, Spirit of Sacrifice and Commitment, 172, 173. 122. Graybill, Church Race Relations, 53–68. See also Branson, “The Crisis of the Nineties,” 4–6. 123. James Edson White, Battle Creek, to Ellen G. White, Cooranbong, 25 May 1899, transcript in the hand of James Edson White, Ellen G. White Estate, General Conference of Seventh-day Adventists, Silver Spring, MD. See also White, The Southern Work: Mob Violence, 1–6; Nix and Kline, Spirit of Sacrifice and Commitment, 177. 124. Graybill, Mission to Black America, 132. In the aftermath of the incident, James Edson White launched his own investigation. According to him, it was George M. Klein Jr., a sergeant in the Mississippi Volunteer Infantry and the grandson of John A. Klein, who led the attack on the Adventist mission and was responsible for the whipping of N. W. Olvin. 125. James Edson White, Yazoo City, to Ellen G. White, Cooranbong, 14 May 1899, transcript in the hand of James Edson White, Ellen G. White Estate, General Conference of Seventh-day Adventists, Silver Spring, MD. See also Graybill, Mission to Black America, 130; Nix and Kline, Spirit of Sacrifice and Commitment, 172. 126. James Edson White, Battle Creek, to Ellen G. White, Cooranbong, 25 May 1899, transcript in the hand of James Edson White, Ellen G. White Estate, General Conference of Seventh-day Adventists, Silver Spring, MD. See also Graybill, Mission to Black America, 130; Nix and Kline, Spirit of Sacrifice and Commitment, 173. 127. White, The Southern Work: Mob Violence, 1–6. See also Nix and Kline, Spirit of Sacrifice and Commitment, 177. 128. Ibid. See also Graybill, Mission to Black America, 130, 131; Graybill, Church Race Relations, 56. 129. White, The Southern Work: Mob Violence, 1–6. See also Nix and Kline, Spirit of Sacrifice and Commitment, 17; Graybill, Mission to Black America, 130, 131; Graybill, Church Race Relations, 56, 57; Branson, “The Crisis of the Nineties,” 5. 130. White, The Southern Work: Mob Violence, 1–6. See also Nix and Kline, Spirit of Sacrifice and Commitment, 177. 131. Woodward, Origins of the New South, 170. 132. Ibid., 172. 133. White, Testimonies, vol. 9, 206, 209, 210, 213. 134. Ellen G. White, The Southern Work (1901; reprint, Hagerstown, MD: Review and Herald Publishing, 1966), 84. 135. White, Testimonies, vol. 9, 207, 208. 136. Ibid., 206, 214.

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137. Ibid., 209, 210. 138. Ibid., 206. 139. White, The Southern Work, 67. 140. White, Testimonies, vol. 9, 206, 207. 141. George I. Butler, “The Nashville (Tenn.) Camp-Meeting,” Advent Review and Sabbath Herald 83, no. 39 (September 1906): 17, 18. 142. Francis David Nichol, “Unity in the Faith,” Review and Herald 142, no. 17 (April 1965): 12. See also Ruben R. Figuhr, “A Letter from Our President,” Review and Herald 141, no. 1 (January 1964): 5. 143. White, The Southern Work, 19. 144. White, Testimonies, vol. 9, 204, 205. 145. Charles Edward Dudley Sr., The Genealogy of Ellen Gould Harmon White: The Prophetess of the Seventh-day Adventist Denomination as it Relates to African-Americans (Nashville: Dudley Publishing, 1999). 146. White, The Southern Work, 37. 147. Ibid., 13, 14, 15, 29, 35, 55. 148. Ibid., 15. 149. Ibid., 22, 33. See also White, Testimonies, vol. 9, 205. 150. White, The Southern Work, 54. 151. White, Testimonies, vol. 9, 201, 207. 152. Frank L. Peterson, “The North American Negro Department,” Advent Review and Sabbath Herald 115, no. 51 (1938): 53, 54. 153. W. A. Spicer, “General Conference Committee in Council: North American Negro Department,” Advent Review and Sabbath Herald 86, no. 24 (1909): 24. 154. Yazoo City Herald, June 1, 1900. See also Graybill, Church Race Relations, 70–73; Graybill, Mission to Black America, 136, 137. 155. Yazoo City Sentinel, June 7, 1900. See also Graybill, Church Race Relations, 76–79; Graybill, Mission to Black America, 137. 156. White, Testimonies, vol. 9, 214. 157. Yazoo City Herald, June 1, 1900. 158. Yazoo City Sentinel, June 7, 1900. 159. White, The Southern Work, 68. 160. Ibid., 73. 161. “Two New Churches for the Colored People,” Advent Review and Sabbath Herald 80, no. 49 (1903): 17, 18. 162. White, The Southern Work, 94. 163. Peterson, “The North American Negro Department,” 53, 54. See also “Two New Churches,” 17, 18; White, “The Morning Star,” 2. 164. Adventists also refer to holistic theology as “wholism.” See Plantak, The Silent Church, 126–28. 165. Hernández, “Religious Commitment and Its Political Consequences,” 15. Postmillennialism refers to the belief that the thousand-year reign of peace (discussed in Revelation 20:4–6) occurs before the Second Coming of Christ. Consequently, postmillennialists viewed the Social Gospel movement as a means of initiating the millennium, or Kingdom of God. 166. Ibid., 25. 167. Ellen G. White, Welfare Ministry (Washington: Review and Herald Publishing, 1952), 33. 168. Plantak, The Silent Church, 44. 169. Ibid. 170. Ibid., 55. 171. White, The Southern Work, 49.

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172. Lou Baldwin, Saint Katharine Drexel: Apostle to the Oppressed (Philadelphia: Catholic Standard and Times, 2000), 14-23. 173. “Bishop O’Conner Dying,” New York Times February 4, 1890, 1. 174. Baldwin, Saint Katharine Drexel, 29, 57, 62–71. 175. Ibid., 79. 176. White, The Southern Work, 32. 177. Baldwin, Saint Katharine Drexel, 88. 178. Ibid., 89. 179. Ibid., 92, 93. See also Albert J. Raboteau, Canaan Land: Religious History of African Americans (New York: Oxford University Press, 2001), 94. 180. Baldwin, Saint Katharine Drexel, 123. 181. Ibid., 105, 106. See also Immaculata, Mother M. Theresa Maxis Duchemin: Co-founder with Reverend Louis Florent Gillett, C.SS.R., Founder of the Congregation of the Sisters, Servants of the Immaculate Heart of Mary (Scranton: Marywood College Press, 1945). 182. Juan María Lozano, The Claretians: Their Mission and Spirit in the Church (Chicago: Claret Center for Resources in Spirituality, 1980). 183. Baldwin, Saint Katharine Drexel, 104, 105. 184. White, Testimonies, vol. 9, 206. 185. Ibid. 186. Franklin, From Slavery to Freedom, 296, 297. 187. Baldwin, Saint Katharine Drexel, 110, 117. 188. Graybill, Mission to Black America, 97. 189. Baldwin, Saint Katharine Drexel, 114. 190. Ibid., 125. 191. Ibid., 129–34, 150. 192. On page 151, Baldwin mistakenly refers to Archbishop James H. Blenk as Joseph Blenk. See “A History of the Archdiocese of New Orleans,” Archdiocese of New Orleans, www.archdiocese-no.org/history/prelates.html; accessed 7 August 2008. 193. Baldwin, Saint Katherine Drexel, 151–53. 194. Ibid., 105, 191. 195. Dudley, Thou Who Hast Brought Us, 6. 196. Graybill, Mission to Black America, 65, 106–8. 197. Baldwin, Saint Katharine Drexel, 163–65. 198. White, Testimonies, vol. 9, 206, 207. See also Baldwin, Saint Katharine Drexel, 165. 199. Baldwin, Saint Katharine Drexel, 174, 175, 186. 200. Ibid., 197. 201. Ibid., 214.

Chapter 2 1. Ellen G. White, “Our Example,” Advent Review and Sabbath Herald 76, no. 43 (October 1899): 1. 2. Plantak, The Silent Church, 42, 43. See also Dudley and Hernández, Citizens of Two Worlds, 29, 30. 3. William G. McLoughlin, “Revivalism,” in The Rise of Adventism: Religion and Society in Mid-Nineteenth-Century America, ed. Edwin S. Gaustad (New York: Harper & Row, 1974), 131. See also Dudley and Hernández, Citizens of Two Worlds, 29, 30; Plantak, The Silent Church, 11. 4. Dudley, Citizens of Two Worlds, 32.

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5. Holly Fisher, “Oakwood College Students’ Quest for Social Justice Before and During the Civil Rights Era,” Journal of African American History 88, no. 2 (Spring 2003): 112. See also Plantak, The Silent Church, 11, 39, 42, 43. 6. Plantak, The Silent Church, 39. See also Dudley and Hernández, Citizens of Two Worlds, 66, 67. 7. Holly Fisher, “Oakwood College Students’ Quest,” 112. 8. Hernández, “Religious Commitment and Its Political Consequences,” 16. 9. Ibid., 161. 10. Fisher, “Oakwood College Students’ Quest,” 112. 11. Frank W. Hale Jr., Angels Watching Over Me (Nashville: James C. Winston, 1996), 202. 12. Raymond F. Cottrell, “Rendering to Caesar What Belongs to God,” Review and Herald 140, no. 42 (October 1963): 13. 13. Raymond F. Cottrell, “Churches Meddling in Politics,” Review and Herald 142, no. 30 (July 1965): 12. 14. Dudley and Hernández, Citizens of Two Worlds, 218. 15. Ibid. 16. White, Early Writings, 64-67. 17. Hernández, “Religious Commitment,” 98, 103, 104, 161, 162. 18. John Allen Jr., Conclave: The Politics, Personalities, and Process of the Next Papal Election, 2nd ed. (New York: Image, 2004), 143. Allen’s remarks refer to a specific group within Roman Catholicism, but the basic premise applies to any religious body advocating the separation of church and state. 19. Ibid. 20. Hernández, “Religious Commitment,” 27, 28. See also Dudley and Hernández, Citizens of Two Worlds, 7, 8. 21. Dudley and Hernández, Citizens of Two Worlds, 14, 35. 22. Hernández, “Religious Commitment,” 8. 23. George M. Fredrickson, Racism: A Short History (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2002), 149, 150. 24. Hernández, “Religious Commitment,” 168. See also Dudley and Hernández, Citizens of Two Worlds, 9, 14, 216. 25. Dudley and Hernández, Citizens of Two Worlds, 240. 26. Francis David Nichol, “Unity in the Faith,” Review and Herald 142, no. 17 (April 1965): 12. 27. Hernández, “Religious Commitment,” 21, 22. 28. Fisher, “Oakwood College Students’ Quest,” 112, 113. 29. Ibid., 113. 30. Jonathan Hill, Faith in the Age of Reason: The Enlightenment from Galileo to Kant (Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press, 2004), 100, 101. 31. Hernández, “Religious Commitment,” 21, 22. 32. Hill, Faith in the Age of Reason, 110. 33. Søren Kierkegaard, The Concept of Dread, trans. Walter Lowrie (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1957). See also Søren Kierkegaard, Either/Or: A Fragment of Life, vol. 2, trans. Walter Lowrie (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1944), 39, 180–236; Michael Watts, Kierkegaard (Oxford: Oneworld, 2003), 199. 34. Kierkegaard, Either/Or, 5–278. See also Alastair Hannay, Kierkegaard: A Biography (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2001), 176–79. 35. Søren Kierkegaard, Attack upon Christendom, trans. Walter Lowrie (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1944). See also Watts, Kierkegaard, 149–55.

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36. Søren Kierkegaard, Concluding Unscientific Postscript to Philosophical Fragments, trans. Howard V. Hong and Edna H. Hong (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1992), 59–361, 610–17. See also Watts, Kierkegaard, 81–88, 199–201. 37. Plantak, The Silent Church, 168. 38. Hill, Faith in the Age of Reason, 180–81. 39. Dudley and Hernández, Citizens of Two Worlds, 46. See also Plantak, The Silent Church, 169. 40. Plantak, The Silent Church, 169. 41. Ralph E. Luker, The Social Gospel in Black and White: American Radical Reform, 1885–1912 (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1991), 315. 42. Walter Rauschenbusch, Christianity and the Social Crisis (Louisville, KY: Westminster/ John Knox Press, 1991). 43. Dudley and Hernández, Citizens of Two Worlds, 258. 44. Ibid., 46, 236. 45. Clayborne Carson, ed., The Autobiography of Martin Luther King, Jr. (New York: Warner, 1998), 17, 18. See also John J. Ansbro, Martin Luther King, Jr.: Nonviolent Strategies and Tactics for Social Change (New York: Madison, 2000), 163. 46. Ansbro, Martin Luther King, Jr., 170. 47. Dudley and Hernández, Citizens of Two Worlds, 6-8, 31. 48. Nichol, “Unity in the Faith,”12. 49. David L. Chappell, A Stone of Hope: Prophetic Religion and the Death of Jim Crow (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2004), 122, 123. 50. Nichol, “Unity in the Faith,” 12. 51. Dudley and Hernández, Citizens of Two Worlds, 236, 237. 52. Conkin, American Originals, 130. See also Ministerial Association, 27 Fundamental Doctrines, 348–60; “Seventh-day Adventist Church: Fundamental Beliefs,” General Conference of Seventh-day Adventists, www.adventist.org/beliefs/fundamental/index.html; accessed 8 July 2008. Belief in the unconscious state of the dead, subtitled “Death and Resurrection,” appears in the document as doctrine 26. 53. Dudley and Hernández, Citizens of Two Worlds, 29. 54. Hill, Faith in the Age of Reason, 26. 55. Carson, The Autobiography of Martin Luther King, Jr., 287. 56. Ibid., 341. 57. “Dr. Ralph D. Abernathy Recalls Visit With Pope Paul,” Jet 54, no. 23 (August 1978): 18. 58. James F. Findlay Jr., Church People in the Struggle: The National Council of Churches and the Black Freedom Movement, 1950–1970 (New York: Oxford University Press, 1993), 58. 59. Mohandas K. Gandhi, Autobiography: The Story of My Experiments with Truth, trans. Mahadev Desai (1948; reprint, New York: Dover Publications, 1983), 242, 243, 284, 285. 60. Carson, The Autobiography of Martin Luther King, Jr., 26, 67. 61. Gandhi, Autobiography, 241, 242. 62. Carson, The Autobiography of Martin Luther King, Jr., 24. 63. Ibid., 67, 121. See also Ansbro, Martin Luther King, Jr., xxi. 64. Gandhi, Autobiography, 29, 140, 293. 65. Alfonzo Greene Sr., interviewed by author, 26 May 2004, tape recording, home residence, Huntsville, Alabama; Warren S. Banfield Jr., interviewed by author, 26 May 2004, tape recording, home residence, Huntsville; Charles Edward Dudley Sr., interviewed by author, 3 August 2004, tape recording, home residence, Nashville, Tennessee; Charles Joseph, interviewed by author, 29 August 2004, tape recording, home residence, Glenwood, Illinois; Earl Moore, interviewed by author, 31 May 2004, tape recording, home residence, Decatur,

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Georgia; Franklin Hill II, interviewed by author, 18 May 2004, tape recording, home residence, Lafayette, Indiana. 66. Hill, Faith in the Age of Reason, 14. 67. Ibid., 17. 68. Plantak, The Silent Church, 49. 69. Hill, Faith in the Age of Reason, 93. 70. Ibid.,104, 105. 71. Ibid. 72. Dudley and Hernández, Citizens of Two Worlds, 243, 244, 258. 73. Cottrell, “Rendering to Caesar,” 12. 74. Plantak, The Silent Church, 49. 75. Dudley and Hernández, Citizens of Two Worlds, 243. 76. George I. Butler, “Our Duty to the Colored Race in America,” Adventist Review and Sabbath Herald (7 January 1896): 9. 77. Booker T. Washington, “The Progress of the Negro,” Adventist Review and Sabbath Herald (25 February 1896): 116–17. 78. Booker T. Washington, “Industrial Training for the Negro,” Gospel Herald 1, no. 1 (May 1898): 8, 9. See also Booker T. Washington, “Industrial Training for the Negro,” Gospel Herald 1, no. 2 (July 1898): 18, 19; Booker T. Washington, “Industrial Training for the Negro,” Gospel Herald 1, no. 3 (August 1898): 26, 27. 79. C. Vann Woodward, Origins of the New South, 1877–1913, 2nd ed. (Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 1971), 367. 80. Ibid. 81. W. E. B. Du Bois, “The Conservation of Races,” in Theories of Race and Racism: A Reader, eds. Less Black and John Solomos (New York: Routledge, 2000), 80, 81. 82. W. E. B. Du Bois, The Souls of Black Folk (1903; reprint, New York: Penguin, 1989), 37, 38. 83. Ibid., 38. 84. Booker T. Washington, Up From Slavery (1901; reprint, New York: W. W. Norton, 1996), 94, 95. 85. Ibid., 96. 86. Stampp, Era of Reconstruction, 186, 187. 87. Washington, Up From Slavery, 99. 88. Woodward, Origins of the New South, 347, 348. See also Stampp, Era of Reconstruction, 4–6. 89. Washington, Up From Slavery, 99. 90. Ibid., 99, 100. 91. John Hope Franklin and Alfred A. Moss, Jr., From Slavery to Freedom: A History of African Americans, 8th ed. (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 2004), 307, 308. 92. Stampp, Era of Reconstruction, 206, 207. See also Woodward, Origins of the New South, 5; Du Bois, Souls of Black Folk, 43. 93. Washington, Up From Slavery, 100. 94. Ibid. 95. Stampp, Era of Reconstruction, 206, 207. See also Woodward, Origins of the New South, 5; Du Bois, Souls of Black Folk, 43. 96. Washington, Up From Slavery, 100. 97. Ibid., 101. 98. Du Bois, Souls of Black Folk, 38, 39. 99. Ibid., 43. 100. Ibid., 47.

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101. Ibid. 102. Ibid., 50. 103. Ibid., 78–90. 104. Dudley and Hernández, Citizens of Two Worlds, 243, 244. 105. Ibid., 245. 106. Plantak, The Silent Church, 50, 86. 107. Dudley and Hernández, Citizens of Two Worlds, 70, 71. See also Sakae Kubo, introduction Plantak The Silent Church, xii. 108. Kubo, introduction to The Silent Church, xi, xii. 109. Plantak, The Silent Church, 13–15. 110. Dudley and Hernández, Citizens of Two Worlds, 68. 111. Nichol, “Unity in the Faith,” 12. 112. Dudley and Hernández, Citizens of Two Worlds, 71. 113. Reuben R. Figuhr, “A Letter from Our President,” Review and Herald 141, no. 1 (January 1964): 5. 114. Dudley and Hernández, Citizens of Two Worlds, 242. See also Plantak, The Silent Church, 49. 115. Plantak, The Silent Church, 48. 116. “Actions of General Interest: Spring Meeting of the General Conference Committee, April 13, 14, 1965,” Review and Herald 142, no. 17 (April 1965): 8. 117. Chappell, A Stone of Hope, 5, 107, 108. See also Hale, Angels Watching Over Me, 159, 184–86. 118. Nichol, “Unity in the Faith,” 12. 119. Hale, Angels Watching Over Me, 166. 120. Ibid. 121. Chappell, A Stone of Hope, 113. 122. Ibid., 116. 123. Thomas F. Gossett, Race: The History of an Idea in America, new ed. (New York: Oxford University Press, 1997), 5. 124. Ibid. 125. George M. Fredrickson, Racism: A Short History (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2002), 45. 126. Ibid. 127. Dudley and Hernández, Citizens of Two Worlds, 214, 215. See also Hernández, “Religious Commitment,” 56, 69, 126, 164. 128. Dudley and Hernández, Citizens of Two Worlds, 118, 119. See also Hernández, “Religious Commitment,” 64. 129. Aldon D. Morris, The Origins of the Civil Rights Movement: Black Communities Organizing for Change (New York: Free Press, 1984), 11. 130. Hernández, “Religious Commitment,” 54. 131. Dudley and Hernández, Citizens of Two Worlds, 220. 132. Hernández, “Religious Commitment,” 134, 174. 133. Du Bois, “Conservation of Races,” 83. See also Peter J. Paris, The Social Teaching of the Black Churches (Philadelphia: Fortress, 1985), 29, 30. 134. W. E. B. Du Bois, A Soliloquy on Viewing My Life from the Last Decade of Its First Century: The Autobiography of W. E. B. Du Bois (New York: International Publishers, 1968), 205, 285, 413. 135. Franklin, From Slavery to Freedom, 313, 314. 136. Ibid. 137. Plantak, The Silent Church, 89.

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138. Dudley and Hernández, Citizens of Two Worlds, 144, 145. See also Hernández, “Religious Commitment,” 49, 50, 147.

Chapter 3 1. In 1874 the Seventh-day Adventist Church established Battle Creek College. The college moved to Berrien Springs, Michigan, in 1901. There, it assumed the name Emmanuel Missionary College. In 1960 the institution changed its name to Andrews University—in honor of John Nevins Andrews (1829–1883), the first Adventist missionary sent to work in a foreign field. 2. Frank L. Peterson, “The North American Negro Department,” Adventist Review and Sabbath Herald 115, no. 51 (1938): 53, 54. See also “Obituaries,” Adventist Review and Sabbath Herald 128, no. 48 (1951): 20. 3. A. Barry, W. H. Sebastian, and M. C. Strachan, “Jackson (Mississippi) Camp Meeting,” Adventist Review and Sabbath Herald 79, no. 41 (1902): 16, 17. See also W. H. Sebastian, T. Murphy, and M. C. Strachan, “The Jackson, Miss. (colored), Camp-Meeting,” Adventist Review and Sabbath Herald 80, no. 39 (1903): 19. 4. Barry, Sebastian, and Strachan, “Jackson (Mississippi) Camp Meeting,” 16, 17. 5. James Edson White, “Mission Schools for the Colored People,” Advent Review and Sabbath Herald 85, no. 39 (1908): 14, 15. See also “Two New Churches for the Colored People,” Advent Review and Sabbath Herald 80, no. 49 (1903): 17, 18. 6. “Two New Churches,” 17, 18. 7. White, “Mission Schools,” 14, 15. 8. Sydney Scott and M. C. Strachan, “Nashville (Tenn.) Camp-meeting for Colored People,” Adventist Review and Sabbath Herald 83, no. 40 (1906): 15. 9. K. C. Russell, “District of Columbia,” Advent Review and Sabbath Herald 84, no. 24 (1907): 17. 10. Ibid. See also “Obituaries,” 20; George I. Butler, “The Nashville (Tenn.) Camp-Meeting,” Adventist Review and Sabbath Herald 83, no. 39 (1906): 17, 18; J. W. Christian, “The Cleveland (Tenn.) Camp-Meeting,” Advent Review and Sabbath Herald 86, no. 40 (1909): 17; Annie V. Butler, “Florida (Colored) Camp-Meeting,” Adventist Review and Sabbath Herald 87, no. 50 (1910): 21, 22; J. F. Crichlow, “Work for Colored People in Winnsboro, S.C.,” Advent Review and Sabbath Herald 88, no. 34 (1911): 11; V. O. Cole, “Camp-Meeting and Institute for the Colored Believers of Florida,” Advent Review and Sabbath Herald 89, no. 45 (1912): 17; J. P. Pegues, “Florida,” Advent Review and Sabbath Herald 90, no. 40 (1913): 18; I. H. Evans, “The Florida Conference and Camp Meeting,” Advent Review and Sabbath Herald 91, no. 49 (1914): 16; C. B. Stephenson, “South Carolina Camp Meeting,” Advent Review and Sabbath Herald 94, no. 34 (1917): 15; G. E. Peters, “The Florida Mission Camp-Meeting,” Advent Review and Sabbath Herald 94, no. 44 (1917): 16; Gustavus P. Rogers, “The Work among the Colored People in the Chesapeake Conference,” Advent Review and Sabbath Herald 95, no. 8 (1918): 17; W. Hawkins Green, “Union Meetings for the Colored People,” Advent Review and Sabbath Herald 96, no. 2 (1919): 24; W. Hawkins Green, “Brief Reports of Camp-Meetings for the Colored People,” Advent Review and Sabbath Herald 96, no. 43 (1919): 24; Emma S. Newcomer, “Chesapeake (Colored) Camp-meeting,” Advent Review and Sabbath Herald 96, no. 47 (1919): 25; F. H. Robbins, “Chesapeake Colored Camp-Meeting,” Adventist Review and Sabbath Herald 97, no. 47 (1920): 10; W. Hawkins Green, “The Negro Department,” Adventist Review and Sabbath Herald 103, no. 59 (1926): 22; W. Hawkins Green, “The Negro Department,” Adventist Review and Sabbath Herald 105, no. 4 (1928): 19; W. Hawkins Green, “Negro Department: Among the Churches and Camp Meetings,” Advent Review and Sabbath Herald 105, no. 42 (1928): 21, 22;

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C. M. Kinney, “Union Camp Meeting at Huntsville, Alabama,” Advent Review and Sabbath Herald 108, no. 50 (1931): 18; “North American Negro Department,” Advent Review and Sabbath Herald 116, no. 41 (1939): 18; “Southern Union: Camp Meetings of the Negro Department,” The Advent Review and Sabbath Herald 118, no. 51 (1941): 18. 11. Peterson, “The North American Negro Department,” 53, 54. See also W. Hawkins Green, “A Word Regarding the North American Negro Department,” Advent Review and Sabbath Herald 95, no. 22 (1918): 19. 12. Charles Edward Dudley Sr., Thou Who Hast Brought Us Thus Far on Our Way: The Development of the Seventh-day Adventist Denomination among African-Americans (Nashville: Dudley Publications, 2000), 116. 13. John Hope Franklin and Alfred A. Moss Jr., From Slavery to Freedom: A History of African Americans, 8th ed. (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 2004), 349, 350. 14. “North American Division Conference,” Advent Review and Sabbath Herald 90, no. 23 (1913): 24. 15. “Delegates to the General Conference: May 15 to June 8, 1913,” Advent Review and Sabbath Herald 90, no. 21 (1913): 12. See also “Proceedings of the General Conference,” Advent Review and Sabbath Herald 103, no. 24 (1926): 7. The Seventh-day Adventist Church holds a General Conference session every five years. 16. Information obtained from the Ephesus Seventh-day Adventist Church of Harlem, New York. 17. W. Hawkins Green, “The Negro Department,” Adventist Review and Sabbath Herald 103, no. 59 (1926): 22. See also Charles Edward Dudley Sr., Thou Who Hast Brought Us Thus Far On Our Way: The Development of the Seventh-day Adventist Denomination among AfricanAmericans (Nashville: Dudley Publications, 2000), 147. Sources, both primary and secondary, present variant spellings of the name James Kemuel Humphrey, founder and pastor of the First Harlem Seventh-day Adventist Church. Articles appearing in the New York Times and the New York Amsterdam News spell his last name as Humphries, whereas in R. Clifford Jones’s book James K. Humphrey and the Sabbath-day Adventists and Dudley’s volume Thou Who Hast Brought Us Thus Far on Our Way, the spelling is Humphrey. Incidentally, the Dudley volume sometimes mistakenly refers to James Humphrey as Joseph Humphrey. Despite these variants, the contexts of the articles and the books, as well as photos indicate that the subject in all of the sources is the same individual. The spelling in the current text coincides with that of the Jones volume. 18. “More Changes in Old Harlem Centre,” New York Times (August 26, 1923): RE2. 19. Ibid. 20. Dudley, Thou Who Hast Brought Us Thus Far on Our Way, 183. 21. “More Changes in Old Harlem Centre,” New York Times (August 26, 1923): RE2. 22. “Old Dutch Church Bought In Harlem,” New York Times (August 3, 1939): 38. 23. “Adventist Pastor Slams Broadsides at Fraud Charges,” New York Amsterdam News 20, no. 50 (November 13, 1929): 1. See also Dudley, Thou Who Hast Brought Us Thus Far On Our Way, 148. 24. David E. Cronon, Black Moses: The Story of Marcus Garvey and the Universal Negro Improvement Association, 2nd ed. (Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 1969), 27, 28. See also James L. Stokesbury, A Short History of World War I (New York: William Morrow, 1981), 301, 302. 25. “Negro War Stamp Drive,” New York Times (August 11, 1918): 7. 26. Franklin and Moss, From Slavery to Freedom, 385–88. 27. Cronon, Black Moses, 29, 30. 28. Ibid., 3, 51, 60, 196. See also Dudley, Thou Who Hast Brought Us Thus Far On Our Way, 158.

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29. Franklin, From Slavery to Freedom, 402. See also Dudley, Thou Who Hast Brought Us Thus Far On Our Way, 158. 30. Franklin, From Slavery to Freedom, 419, 420. 31. Dudley, Thou Who Hast Brought Us Thus Far On Our Way, 148, 149. 32. “Adventist Pastor Slams Broadsides at Fraud Charges,” New York Amsterdam News 20, no. 50 (November 13, 1929): 1. See also Dudley, Thou Who Hast Brought Us Thus Far On Our Way, 149, 150. 33. “Minister Cleared in Resort Project,” New York Amsterdam News 21, no. 1 (December 4, 1929): 2. 34. “Adventist Pastor Slams Broadsides at Fraud Charges,” New York Amsterdam News 20, no. 50 (November 13, 1929): 1. See also Dudley, Thou Who Hast Brought Us Thus Far On Our Way, 149, 150. 35. Dudley, Thou Who Hast Brought Us Thus Far On Our Way, 149, 150. The Greater New York Conference of Seventh-day Adventists is a local conference currently made up of multiethnic churches in the state of New York. Its territory includes New York City and Columbia, Duchess, Greene, Nassau, Orange, Putnam, Rockland, Suffolk, Sullivan, Ulster, and Westchester counties. During the 1920s and 1930s, whites held all the leading administrative positions in this conference. 36. “Adventist Preacher Hits Fraud Charges,” New York Amsterdam News 20, no. 50 (November 13, 1929): 3. See also Dudley, Thou Who Hast Brought Us Thus Far On Our Way, 149, 150. 37. Dudley, Thou Who Hast Brought Us Thus Far On Our Way, 152. 38. “Seventh Day Adventists Break with White Governing Body over Minister: Harlem Church Severs Ties with Conference on Grounds That Parent Group Practices Racial Discrimination,” New York Amsterdam News 20, no. 49 (November 6, 1929): 1. 39. “Minister Cleared In Resort Project,” New York Amsterdam News, 2. 40. “Seventh Day Adventists Break with White Governing Body over Minister,” New York Amsterdam News, 1. This article cites the membership of the First Harlem Seventh-day Adventist Church at 900 persons. See also Plantak, The Silent Church, 79; Dudley, Thou Who Hast Brought Us Thus Far On Our Way, 152, 153; Dudley, Thou Who Hath Brought Us: The Story of the Growth and Development of the Seventh-day Adventist Denomination as It Relates to African-Americans (New York: TEACH Services, 1997), 165. 41. G. E. Peters, “The Negro Department,” Advent Review and Sabbath Herald 107, no. 31 (1930): 154. The Southern Union Conference of Seventh-day Adventists is an administrative unit consisting of all local and regional conferences in Alabama, Florida, Georgia, Kentucky, Mississippi, North Carolina, South Carolina, and Tennessee. 42. “To Preach Farewell,” New York Amsterdam News 21, no. 17 (March 26, 1930): 10. 43. Dudley, Thou Who Hath Brought Us Thus Far On Our Way, 233. 44. Ibid., 236–40. 45. Ibid., 250, 251. 46. Plantak, The Silent Church, 79, 80. See also Holly Fisher, “Oakwood College Students’ Quest for Social Justice Before and During the Civil Rights Era,” Journal of African American History 88, no. 2 (Spring 2003): 110–25. 47. “Tampa NAACP Holds Election,” Omaha Star, 31 December 1947, Papers of the NAACP (Group II, Box C-35), Manuscript Division, Library of Congress, Washington, D.C. According to information provided in this article, during the 1940s the Tampa NAACP branch was the largest in Florida. 48. M. C. Strachan, Tampa, to Roy Wilkins, New York, 12 March 1941, transcript handwritten, Papers of the NAACP (Group II, Box C-35), Manuscript Division, Library of Congress, Washington, D.C. See also M. C. Strachan, Tampa, to Thurgood Marshall, New

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York, 17 September 1942, transcript handwritten, Papers of the NAACP (Group II, Box C-35), Manuscript Division, Library of Congress, Washington, D.C. 49. M. C. Strachan, Tampa, to Roy Wilkins, New York, 12 March 1941, transcript handwritten, Papers of the NAACP (Group II, Box C-35), Manuscript Division, Library of Congress, Washington, D.C. 50. M. C. Strachan, Tampa, to Thurgood Marshall, New York, 17 September 1942, transcript handwritten, Papers of the NAACP (Group II, Box C-35), Manuscript Division, Library of Congress, Washington, D.C. See also “YOU SHOULD KNOW WHAT THE TAMPA BRANCH OF THE NAACP HAS BEEN DOING,” Papers of the NAACP (Group II, Box C-35), Manuscript Division, Library of Congress, Washington, D.C. 51. M. C. Strachan, Tampa, to Thurgood Marshall, New York, 17 September 1942, transcript handwritten, Papers of the NAACP (Group II, Box C-35), Manuscript Division, Library of Congress, Washington, D.C. 52. Ibid. See also “YOU SHOULD KNOW WHAT THE TAMPA BRANCH OF THE NAACP HAS BEEN DOING,” Papers of the NAACP (Group II, Box C-35), Manuscript Division, Library of Congress, Washington, D.C. 53. “YOU SHOULD KNOW WHAT THE TAMPA BRANCH OF THE NAACP HAS BEEN DOING,” Papers of the NAACP (Group II, Box C-35), Manuscript Division, Library of Congress, Washington, D.C. 54. M. C. Strachan, Tampa, to Thurgood Marshall, New York, 17 September 1942, transcript handwritten, Papers of the NAACP (Group II, Box C-35), Manuscript Division, Library of Congress, Washington, D.C. See also “YOU SHOULD KNOW WHAT THE TAMPA BRANCH OF THE NAACP HAS BEEN DOING,” Papers of the NAACP (Group II, Box C-35), Manuscript Division, Library of Congress, Washington, D.C. 55. M. C. Strachan, Tampa, to Thurgood Marshall, New York, 17 September 1942, transcript handwritten, Papers of the NAACP (Group II, Box C-35), Manuscript Division, Library of Congress, Washington, D.C. 56. M. C. Strachan, Tampa, to Thurgood Marshall, New York, 17 September 1942, transcript handwritten, Papers of the NAACP (Group II, Box C-35), Manuscript Division, Library of Congress, Washington, D.C. See also “YOU SHOULD KNOW WHAT THE TAMPA BRANCH OF THE NAACP HAS BEEN DOING,” Papers of the NAACP (Group II, Box C-35), Manuscript Division, Library of Congress, Washington, D.C. 57. “Execution List 1924–1964—Florida Department of Corrections” [database online]. Tallahassee, Florida: Florida Department of Corrections, ca. 15 September 2005, www.dc.state. fl.us/oth/deathrow/execlist2.html; accessed 20 September 2005. 58. M. C. Strachan, Tampa, to Thurgood Marshall, New York, 17 September 1942, transcript handwritten, Papers of the NAACP (Group II, Box C-35), Manuscript Division, Library of Congress, Washington, D.C. 59. M. C. Strachan, Tampa, to NAACP Headquarters, New York, 25 January 1943, transcript handwritten, Papers of the NAACP (Group II, Box C-35), Manuscript Division, Library of Congress, Washington, D.C. 60. M. C. Strachan, Tampa, to Ella J. Baker, New York, 2 March 1943, transcript handwritten, Papers of the NAACP (Group II, Box C-35), Manuscript Division, Library of Congress, Washington, D.C.; Aldon D. Morris, The Origins of the Civil Rights Movement: Black Communities Organizing for Change (New York: Free Press, 1984), 102. 61. Ella J. Baker, New York, to M. C. Strachan, Tampa, 16 June 1943, Papers of the NAACP (Group II, Box C-35), Manuscript Division, Library of Congress, Washington, D.C. 62. Dan Malloy, and E. Norman Lacey, Tampa, to Walter White, New York, 22 April 1943, Papers of the NAACP (Group II, Box C-35), Manuscript Division, Library of Congress, Washington, D.C. 63. Ibid.

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64. Lucille Black, New York, to Ella J. Baker, New York, 9 April 1943, Papers of the NAACP (Group II, Box C-35), Manuscript Division, Library of Congress, Washington, D.C. 65. Ella J. Baker, New York, to M. C. Strachan, Tampa, 16 June 1943, Papers of the NAACP (Group II, Box C-35), Manuscript Division, Library of Congress, Washington, D.C. See also Ella J. Baker, New York, to Tampa branch of the NAACP, Tampa, 30 September 1944Papers of the NAACP (Group II, Box C-35), Manuscript Division, Library of Congress, Washington, D.C.; M. C. Strachan, Tampa, to Ella J. Baker, New York, 13 December 1945, Papers of the NAACP (Group II, Box C-35), Manuscript Division, Library of Congress, Washington, D.C. 66. Thurgood Marshall, New York, to Mrs. Waring, New York, 8 November 1945, Papers of the NAACP (Group II, Box C-35), Manuscript Division, Library of Congress, Washington, D.C. See also M. C. Strachan, Tampa, to Ella J. Baker, New York, 8 January 1946, Papers of the NAACP (Group II, Box C-35), Manuscript Division, Library of Congress, Washington, D.C. 67. Ella J. Baker, New York, to M. C. Strachan, Tampa, 5 January 1946, Papers of the NAACP (Group II, Box C-35), Manuscript Division, Library of Congress, Washington, D.C. See also M. C. Strachan, Tampa, to Ella J. Baker, New York, 8 January 1946Papers of the NAACP (Group II, Box C-35), Manuscript Division, Library of Congress, Washington, D.C. 68. “Tampa NAACP Hold Election,” Omaha Star, 31 December 1947, Papers of the NAACP (Group II, Box C-35), Manuscript Division, Library of Congress, Washington, D.C. See also M. C. Strachan, Tampa, to Ella J. Baker, New York, 22 December 1947, transcript handwritten, Papers of the NAACP (Group II, Box C-35), Manuscript Division, Library of Congress, Washington, D.C. 69. “Obituaries,” Adventist Review and Sabbath Herald 128, no. 48 (1951): 20. 70. Morris, The Origins of the Civil Rights Movement, x. 71. “The NAACP ITS PURPOSE,” Papers of the NAACP (Group II, Box C-35), Manuscript Division, Library of Congress, Washington, D.C. 72. E. Franklin Frazier, The Negro Church in America (New York: Schocken, 1963), 27–46. See also Morris, The Origins of the Civil Rights Movement, 14–16. 73. Frazier, The Negro Church, 42–44, 49–52. See also Morris, The Origins of the Civil Rights Movement, 14–16. 74. Carol Morello, “The Freedom Fighter a Nation Nearly Forgot,” Adventist Review 178, no. 5 (February 2001): 10. 75. Ibid. 76. Franklin, From Slavery to Freedom, 479, 480. 77. Carol Morello, “Freedom Fighter,” 10. 78. Ibid., 8, 10. 79. Ibid., 10, 11.

Chapter 4 1. Alfonzo Greene Sr., interviewed by author, 26 May 2004, tape recording, home residence, Huntsville, Alabama. Unless noted otherwise, the information concerning Greene provided in this discussion comes from the interview. 2. John Lewis and Michael D’Orso, Walking with the Wind: A Memoir of the Movement (New York: Harcourt Brace, 1999), 52, 53. 3. Mervyn A. Warren, King Came Preaching: The Pulpit Power of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. (Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press, 2001), 49, 170–81. See also “Martin Luther King Addresses 2000 at Oakwood Meeting,” The Spreading Oak 31, no. 3 (March 1962): 1, 4; “Dr. Martin King Speaks to Oakwood,” The Ocadian 4, no. 4 (April 1962): 1; “The Day Dr. King came to Town,” Huntsville Times (January 17, 1988). 4. Ibid.

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5. White, Testimonies, vol. 9, 208. 6. Hale, Angels Watching Over Me, 207. 7. Bill Knott, “A Journey and a March,” Adventist Review Online Edition, www. adventistreview.org/2005-1521/story1.html; accessed 25 May 2005. 8. Terrance Roberts did not respond to the author’s request for an interview. As a result, the information in this discussion comes from Roberts’s article, as well as Daisy Bates’s memoir on the Little Rock Central High School integration battle. 9. Morris, The Origins of the Civil Rights Movement, 192. 10. Daisy Bates, The Long Shadow of Little Rock: A Memoir (New York: David McKay, 1963), 59, 123, 124. 11. Ibid., 49, 52, 138. 12. Ibid., 44–47. See also Neil A. Wynn, The Afro-American and the Second World War, rev. 2nd ed. (New York: Holmes & Meier, 1993), 130–33. 13. Bates, The Long Shadow of Little Rock, 52, 53. 14. Franklin and Moss, From Slavery to Freedom, 523. See also Du Bois, A Soliloquy on Viewing My Life, 333. 15. Daisy Bates, The Long Shadow of Little Rock, 48. 16. Ibid., 53. 17. Ibid., 3, 4. 18. Ibid., 56, 57. 19. This minister declined the author’s request for an interview. 20. Daisy Bates, The Long Shadow of Little Rock, 61–67. 21. Ibid., 83–93. 22. Ibid., 100. See also Franklin, From Slavery to Freedom, 523. 23. Daisy Bates, The Long Shadow of Little Rock, 104–6. 24. Ibid., 116, 124, 125. 25. Terrance J. Roberts, “Surviving Racism: Life in these United States,” Message 56, no. 1 (January/February 1990): 28. 26. Daisy Bates, The Long Shadow of Little Rock, 152–61. 27. Hale, Angels Watching Over Me, 1996), 74–76. 28. Ibid., 142, 143, 157–60. 29. Ibid., 161–63. 30. Ibid., 166–69. 31. Ibid., 178–200. 32. Ibid., 178, 179. 33. Ibid., 178–83. 34. Ibid., 159. 35. Ibid., 184 –86. 36. James F. Findlay Jr., Church People in the Struggle: The National Council of Churches and the Black Freedom Movement, 1950–1970 (New York: Oxford University Press, 1993), 14. 37. David L. Chappell, A Stone of Hope: Prophetic Religion and the Death of Jim Crow (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2004), 5, 107, 108. 38. Hale, Angels Watching Over Me, 187, 188. 39. Ibid., 200, 202. 40. Ibid., 195, 196. See also E. E. Cleveland, Let the Church Roll On: An Autobiography (Nampa: Pacific Press Publishing, 1997), 57. 41. Hale, Angels Watching Over Me, 202. 42. Cleveland, Let the Church Roll On, 57. 43. Edward Earl Cleveland, interviewed by author, 25 May 2004, tape recording, home residence, Huntsville, Alabama. See also Cleveland, Let the Church Roll On, 57, 58. 44. Hale, Angels Watching Over Me, 208.

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45. Frank W. Hale Jr., “Commitment vs. Capitulation,” Spectrum 2, no. 2 (Spring 1970): 31. 46. Ibid., 32. 47. Ibid., 32, 33. 48. Ibid., 34. 49. Ibid., 35. 50. Ibid., 36. 51. Ibid., 37. 52. Ibid., 38. 53. White, The Southern Work, 54. 54. Hale, Angels Watching Over Me, 80, 81, 120, 121.

Chapter 5 1. Dudley, Thou Who Hast Brought Us Thus Far on Our Way, 187. 2. Charles Edward Dudley Sr., interviewed by author, 3 August 2004, tape recording, home residence, Nashville, Tennessee. Unless noted otherwise, the information concerning Dudley in this discussion comes from the interview. Dudley is the author of books on the history of African Americans in the Seventh-day Adventist Church, including Thou Who Hath Brought Us: The Story of the Growth and Development of the Seventh-day Adventist Denomination as It Relates to AfricanAmericans (New York: TEACH Services, 1997); The Genealogy of Ellen Gould Harmon White: The Prophetess of the Seventh-day Adventist Church, and the Story of the Growth and Development of the Seventh-day Adventist Denomination as it Relates to African-Americans (Nashville: Dudley Publishing Services, 1999); and Thou Who Hath Brought Us Thus Far On Our Way. 3. Dudley, Thou Who Hast Brought Us Thus Far on Our Way, 187. 4. Ibid. 5. Ibid., 194. The Friendship Clinic was located in Mound Bayou, Mississippi. In his book, Dudley mistakenly refers to the location as Mt. Bijou. Moreover, he calls the medical center that T. R. M. Howard established Friendship Hospital, whereas other scholars refer to it as Friendship Clinic. 6. Townsend Davis, Weary Feet, Rested Souls: A Guided History of the Civil Rights Movement (New York: W. W. Norton, 1998), 251, 252. 7. Kay Mills, This Little Light of Mine: The Life of Fannie Lou Hamer (New York: Plume, 1994), 40, 41. 8. Davis, Weary Feet, Rested Souls, 259. 9. David T. Beito and Linda Royster Beito, “T. R. M. Howard: Pragmatism over Strict Integrationist Ideology in the Mississippi Delta, 1942–1954,” in Before Brown: Civil Rights and White Backlash in the Modern South, ed. Glen Feldman (Tuscaloosa: University of Alabama Press, 2004), 68–95; See also David T. Beito and Linda Royster Beito, “T. R. M. Howard M.D.: A Mississippi Doctor in Chicago Civil Rights,” A.M.E. Church Review 117, no. 383 (July–September 2001): 51–59; Charles M. Payne, I’ve Got the Light of Freedom: The Organizing Tradition and the Mississippi Freedom Struggle (Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press, 1995), 28, 31, 37, 40, 49, 58, 136, 154, 155. 10. Dudley, Thou Who Hast Brought Us Thus Far on Our Way, 116. See also Hale, Angels Watching Over Me, 157–211; E. E. Cleveland, Let the Church Roll On, 57, 58. 11. Alfonzo Greene Sr., interviewed by author, 26 May 2004, tape recording, home residence, Huntsville, Alabama. Here Greene, an actual participant in the event under discussion, corroborates Dudley’s account of what transpired at the Huntsville Central Seventh-day Adventist Church. 12. The Alabama Mississippi Conference (currently the Gulf States Conference of Seventhday Adventists) is a local conference within the denomination made up of predominately white

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churches in Alabama and Mississippi, as well as the following Florida counties: Bay, Calhoun, Escambia, Gulf, Holmes, Jackson, Okaloosa, Santa Rosa, Walton, and Washington. As a result, whites hold most of the leadership positions in this conference. 13. Charles Joseph, interviewed by author, 29 August 2004, tape recording, home residence, Glenwood, Illinois. Unless noted otherwise, the information concerning Joseph in this discussion comes from the interview. 14. Franklin and Moss, From Slavery to Freedom, 286, 287. 15. Bill Knott, “Journey and a March,” Adventist Review Online Edition, www. adventistreview.org/2005-1521/story1.html; accessed 25 May 2005. 16. Charles Teel, “Saints: Bound Together by a Fellowship of Joy and Pain and Hope” (Washington: Sligo Seventh-day Adventist Church, 2004), cassette. 17. Clayborne Carson, In Struggle: SNCC and the Black Awakening of the 1960s (1981; reprint, Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1995), 96–131. See also Lewis and D’Orso, Walking with the Wind, 247–58. 18. Tim Spofford, Lynch Street: The May 1970 Slayings at Jackson State College (Kent, OH: Kent State University Press, 1988). See also Lerone Bennett Jr., Before the Mayflower: A History of Black America, 6th ed. (New York: Penguin, 1987), 590. 19. Earl Moore, interviewed by author, 31 May 2004, tape recording, home residence, Decatur, Georgia. Unless noted otherwise the information concerning Moore in this discussion comes from the interview.

Chapter 6 1. Warren S. Banfield Jr., interviewed by author, 26 May 2004, tape recording, home residence, Huntsville, Alabama. Unless noted otherwise, the information concerning Banfield in this discussion comes from the interview. See also Dwain Neilson Esmond, “In the Crossfire: The Ministry of Warren S. Banfield,” Adventist Review 179, no. 6 (February 2002): 22. 2. Warren S. Banfield, “Race Relations: How Far Have Adventists Come?” Adventist Review 167, no. 2 (January 1990): 16. 3. “Adventists and Race Relations,” Adventist Review 167, no. 2 (January 1990): 14. 4. Though asked in the interview, Banfield refused to disclose the name of the white administrator. 5. Esmond, “In the Crossfire,” 23. 6. Ibid., 24. 7. “Adventists and Race Relations,” 14. 8. Banfield, “Race Relations,” 16. 9. Ibid. 10. Ibid. 11. Ibid. 12. Franklin Hill II, interviewed by author, 18 May 2004, tape recording, home residence, Lafayette, Indiana. Unless noted otherwise, the information concerning Hill in this discussion comes from the interview. 13. Morris, The Origins of the Civil Rights Movement, 154–55. 14. Ibid, 155. 15. Edward Earl Cleveland, interviewed by author, 25 May 2004, tape recording, home residence, Huntsville, Alabama. Unless noted otherwise, the information concerning Cleveland in this discussion comes from the interview. See also Cleveland, Let the Church Roll On, 112. 16. Cleveland, Let the Church Roll On, 104. 17. Ibid., 103, 104.

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18. “Tribute to Elder Edward Earl Cleveland of Oakwood College”—Hon. Robert E. (Bud) Cramer, Jr. (Extension of Remarks—February 07, 2001), Washington: Library of Congress, 2001, thomas.loc.gov/cgi-bin/query/z?r107:E07FE1-0013; accessed 5 December 2005. 19. Cleveland, Let the Church Roll On, 10–12. 20. Ibid., 16. 21. Ibid., 15. 22. Ibid., 55, 56. 23. Dudley, Thou Who Hast Brought Us Thus Far On Our Way, 159. 24. Cleveland, Let the Church Roll On, 27–29. 25. Ibid., 29. 26. The East Africa Division is currently known as the East-Central Africa Division of Seventh-day Adventists. The territory of the division includes Burundi, the Democratic Republic of Congo, Djibouti, Eritrea, Ethiopia, Kenya, Rwanda, Tanzania, and Uganda. Prior to the African nationalistic movements of the mid-1950s, whites held most of the leadership positions within this division. 27. Cleveland, Let the Church Roll On, 112. 28. Ibid., 45. 29. Stephen Chavez, “A Life in the Spotlight,” Adventist Review 175, no. 5 (February 1999): 11. See also Cleveland, Let the Church Roll On, 45. 30. Chavez, “A Life in the Spotlight,” 11. 31. Ibid. See also Cleveland, Let the Church Roll On, 45. 32. Cleveland, Let the Church Roll On, 45. 33. Plantak, The Silent Church, 81. See also Cleveland, Let the Church Roll On, 63. 34. Mark L. Chapman, Christianity on Trial: African-American Religious Thought Before and After Black Power (Maryknoll: Orbis, 1996), 74. 35. Cleveland, Let the Church Roll On, 63. See also Dudley and Hernández, Citizens of Two Worlds, 288; Plantak, The Silent Church, 81. Although blacks exercised authority in their own regional conferences, white-dominated union conferences possessed greater control over the allocation of resources. 36. Cleveland, Let the Church Roll On, 63, 64. 37. Ibid. 38. Chavez, “A Life in the Spotlight,” 11. See also Cleveland, Let the Church Roll On, 58.

Conclusion 1. Alfonzo Greene Sr., interviewed by author, 26 May 2004, tape recording, home residence, Huntsville, Alabama. 2. Alfonzo Greene Sr., interviewed by author, 26 May 2004, tape recording, home residence, Huntsville, Alabama; and Charles Edward Dudley Sr., interviewed by author, 3 August 2004, tape recording, home residence, Nashville, Tennessee. 3. Hale, Angels Watching Over Me, 158, 159. 4. Charles Edward Dudley Sr., interviewed by author, 3 August 2004, tape recording, home residence, Nashville, Tennessee. 5. Charles Joseph, interviewed by author, 29 August 2004, tape recording, home residence, Glenwood, Illinois. 6. Warren S. Banfield Jr., interviewed by author, 26 May 2004, tape recording, home residence, Huntsville, Alabama. 7. Carol Morello, “The Freedom Fighter a Nation Nearly Forgot,” Adventist Review 178, no. 5 (February 2001): 10.

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8. Neil A. Wynn, The Afro-American and the Second World War, rev. 2nd ed. (New York: Holmes & Meier, 1993), 131. See also Bates, The Long Shadow of Little Rock, 44–47. 9. Alfonzo Greene Sr., interviewed by author, 26 May 2004, tape recording, home residence, Huntsville, Alabama. 10. Charles Edward Dudley Sr., interviewed by author, 3 August 2004, tape recording, home residence, Nashville, Tennessee. 11. Edward Earl Cleveland, interviewed by author, 25 May 2004, tape recording, home residence, Huntsville, Alabama. 12. Warren S. Banfield Jr., interviewed by author, 26 May 2004, tape recording, home residence, Huntsville, Alabama. 13. The ministers interviewed in this study reported that their interpersonal relationship with parishioners motivated their activism. 14. Hale, Angels Watching Over Me, 36; Warren S. Banfield Jr., interviewed by author, 26 May 2004, tape recording, home residence, Huntsville, Alabama; Edward Earl Cleveland, interviewed by author, 25 May 2004, tape recording, home residence, Huntsville, Alabama; Charles Edward Dudley Sr., interviewed by author, 3 August 2004, tape recording, home residence, Nashville, Tennessee; Charles Joseph, interviewed by author, 29 August 2004, tape recording, home residence, Glenwood, Illinois; Earl Moore, interviewed by author, 31 May 2004, tape recording, home residence, Decatur, Georgia; Franklin Hill II, interviewed by author, 18 May 2004, tape recording, home residence, Lafayette, Indiana.

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Archival Materials Baker, Ella J., New York, to M. C. Strachan, Tampa, 16 June 1943. Papers of the NAACP (Group II, Box C-35), Manuscript Division, Library of Congress, Washington, D.C. Baker, Ella J., New York, to M. C. Strachan, Tampa, 5 January 1946. Papers of the NAACP (Group II, Box C-35), Manuscript Division, Library of Congress, Washington, D.C. Baker, Ella J., New York, to Tampa branch of the NAACP, Tampa, 30 September 1944. Papers of the NAACP (Group II, Box C-35), Manuscript Division, Library of Congress, Washington, D.C. Black, Lucille, New York, to Ella J. Baker, New York, 9 April 1943. Papers of the NAACP (Group II, Box C-35), Manuscript Division, Library of Congress, Washington, D.C. Cramer, Jr., Robert E. “Tribute to Elder Edward Earl Cleveland of Oakwood College, February 7, 2001.” Washington: Library of Congress, thomas.loc.gov/cgibin/query/z?r107:E07FE10013. Accessed 5 December 2005. “Execution List 1924–1964” [database online]. Tallahassee: Florida Department of Corrections, ca. 15 September 2005, www.dc.state.fl.us/oth/deathrow/execlist2.html. Accessed 20 September 2005. “History of the Archdiocese of New Orleans, A.” New Orleans: Archdiocese of New Orleans, www.archdiocese-no.org/history/prelates.html. Accessed 7 August 2008. Malloy, Dan, and E. Norman Lacey, Tampa, to Walter White, New York, 22 April 1943. Papers of the NAACP (Group II, Box C-35), Manuscript Division, Library of Congress, Washington, D.C. Marshall, Thurgood, New York, to Mrs. Waring, New York, 8 November 1945. Papers of the NAACP (Group II, Box C-35), Manuscript Division, Library of Congress, Washington, D.C. Pickens, William, New York, to M. C. Strachan, Tampa, 10 February 1940. Papers of the NAACP (Group II, Box C-35), Manuscript Division, Library of Congress, Washington, D.C. “Seventh-day Adventist Church: Fundamental Beliefs.” Silver Spring, MD: General Conference of Seventh-day Adventists, www.adventist.org/beliefs/fundamental/index.html. Accessed 8 July 2008. Strachan, M. C., Tampa, to Ella J. Baker, New York, 2 March 1943. Transcript handwritten. Papers of the NAACP (Group II, Box C-35), Manuscript Division, Library of Congress, Washington, D.C. Strachan, M. C., Tampa, to Ella J. Baker, New York, 13 December 1945. Papers of the NAACP (Group II, Box C-35), Manuscript Division, Library of Congress, Washington, D.C.

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Strachan, M. C., Tampa, to Ella J. Baker, New York, 8 January 1946. Papers of the NAACP (Group II, Box C-35), Manuscript Division, Library of Congress, Washington, D.C. Strachan, M. C., Tampa, to Ella J. Baker, New York, 22 December 1947. Transcript handwritten. Papers of the NAACP (Group II, Box C-35), Manuscript Division, Library of Congress, Washington, D.C. Strachan, M. C., Tampa, to Roy Wilkins, New York, 12 March 1941. Transcript handwritten. Papers of the NAACP (Group II, Box C-35), Manuscript Division, Library of Congress, Washington, D.C. Strachan, M. C., Tampa to NAACP Headquarters, New York, 25 January 1943. Transcript handwritten. Papers of the NAACP (Group II, Box C-35),Manuscript Division, Library of Congress, Washington, D.C. Strachan, M. C., Tampa, to NAACP Headquarters, New York, 2 April 1942. Transcript handwritten. Papers of the NAACP (Group II, Box C-35), Manuscript Division, Library of Congress, Washington, D.C. Strachan, M. C., Tampa, to Thurgood Marshall, New York, 17 September 1942. Transcript handwritten. Papers of the NAACP (Group II, Box C-35), Manuscript Division, Library of Congress, Washington, D.C. “Tampa NAACP Holds Election.” Omaha Star (31 December 1947). Papers of the NAACP (Group II, Box C-35), Manuscript Division, Library of Congress, Washington, D.C. “The NAACP Its Purpose.” Papers of the NAACP (Group II, Box C-35), Manuscript Division, Library of Congress, Washington, D.C. White, James Edson, Battle Creek, to Ellen G. White, Cooranbong, 25 May 1899. Ellen G. White Estate, Silver Spring, Maryland. White, James Edson, Yazoo City, to Ellen G. White, Cooranbong, 14 May 1899. Ellen G. White Estate, Silver Spring, Maryland. “You Should Know What the Tampa Branch of the NAACP Has Been Doing.” Papers of the NAACP (Group II, Box C-35), Manuscript Division, Library of Congress, Washington, D.C.

Interviews Banfield, Warren St. Claire, Jr., minister. Interview by author, 26 May 2004. Tape recording. Home residence, Huntsville, Alabama. Cleveland, Edward Earl, minister. Interview by author, 25 May 2004. Tape recording. Home residence, Huntsville, Alabama. Dudley, Charles Edward, Sr., minister. Interview by author, 3 August 2004. Tape recording. Home residence, Nashville, Tennessee. Greene, Alfonzo, Sr., educator. Interview by author, 26 May 2004. Tape recording. Home residence, Huntsville, Alabama. Hill, Franklin, II, minister. Interview by author, 18 May 2004. Tape recording. Home residence, Lafayette, Indiana. Joseph, Charles, minister. Interview by author, 29 August 2004. Tape recording. Home residence, Glenwood, Illinois. Moore, Earl, minister. Interview by author, 31 May 2004. Tape recording. Home residence, Decatur, Georgia.

Books and Dissertations Allen, John Jr. Conclave: The Politics, Personalities, and the Process of the Next Papal Election, 2nd ed. New York: Image, 2004.

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Ansbro, John J. Martin Luther King, Jr.: Nonviolent Strategies and Tactics for Social Change. New York: Madison Books, 2000. Baldwin, Lou. Saint Katharine Drexel: Apostle to the Oppressed. Philadelphia: Catholic Standard and Times, 2000. Bates, Daisy. The Long Shadow of Little Rock: A Memoir. New York: David McKay, 1963. Bennett, Jr., Lerone. Before the Mayflower: A History of Black America, 6th ed. New York: Penguin, 1987. Beito, David T., and Linda Royster Beito. “T. R. M. Howard: Pragmatism over Strict Integrationist Ideology in the Mississippi Delta, 1942–1954.” In Before Brown: Civil Rights and White Backlash in the Modern South, ed. Glen Feldman, 6895. Tuscaloosa: University of Alabama Press, 2004. Bowers, Claude. The Tragic Era: The Revolution after Lincoln. New York: Blue Ribbon, 1929. Carson, Clayborne, ed. The Autobiography of Martin Luther King, Jr. New York: Warner Books, 1998. ———. In Struggle: SNCC and the Black Awakening of the 1960s. Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1981. Reprint, Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1995. Chapman, Mark L. Christianity on Trial: African-American Religious Thought Before and After Black Power. Maryknoll: Orbis, 1996. Chappell, David L. A Stone of Hope: Prophetic Religion and the Death of Jim Crow. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2004. Cleveland, E. E. Let the Church Roll On: An Autobiography. Nampa: Pacific Press Publishing, 1997. Conkin, Paul K. American Originals: Homemade Varieties of Christianity. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1997. Cronon, David E. Black Moses: The Story of Marcus Garvey and the Universal Negro Improvement Association, 2nd ed. Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 1969. Du Bois, W. E. B. A Soliloquy on Viewing My Life from the Last Decade of Its First Century: The Autobiography of W. E. B. Du Bois. New York: International Publishers, 1968. ———. “The Conservation of Races.” In Theories of Race and Racism: A Reader, eds. Less Black and John Solomos, 79–85. New York: Routledge, 2000. ———. The Souls of Black Folk. New York: A. C. McClurg, 1903. Reprint, New York: Penguin, 1989. Dudley, Charles Edward Sr. The Genealogy of Ellen Gould Harmon White: The Prophetess of the Seventh-day Adventist Church, and the Story of the Growth and Development of the Seventh-day Adventist Denomination as it Relates to African-Americans. Nashville: Dudley Publishing, 1999. ———. Thou Who Hath Brought Us: The Story of the Growth and Development of the Seventhday Adventist Denomination as it Relates to African-Americans. New York: TEACH Services, 1997. ———. Thou Who Hath Brought Us Thus Far On Our Way: The Development of the Seventh-day Adventist Denomination among African-Americans. Nashville: Dudley Publications, 2000. Dudley, Roger L., and Edwin I. Hernández. Citizens of Two Worlds: Religion and Politics among American Seventh-day Adventists. Berrien Springs, MI: Andrews University Press, 1992. Dunning, William Archibald. Essays on the Civil War and Reconstruction, new ed. New York: Harper & Row, 1965. ———. Reconstruction, Political and Economic, 1865–1877. New York: Harper & Brothers, 1907. Farrington, Karen. The History of Religion. New York: Barnes & Noble, 2001. Findlay, Jr., James F. Church People in the Struggle: The National Council of Churches and the Black Freedom Movement, 1950–1970. New York: Oxford University Press, 1993. Franklin, John Hope, and Alfred A. Moss Jr. From Slavery to Freedom: A History of African Americans, 8th ed. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 2004.

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Frazier, E. Franklin. The Negro Church in America. New York: Schocken, 1963. Fredrickson, George M. Racism: A Short History. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2002. ———. White Supremacy: A Comparative Study in American and South African History. New York: Oxford University Press, 1982. Gandhi, Mohandas K. Autobiography: The Story of My Experiments with Truth. Translated by Mahadev Desai. 1948. Reprint, New York: Dover Publications, 1983. Gossett, Thomas F. Race: The History of an Idea in America, new ed. New York: Oxford University Press, 1997. Grant, Madison. The Passing of the Great Race; or, The Racial Basis of European History. New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1916. Graybill, Ronald D. E. G. White and Church Race Relations. Washington: Review and Herald Publishing, 1970. ———. Mission to Black America: The True Story of Edson White and the Riverboat Morning Star. Nampa: Pacific Press Publishing, 1971. Hale, Jr., Frank W. Angels Watching Over Me: The Autobiography of Dr. Frank W. Hale, Jr. Nashville: James C. Winston Publishing, 1996. Hannay, Alastair. Kierkegaard: A Biography. New York: Cambridge University Press, 2001. Hernández, Edwin I. “Religious Commitment and Its Political Consequences among Seventhday Adventists in the United States.” Diss., University of Notre Dame, 1989. Hill, Jonathan. Faith in the Age of Reason: The Enlightenment from Galileo to Kant. Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press, 2004. Immaculata. Mother M. Theresa Maxis Duchemin: Co-founder with Reverend Louis Florent Gillet, C.SS.R., Founder of the Congregation of the Sisters, Servants of the Immaculate Heart of Mary. Scranton, PA: Marywood College Press, 1945. Kierkegaard, Søren. Attack upon Christendom. Translated by Walter Lowrie. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1944. ———. Concluding Unscientific Postscript to Philosophical Fragments. Translated by Howard V. Hong and Edna H. Hong. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1992. ———. Either/Or, Vol. Two. Translated by Walter Lowrie. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1944. ———. The Concept of Dread. Translated by Walter Lowrie. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1957. Lewis, John, and Michael D’Orso. Walking with the Wind: A Memoir of the Movement. New York: Harcourt Brace, 1999. Lozano, Juan María. The Claretians: Their Mission and Spirit in the Church. Chicago: Claret Center for Resources in Spirituality, 1980. Luker, Ralph E. The Social Gospel in Black and White: American Radical Reform, 1885–1912. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1991. McLoughlin, William G. “Revivalism.” In The Rise of Adventism: Religion and Society in MidNineteenth-Century America, ed. Edwin S. Gaustad. 119–53. New York: Harper & Row, 1974. Mills, Kay. This Little Light of Mine: The Life of Fannie Lou Hamer. New York: Plume, 1994. Ministerial Association of the General Conference of Seventh-day Adventists. Seventh-day Adventists Believe: A Biblical Exposition of Fundamental Doctrines. Hagerstown, MD: Review and Herald Publishing, 1988. Morris, Aldon D. The Origins of the Civil Rights Movement: Black Communities Organizing for Change. New York: Free Press, 1984. Nix, James R., and Fylvia Fowler Kline, eds. The Spirit of Sacrifice and Commitment: Experience of Seventh-day Adventist Pioneers. Silver Spring, MD: Stewardship Department of the General Conference of Seventh-day Adventists, 2000.

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Paris, Peter J. The Social Teaching of the Black Churches. Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1985. Payne, Charles M. I’ve Got the Light of Freedom: The Organizing Tradition and the Mississippi Freedom Struggle. Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press, 1995. Plantak, Zdravko. The Silent Church: Human Rights and Adventist Social Ethics. With an introduction by Sakae Kubo. New York: St. Martin’s, 1998. Raboteau, Albert J. Canaan Land: A Religious History of African Americans. New York: Oxford University Press, 2001. Rauschenbusch, Walter. Christianity and the Social Crisis. Louisville, KY: Westminster/John Knox Press, 1991. Rhodes, James Ford. History of the United States from the Compromise of 1850 to the McKinleyBryan Campaign of 1896—Vol. VII. New York: Macmillan, 1920. Smith, Uriah. The Prophecies of Daniel and the Revelation, rev. ed. Hagerstown, MD: Review and Herald Publishing, 1972. Spofford, Tim. Lynch Street: The May 1970 Slayings at Jackson State College. Kent, OH: Kent State University Press, 1988. Stampp, Kenneth M. The Era of Reconstruction 1865–1877. New York: Vintage, 1965. Stokesbury, James L. A Short History of World War I. New York: William Morrow, 1981. Townsend, Davis. Weary Feet, Rested Souls: A Guided History of the Civil Rights Movement. New York: W. W. Norton, 1998. Warren, Mervyn A. King Came Preaching: The Pulpit Power of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press, 2001. ———. Oakwood! A Vision Splendid 1896–1996. Collegedale, TN: College Press, 1996. Washington, Booker T. Up From Slavery. 1901. Reprint, New York: W. W. Norton, 1996. Watts, Michael. Kierkegaard. Oxford: Oneworld Publications, 2003. Wells-Barnett, Ida B. On Lynchings. New York: Humanity, 2002. White, Ellen G. Early Writings. 1882. Reprint, Hagerstown, MD: Review and Herald Publishing, 2000. ———. Testimonies for the Church, vol. 9. 1909. Reprint, Mountain View, CA: Pacific Press Publishing, 1948. The Great Controversy: Between Christ and Satan. 1911. Reprint, Boise, ID: Pacific Press Publishing, 1950. ———. The Southern Work. 1901. Reprint, Hagerstown, MD: Review and Herald Publishing, 1966. ———. Welfare Ministry. Washington: Review and Herald Publishing, 1952. White, James Edson. The Southern Work: Mob Violence. Battle Creek, MI: Review and Herald, 1899. Woodward, C. Vann. Origins of the New South, 1877-1913, 2d. ed. Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 1971. Wynn, Neil A. The Afro-American and the Second World War, rev. 2nd ed. New York: Holmes & Meier, 1993.

Articles and Periodicals “Actions of General Interest: Spring Meeting of the General Conference Committee, April 13, 14, 1965.” Review and Herald 142, no. 17 (April 1965): 8. “Adventist Pastor Slams Broadsides At Fraud Charges.” New York Amsterdam News 20, no. 50 (November 13, 1929): 1, 3. “Adventist Preacher Hits Fraud Charges.” New York Amsterdam News 20, no. 50 (November 13, 1929): 3.

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“Adventists and Race Relations.” Adventist Review 167, no. 2 (January 1990): 14. Banfield, Warren S. Jr. “Race Relations: How Far Have Adventists Come?” Adventist Review 167, no. 2 (January 1990): 15–18. Barry, A., W. H. Sebastian, and M. C. Strachan. “Jackson (Mississippi) Camp Meeting.” Advent Review and Sabbath Herald 79, no. 41 (1902): 16, 17. Beito, David T., and Linda Royster Beito. “T. R. M. Howard M.D.: A Mississippi Doctor in Chicago Civil Rights.” A.M.E. Church Review 117 (July-September 2001): 51–59. “Bishop O’Connor Dying.” New York Times (February 4, 1890): 1. Branson, Roy. “Ellen G. White—Racist or Champion of Equality?” Review and Herald 147, no. 15 (April 1970): 2, 3. ———. “The Crisis of the Nineties.” Review and Herald 147, no. 17 (April 1970): 4–6. Butler, Anne V. “Florida (Colored) Camp-Meeting.” Advent Review and Sabbath Herald 87, no. 50 (1910): 21, 22. Butler, George I. “Our Duty to the Colored Race in America.” Adventist Review and Sabbath Herald (7 January 1896): 9. ———. “The Nashville (Tenn.) Camp-Meeting.” Adventist Review and Sabbath Herald 83, no. 39 (September 1906): 17, 18. Chávez, Stephen. “A Life in the Spotlight.” Adventist Review 175, no. 5 (February 1999): 8–11. Christian, J. W. “The Cleveland (Tenn.) Camp-Meeting.” Advent Review and Sabbath Herald 86, no. 40 (1909): 17. Cole, V. O. “Camp-Meeting and Institute for the Colored Believers of Florida.” Advent Review and Sabbath Herald 89, no. 45 (1912): 17. Cottrell, Raymond F. “Churches Meddling in Politics.” Review and Herald 142, no. 30 (July 1965): 12. ———. “Rendering to Caesar What Belongs to God.” Review and Herald 140, no. 42 (October 1963): 12, 13. Crichlow, J. F. “Work for Colored People in Winnsboro, S.C.” Advent Review and Sabbath Herald 88, no. 34 (1911): 11. “Day Dr. King came to Town, The.” Huntsville Times (January 17, 1988). “Delegates to the General Conference: May 15 to June 8, 1913.” Advent Review and Sabbath Herald 90, no. 21 (1913): 12. “Dr. Martin King Speaks to Oakwood.” The Ocadian 4, no. 4 (April 1962): 1. “Dr. Ralph D. Abernathy Recalls Visit With Pope Paul.” Jet 54, no. 23 (August 1978): 18. Esmond, Dwain Neilson. “In the Crossfire: The Ministry of Warren S. Banfield.” Adventist Review 179, no. 6 (February 2002): 21–24. Evans, I. H. “The Florida Conference and Camp Meeting.” Advent Review and Sabbath Herald 91, no. 49 (1914): 16. Figuhr, Reuben R. “A Letter From Our President.” Review and Herald 141, no. 1 (January 1964): 5. Fisher, Holly. “Oakwood College Students’ Quest for Social Justice Before and During the Civil Rights Era.” Journal of African American History 88, no. 2 (Spring 2003): 110–25. Green, W. Hawkins. “Brief Reports of Camp-Meetings for the Colored People.” Advent Review and Sabbath Herald 96, no. 43 (1919): 24. ———. “Negro Department: Among the Churches and Camp Meetings.” Advent Review and Sabbath Herald 105, no. 42 (1928): 21, 22. ———. “The Negro Department.” Advent Review and Sabbath Herald 103, no. 59 (1926): 22. ———. “The Negro Department.” Advent Review and Sabbath Herald 105, no. 4 (1928): 19. ———. “Union Meetings for the Colored People.” Advent Review and Sabbath Herald 96, no. 2 (1919): 24. ———. “A Word Regarding the North American Negro Department.” The Advent Review and Sabbath Herald 95, no. 22 (1918): 19.

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Hale, Jr., Frank W. “Commitment vs. Capitulation.” Spectrum 2, no. 2 (Spring 1970): 31. Heald, B. M. “Advancement in Negro Department.” Advent Review and Sabbath Herald 107, no. 31 (1930): 158. “History of Spiritualism.” Lily Dale, NY: National Spiritualist Association of Churches, www .nsac.org/history.html. Accessed 18 July 2008. Jones, John R., and Frances Roberts. “Huntsville and Oakwood College.” Adventist Heritage: A Journal of Adventist History 17, no. 1 (March 1996): 4–6. Kinney, C. M. “Union Camp Meeting at Huntsville, Alabama.” Advent Review and Sabbath Herald 108, no. 50 (1931): 18. Knott, Bill. “A Journey and a March.” Adventist Review Online Edition, adventistreview. org/2005-1521/story1.html. Accessed 25 May 2005. “Martin Luther King Addresses 2000 at Oakwood Meeting.” The Spreading Oak 31, no. 3 (March 1962): 1, 4. Meeker, Byron A. “Bahamas Mission.” Advent Review and Sabbath Herald 120, no. 44 (1943): 20. “Minister Cleared in Resort Project.” New York Amsterdam News 21, no. 1 (December 4, 1929): 2. “More Changes in Old Harlem Centre.” New York Times (August 26, 1923): RE2. Morello, Carol. “The Freedom Fighter a Nation Nearly Forgot.” Adventist Review 178, no. 5 (February 2001): 8–11. “Negro War Stamp Drive.” New York Times (August 11, 1918): 7. Newcomer, Emma S. “Chesapeake (Colored) Camp-meeting.” Advent Review and Sabbath Herald 96, no. 47 (1919): 25. Nichol, Francis David. “Unity in the Faith.” Review and Herald 142, no. 17 (April 1965): 12. “North American Division Conference.” Advent Review and Sabbath Herald 90, no. 23 (1913): 24. “North American Negro Department.” Advent Review and Sabbath Herald 116, no. 41 (1939): 18. “Obituaries.” Advent Review and Sabbath Herald 128, no. 48 (1951): 20. “Old Dutch Church Bought in Harlem.” New York Times (August 3, 1939): 38. Pegues, J. P. “Florida.” Advent Review and Sabbath Herald 90, no. 40 (1913): 18. Peters, G. E. “The Florida Mission Camp-Meeting.” Advent Review and Sabbath Herald 94, no. 44 (1917): 16. ———. “The Negro Department.” Advent Review and Sabbath Herald 107, no. 31 (1930): 154. Peterson, Frank L. “The North American Negro Department.” Adventist Review and Sabbath Herald 115, no. 51 (1938): 53, 54. “Proceedings of the General Conference.” Advent Review and Sabbath Herald 103, no. 24 (1926): 7. Robbins, F. H. “Chesapeake Colored Camp-Meeting.” The Advent Review and Sabbath Herald 97, no. 47 (1920): 10. Roberts, Terrance J. “Surviving Racism: Life in These United States.” Message 56, no.1 (January/ February 1990): 26–28. Rogers, Gustavus P. “The Work among the Colored People in the Chesapeake Conference.” Advent Review and Sabbath Herald 95, no. 8 (1918): 17. Russell, K. C. “District of Columbia.” Advent Review and Sabbath Herald 84, no. 24 (1907): 17. Scott, Sydney, and M. C. Strachan. “Nashville (Tenn.) Camp-meeting for Colored People.” Advent Review and Sabbath Herald 83, no. 40 (1906): 15. Sebastian, W. H., T. Murphy, and M. C. Strachan. “The Jackson, Miss. (colored), CampMeeting.” Advent Review and Sabbath Herald 80, no. 39 (1903): 19. “Seventh Day Adventists Break With White Governing Body Over Minister: Harlem Church Severs Ties With Conference On Grounds That Parent Group Practices Racial Discrimination.” New York Amsterdam News 20, no. 49 (November 6, 1929): 1. “Southern Union: Camp Meetings of the Negro Department.” Advent Review and Sabbath Herald 118, no. 51 (1941): 18.

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Spicer, W. A. “General Conference Committee in Council: North American Negro Department.” Advent Review and Sabbath Herald 86, no. 24 (1909): 24. Spicer, W. A., and E. Kotz. “Proceedings of the General Conference.” Advent Review and Sabbath Herald 103, no. 28 (1926): 3. Strachan, M. C. “The Needs of the South.” Advent Review and Sabbath Herald 86, no. 39 (1909): 10, 11. Stephenson, C. B. “South Carolina Camp Meeting.” Advent Review and Sabbath Herald 94, no. 34 (1917): 15. “To Preach Farewell.” New York Amsterdam News 21, no. 17 (March 26, 1930): 10. “Two New Churches for the Colored People.” Advent Review and Sabbath Herald 80, no. 49 (1903): 17, 18. Washington, Booker T. “Industrial Training of the Negro.” Gospel Herald 1, no. 1 (May 1898): 8, 9. ———. “Industrial Training of the Negro.” Gospel Herald 1, no. 2 (July 1898): 18, 19. ———. “Industrial Training of the Negro.” Gospel Herald 1, no. 3 (August 1898): 26, 27. ———. “The Progress of the Negro.” Adventist Review and Sabbath Herald (25 February 1896): 116, 117. White, Ellen G. “Our Example.” Advent Review and Sabbath Herald 76, no. 43 (October 1899): 1. White, James Edson. “Mission Schools for the Colored People.” Advent Review and Sabbath Herald 85, no. 39 (1908): 14, 15. ———. “The Morning Star.” Gospel Herald 1, no. 1 (May 1898): 1, 2. ———. “Use of Funds.” Gospel Herald 1, no. 1 (May 1898): 7. ———. “The Southern Missionary Society.” Gospel Herald 1, no. 5 (December 1898): 46. Wilkins, E. “Strachan.” Advent Review and Sabbath Herald 113, no. 41 (1936): 22.

Audio Recording Teel, Charles. “Saints: Bound Together by a Fellowship of Joy and Pain and Hope.” Takoma Park, MD: Sligo Seventh-day Adventist Church, 2004. Cassette.

Index

Abernathy, Ralph David, 111, 125, 129 abolitionist, 12, 15, 32 Abyssinian Baptist Church, 101, 137 Addams, Jane, 95 Adelphian Academy, 116, 152 Agee, Anna, 44 ahimsa, 74–75 Alabama-Mississippi Conference. See Gulf States Conference of Seventh-day Adventists Allegheny Conference of Seventh-day Adventists, 145 Allport, Gordon, 5 American Missionary Association, 43 Anderson, Alan A., 101–2 Anderson, V. G., 145–46 Andrews, John Nevins, 169 Andrews University, 107, 109, 122, 127, 131, 152, 157, 169 apocalyptic historical eschatology, 3, 67, 76, 150 Archbishop Ryan Memorial School, 63 Ark of the Covenant (Testament), 18–19, 24 Arkansas House of Representatives, 113 Arkansas National Guard, 113–14 Arnauld, Antoine, 70 Artaxerxes Longimanus, 14 Atlanta Compromise, 77, 81–82 Atlanta Cotton States and International Exposition, 77 Atlantic Union Conference of Seventh-day Adventists, 99, 100, 119 Babylonian Talmud, 87 Baker, Ella J., 104 Baldwin, William H., Jr., 81

187

Banfield, Warren St. Claire, Jr., 7, 48, 105, 124, 136–40, 152–53, 176 Bantee, Clarence, 94 Baptist, 12, 15–16, 29, 43–44, 46–47, 49–50, 53, 71, 84, 96, 101, 118, 123, 131, 137 Baptist Home Missionary Society, 43, 46 Baptists, American, 84 Bates, Daisy, 113–14, 174 Bates, Joseph, 16, 32–34, 39, 67, 159 Battle, Will, 128 Battle Creek College, 44, 51, 93, 169 Beacon Light Seventh-day Adventist Church, 121 Bell, Ezekiel, 109 Berean Seventh-day Adventist Church, 122 Betts, William, 101 Bevel, James, 133 Bible: King James Version, 25, 30, 158; liberationist interpretations of, 3, 6–7, 88, 93, 107, 119–21, 150, 154 Black Interdenominational Ministerial Alliance, 137, 140–41 Black Power Movement, 148 black regional conferences, 144–45 Blake, D. E., 94 Blair, Henry William, 82 Bland, Frank L., 101, 145 Bland, Louis H., 145 Blenk, James H., 63, 164 Bloody Sunday, 110 blue laws, 57, 82 Bollman, C. P., 94 Bontemps, Arna, 97, 102 Bouvier, Emma, 60 Bowers, Claude Gernade, 40 Branson, Roy, 11, 39

188

index

Brantley, Stewart A., 101 Brotherhood of Sleeping Car Porters and Maids, 98, 152 Brown, H. Rap, 129 Brown v. Board of Education, 84, 112, 125 Bryan and Bryan legal firm, 103 Bryant, Roy, 123 Buckner, Tazwell B., 56, 94 Buddhism, 75, 151 Bureau of Catholic Indian Missions, 60 Burgess, Monroe A., Sr., 101, 105 Butler, George Ide, 54, 76 Byard, John, 142–44 Byard, Lucille, 142–44 Byrne, Thomas Sebastian, 63 Canaan, 86–87 Canales, Fernando, 128 Canon of Ptolemy, 14 Carey, Archibald J., Jr., 123 Carey, E. W., 44, 49 Carlton Hall, 97 Carmichael, Stokely, 129 Carnegie, Andrew, 81 Carroll, J. H., 96 Carter, Robert Lee, 111 Casey, William H., 51 Catholic Interracial Movement, 64 Central State University, 116 Central States Conference of Seventh-day Adventists, 145 Chaney, James Earl, 129 Chappell, David, 72, 87 Chicago Oakwood Alumni Association, 116 Christian, John W., 94 Christian Connection Church, 15–16, 33–34 church interest, 82, 150 Church of Christ, 84, 118 Civil War, American, 41–43 Cleveland, Edward Earl (E. E.), 7, 48, 136, 139, 141–42, 145–49, 153 Cleveland, Eunice, 141–42, 153 Cleveland, Walter, 44 Cleveland, William, 141–42, 153 Clinton, North Carolina, NAACP Branch, 109 Cobb, Paul, 128 College of Medical Evangelists. See Loma Linda University Medical Center Committee of Twelve, 101 community awareness, or community-

oriented consciousness, 3, 6–7, 55, 66, 88, 90, 93, 101–2, 105, 107, 111–12, 115, 120–21, 126–27, 130, 135–36, 140–42, 150–54 Compromise of 1877, 43, 77 Concerned Black Clergy of Atlanta, 134 Congress of Racial Equality (CORE), 106, 127–29 Conkin, Paul, 16, 36, 158–59 conservatism, 3, 5–6, 11, 54, 69, 72–73, 77, 82– 83, 88, 90, 93, 115, 117–18, 121, 130, 135–36, 138, 141, 150, 154 Cottrell, Raymond, 67–69, 76 covenant motif (theme), 5, 59 Cox, J. Mark, 143–44 Cramer, Robert E., Jr., 141 Crisis of the Nineties, 39 Crowe, Fred N., 145 Crozier, O. R. L., 17–21, 23–29, 158 curse of Ham (Canaan), 6, 86–87, 117 Daniel, 12–18, 20, 28 Daniells, Arthur Grosvenor, 94 Dasent, J. Gershom, 145 Dawson, William L., 123 day for a year principle, 13–14 Day of Atonement (Yom Kippur), 16, 25, 27–28 de Spinoza, Baruch, 75 Decalogue. See Ten Commandments deism, 12 desegregation, 72, 86, 95, 112–15, 118–19, 124–25, 132, 139, 142, 144, 146, 149, 174 Detroit riots, 130 Dewey, John, 95 Dickson, Louis, 99, 100 Diggs, Charles, 123 Disciples of Christ, 84, 118 disenfranchisement, 39, 40, 123, 140 Dixon, Thomas, Jr., 40 Dodson, Joseph T., 144 double consciousness, 88 Double “V” Campaign, 105, 115, 153 Dowsett, R. T., 94 Drexel, Francis, 60 Drexel, Hannah Jane, 60 Drexel, Katharine, 6, 11–12, 59–65, 151 Du Bois, W. E. B., 77, 81–82, 88, 95–96, 101, 161 Dudley, Charles E., Sr., 7, 48, 121–27, 133–34, 145, 152–53, 170, 175 Dudley, Etta, 126

index Dudley, Joseph, 121 Dudley, Julia, 121, 122 Dudley, Roger, 5, 73 Dunning, William Archibald, 40 earthly sanctuary (tabernacle), 19–20, 24–25, 27 East Africa Division of Seventh-day Adventists, 147, 177 ecumenism, 73, 74, 151 Edson, Hiram, 17–21, 23–24, 26, 28, 33 education, 5, 43, 48, 50, 53, 56, 60–65, 76–77, 79–80, 82, 84, 95–96, 101, 109, 112, 117, 125, 132, 139, 141, 151 Eighth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, 115 Eisenhower, Dwight, 114 Elder Roy, 110 Emmanuel Missionary College. See Andrews University Enforcement Act of 1870, 43 Ephesus Seventh-day Adventist Church (Washington, D.C.), 144 Episcopalians, 43 Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, 134 equality, 39, 53, 55–58, 77–78, 80–81, 83, 89, 135, 139, 151 ethical sphere, 70 ethics, 59, 71, 119, 140 evangelism, 5, 53, 59, 67, 72–73, 76, 83, 141, 150 Evers, Charles, 123, 129, 130, 133 Evers, Medgar, 123, 129, 133 Executive Order 8802, 105 existentialism, 70 experimental theology, 74, 151 Ezra, 14–15 fascism, 105, 108, 115, 153 Faubus, Orval Eugene, 113, 115 Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), 114, 129 Freedman’s Hospital, 143–44 Ficino, Marsilio, 75 Fifteenth Amendment, 43, 95 Figuhr, Reuben, 83, 138 First Harlem Seventh-day Adventist Church, 96, 99, 100, 152, 170 First Seventh-day Adventist Church of Savannah, Georgia, 140 First Seventh-day Adventist Church of Washington, D.C., 148

189

Fisher, Holley, 3, 4 Florida Conference of Seventh-day Adventists, 146 Florida Hospital, 146 Florida Supreme Court, 103 Flowers, Edgar, 103 Follette, L. S., 145 Fordham, Walter W., 101–2, 145, 148 Fourteenth Amendment, 95 fourth commandment, 29–32 Fox, George, 75 Fox, John, 35 Fox, Kate, 35 Fox, Maggie, 35 Fox, Margaret, 35 Francis Xavier College (Xavier University), 64 Frederickson, George, 40 Freedmen’s Aid Society, 43 Freedom March, 69, 73 Freedom Rides, 106 free-will image of man, 3–4, 70, 76, 150 Friendship Clinic, 123, 175 fundamentalism, 5, 69, 150 Gabriel, 12–14 Gandhi, Mohandas K., 72, 74–75, 151, 154 garbage workers’ strike, 132 Garrison, William Lloyd, 15, 95 Garvey, Marcus, 97, 152 Geulincx, Arnold, 70 GI Bill, 132 Gibbons, James, 60–61 Gibbs, Phillip Lafayette, 130 Golden Rule, 89 Goodman, Andrew, 129 Gossett, Thomas F., 87 Great Depression, 93, 98, 105, 142 Great Disappointment, 17, 34 Great Migration, 78 Greater New York Conference of Seventhday Adventists, 97, 99, 100, 171 Green, Albert, 44 Green, James Earl, 130 Green, William H., 94 Greene, Alfonzo, Sr., 7, 107–12, 128, 152–54, 175 Greenwood Seventh-day Adventist Church, 129 Gregory, Matthew, 104 Griffin, Samuel Marvin, 113

190

index

Griffith, D. W., 40 Grotius, Hugo, 73 General Conference of Advent Believers, 16 General Conference of Seventh-day Adventists, 7, 34–35, 45, 47–50, 54, 56, 64, 76, 83–84, 86, 94–96, 98, 100, 117–19, 123–25, 136, 138–39, 141, 144, 146–49, 152–53, 157 Gilded Age, 71, 80 grandfather clause, 39 Grant, Madison, 42 Graybill, Ronald D., 11, 39 Gulf States Conference of Seventh-day Adventists, 125, 175 Hahn, Franklin B., 17–21, 23–29 Hale, Frank, Sr., 115 Hale, Frank W., Jr., 7, 107, 115–20, 123, 152–54 Hale, Novella, 115 Halladay, Fred, 44, 49–50 Halliday, Walter, 44 Ham, 86–87 Hamer, Fannie Lou, 123 Hare, Milton, 128 Harlem Renaissance, 97–98, 152 Harmon, Eunice, 39 Harmon, Robert, 39 Harris, Roy Vincent, 113 Hastie, William Henry, 106 Hayes, Rutherford B., 43 Haysmer, A. J., 94 Head Start Program, 128 heavenly sanctuary (temple), 18–20, 23–28, 158 Henry, Aaron, 123 Hereford, Sonnie W., III, 109 Hernández, Edwin, 5, 73, 157 Hill, Flora, 140 Hill, Franklin, 140 Hill, Franklin, II, 7, 48, 136, 140–41, 153 Himes, Joshua Vaughan, 15–16, 32 Hinduism, 75, 151 holistic theology, 5, 58, 116, 163 Holston, Katie, 46 Holy Place, 18, 24–26 Howard, Daniel, 122 Howard, Theodore Roosevelt Mason, 122–23, 127, 175 Humphrey, James Kemuel, 96–99, 100, 152, 170 Hunt, Harold Guy, 141

Huntsville, Alabama, NAACP Branch, 109 Huntsville Central Seventh-day Adventist Church, 110–11, 124, 152, 154, 175 Huntsville Community Service Committee, 109–10 Illinois Institute of Technology, 127 Immaculate Heart Convent, 61 Immaculate Mother Academy, 63 imperialism, 42 individualism, 5, 75–77, 82, 150 integration. See desegregation Interracial Ministerial Alliance, 113 Irons, O. L., 145 Irwin, George A., 48, 50 Jackson, Mahalia, 123 Jackson State College (University), 130 James, Moses, 101 Japheth, 86 Jeanmard, Jules Benjamin, 64 Jensen, Anna, 44 Jesus, 14–15, 20–24, 26–32, 34, 37–38, 70, 88–89 Jim Crow. See segregation John Paul II, 65 John XXIII, 74 Johnson, Lyndon B., 84 Jones, Albert, 50 Jones, C. M., 94 Jones, R. Clifford, 170 Joseph, Avie, 127 Joseph, Charles, 7, 48, 121, 127–30, 132–33, 152–53 Joseph, Walash, 127 Josephite Fathers, 64 Judge Turner, 103 judgment, 27–29, 39, 158–59 Kant, Immanuel, 71 Karaites, 17 Katzenbach, Nicholas, 124–25 Kellogg, John Harvey, 48 Kelly, James J., 99, 100 Kennedy, John F., 133 Kennedy, Robert F., 133 Kentucky State University, 107, 109 Kenyon College, 116 Kierkegaard, Søren, 70–71 King, Martin Luther, Jr., 72–75, 109, 119, 125, 129, 133, 139–41, 148

index Kipling, Rudyard, 42 Klein, George M., Jr., 162 Klein, John A., 162 Krause, Louis, 44 Kyle, James Lewis, Jr., 4 Kynett, Lydia, 44, 48 Kynett, W. H., 44, 48 Lacey, Norman, 104 Lake Region Conference of Seventh-day Adventists, 127, 131, 145 Laurence, Joseph Hermanus, 121 Law, William, 75 Lawson, James, 75 Laymen’s Leadership Conference, 86, 117–19, 123, 154 Lee, George W., 123 Lefevre, Peter Paul, 61 Leflore County Courthouse, 128 Leiske, Leroy, 124 Lewis, Jannith, 110 Lewis, John, 129 liberalism, 5, 11, 59, 69, 72 Linden Boulevard Seventh-day Adventist Church, 142 Lindsay, Harmon, 48 Lindsay, Vongerthe, 145 Lintonia Seventh-day Adventist Church, 50, 56 literacy test, 39 Little Rock Board of Education, 112 Little Rock Central High School, 112–15, 174 Little Rock Nine, 112–15 Loma Linda University Medical Center, 122, 131 Lowery, Joseph, 134–35 Lutherans, 84 lynching, 44, 95, 104, 161 MacDearmon-White, Emma, 44 Magan, Percy T., 44, 51 Malloy, Dan, 104 Manichean thinking, 69 March Against Fear, 128 March on Washington (1963), 67, 128 mark of the beast, 68 Marsden, George, 5 Marshall, Thurgood, 106, 111, 123 Martin, Mylas, IV, 124 Mary Magdalene, 20 Mason, Will, 122

19 1

Maxis, Theresa, 61 McElhany, James Lamar, 144 McGaugh, C. F., 94 McGoldrick, D. J., 60 Meredith, Irene, 110 metaphysics, 70 Methodists, 16, 39, 43, 53, 84, 96, 113, 118, 121, 128 Meyers, C. K., 100 Milam, J. W., 123 Miller, William, 12–17, 28–29, 32, 34, 39 Millerite movement, 15, 17, 67 Millerite(s), 16–17, 33, 39, 66–67 miscegenation, or mixed-race marriages, 40, 149 Montgomery bus boycott, 72 Moore, Amzie, 123 Moore, Earl, 7, 48, 121, 130–35, 153 Moran, James, 96–97, 102 Morgan, Irene, 6, 93, 105–6, 153–54 Morgan v. Virginia, 106 Morning Star (riverboat), 45–47, 49, 51 Morris, Aldon, 104 Moseley, Ernest, 101–2 Moses, 18–19, 22, 26, 31 Most Holy Place (Holy of Holies), 24–28 Mothers’ League of Little Rock Central High, 113 Motley, Constance Baker, 111 Mount Calvary Seventh-day Adventist Church, 136 Mount Vernon Academy, 124 Mount Zion Baptist Church, 46–47 Mr. Tripple, 110 Murphy, Herman R., 101–2, 145 Murphy, Thomas, 94 mysticism, 75 NAACP Youth Council, 112 National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP), 95–96, 102–9, 111–15, 123, 125, 127, 134, 137–38, 141, 144, 153, 171 National Council of Churches, 113, 118 National Spiritualist Association of Churches. See spiritualist movement National Urban League, 127, 134 Negro Department, 56, 93–95, 100, 153 Negro Voters’ League, 142 Nehemiah, 15 Nethery, Jay J., 144

192

index

Newton, Sir Isaac, 14 Nichol, Francis David, 69, 72–73, 83–86 Nkosi, Gibson, 126 Noah, 86–87 Noahian (Noah’s) curse. See curse of Ham Noah’s Ark, 87 North American Division of Seventh-day Adventists, 35, 96, 137–39 North Carolina NAACP, 107 Northeastern Conference of Seventh-day Adventists, 145 Oakes-Preston, Rachel Harris, 29, 32 Oakwood (College, Industrial School, Junior College, University), 3–4, 7, 48, 76, 97, 101–2, 107, 109–11, 115–16, 120–22, 124, 127, 131–32, 136, 140–41, 147, 152, 154 Oblate Sister of Providence, 61 occasionalism. See free-will image of man occult sciences, 35–36 O’Connor, James, 60–61 Ogden, Dunbar, Jr., 113 Ohio State University, 116 Olsen, Ole Andres, 47–48 Olvin, N. W., 51–52, 162 Orton, A. T., 45 Osborne, M. M., 44, 46 Ovington, Mary White, 95 Pacific Union College, 128, 136 Palmer, Will O., 44–45, 47 Parker, Finis, 44 Paul, 37–38, 89, 119, 139 Paul VI, 74 Peterson, Frank L., 124 Pierson, Robert H., 148 Pine Street Methodist Church, 39 Pinkney, Addison V., 104, 144 Pius X, 63 Plantak, Zdravko, 5 Plato, 73, 75 Plessy v. Ferguson, 43 police brutality, 102, 140 poll tax, 39 Poor People’s Campaign (March), 125–26, 128, 130, 133, 148 postmillennialism, 163 Powell, Adam Clayton, Jr., 137–38 pragmatism, 5, 83–86, 102, 150 Preble, Thomas M., 32–33 premillennialism, 5, 66–67, 150

Presbyterians, 43, 84, 118 progressive, 12, 59, 66, 120, 141, 151 Progressive Era, 71 Prohibition, 83 prophecy, 12–13, 15–18, 20, 28, 38 Protestant, 5–6, 12, 17, 38, 53, 63, 73–76, 158 Protestant Reformation, 73, 75–76 Quakers. See Society of Friends racism, 7, 40, 42, 61–62, 64, 82, 85, 87, 89, 105, 117, 119–20, 123, 127, 139–40, 152–54 racist regime, 40–41, 86 radical deterministic doctrine of God, 3–4, 70, 150 Randolph, A. Philip, 98, 105, 129, 152 Rashford, A. Samuel, 101–2 Rauschenbusch, Walter, 71–72 Reconstruction, 12, 39–41, 43, 78, 108 Red Summer of 1919, 97 Redeemers, 79–80 Redekop, John, 5 Reformed Low Dutch Church of Harlem, 97 regional (black) union conferences, 139 Regional Council of Negro Leadership (RCNL), 123 religious liberty, 68, 82 reparations, 55, 117, 120, 151 Resurrection City, 125–26, 133–34, 148 Reverend Harmon, 103 Rhodes, James Ford, 40 Ritschl, Albrecht, 71 Riverside Hospital (Sanitarium), 120, 123 Roberts, Terrance, 7, 107, 112–15, 153, 174 Roberts, Vincent L., 145 Roberts, William, 112 Rock, Calvin, 139, 148 Rogers, Chester, 44, 50 Rogers, F. R., 44, 50, 56–57, 94 Rogers, Minnie, 44, 50, 56 Roman Catholicism, 6–7, 11, 38, 43, 59–64, 74–75, 84, 96, 118, 146, 151, 165 Roosevelt, Franklin Delano, 105 Rosna, Charles B., 35 Rothenberg, Stuart, 5 Rustin, Bayard, 75 Ryan, Patrick, 61 Sabbatarianism, 29–31, 33 Sabbath, 5, 29–34, 39, 47, 50, 53, 57–58, 68, 131, 159

index sanctuary message, 29, 33, 39, 159 satyagraha, 74–75 Saxon, W. R., 107–8 Schwerner, Michael, 129 Scott, Maggie, 46 Scott, Sidney, 94 Scottsboro Boys, 101 Sebastian, W. H., 56, 94 Second Advent of Christ, or Second Coming of Christ, 4–5, 13, 15–17, 29, 33–34, 38–39, 66–67, 150, 159, 163 Second Great Commandment, 89, 119 Second Harlem (Ephesus) Seventh-day Adventist Church, 96–97, 100, 144 Second Vatican Council, 74 sectarian ecclesiology, 3–4, 67–69, 150 secularism, 68–69 segregation, 7, 11, 40, 54–55, 62, 84, 87, 90, 106, 112–13, 116–18, 122, 125, 151–52 self-help, 76–77 self-perfection, 70 Selma Sympathy March, 110 Selma to Montgomery March, 74, 128 separation of church and state, 12, 67, 68, 151, 165 Servants of the Immaculate Heart of Mary, 61 Seventh-day Adventist Publishing Association, 34 Seventh-day Adventist Theological Seminary, 136 Seventh-day Baptist, 29 seventy weeks, 13–15 sharecropper(s), 41, 49, 51 Shem, 86 Shepard, Page, 94 Shuttlesworth, Fred, 129 Singleton, Harold D., 145 Sisters of Mercy, 61 Sisters of the Blessed Sacrament for Indians and Colored People, 6, 61–65 Sisters of the Holy Family, 61 Slade, E. K., 100 Slater, Fred B., 101 slavery, 12, 32, 55, 67, 79, 81, 87, 120 Small, Vernon, 101 Smith, Annie, 49 Snow, Samuel, 16–17 social Darwinism, 41, 42, 81 Social Gospel, or Social Christianity, 5, 58, 70–72, 76, 126, 150, 154, 163

193

social theology, 5 Society of Friends, 75 socioeconomic readjustment, 98 soul sleep. See state of the dead South Atlantic Conference of Seventh-day Adventists, 7, 124, 136–38, 140, 145, 158 South Central Conference of Seventh-day Adventists, 7, 121–22, 124–27, 129–35, 145, 157 Southern Baptists, 84, 118 Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC), 107, 109–11, 133–34, 141 Southern Illinois University, 112 Southern Missionary College, 124 Southern Missionary Society, 43, 48–50, 56, 60, 62, 64, 93–94, 153 Southern Presbyterians, 118 Southern Union Conference of Seventh-day Adventists, 7, 100, 102, 119, 124–25, 133, 137, 140–41, 145–46, 171 Southern University (Louisiana), 63–64 Southwest Region Conference of Seventhday Adventists, 145 Southwestern Adventist University, or Southwestern Union College, 119 Spencer, Herbert, 41, 81 Spicer, William Ambrose, 100 Spingarn, Arthur B., 96 spiritualist movement, 35 Springfield riot (1908), 95 Stafford, Randolph P., 105 state of the dead, 35–39, 73, 160, 166 Stennis, John Cornelius, 126 Stephan, Joseph A., 60 Stephenson, C. B., 94 Stephenson, Dan, 44, 51 St. Francis de Sales, 62 St. Peter Claver School, 63 Strachan, Matthew, 6, 56, 93–94, 96–97, 100, 102–5, 153 Street, John F., 111 Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC), 127–28, 133–34 Student protest/strike at Oakwood (1931), 4, 101, 152 Sumner, William Graham, 41 Sutherland, E. A., 44, 51 Tampa, Florida, NAACP, 102–4, 137–38, 171 Tampa Negro Voters’ League, 102 Tampa Urban League, 137

194

index

Teel, Charles, 128 temperance movement, 15, 82 Ten Commandments, 19, 29 Thompson, Albert Gaynes, 121–22 Tilden, Samuel J., 43 Till, Emmett, 123 Tolton, Augustus, 64 Trusty, John, 148 Tucker, J. L., 102 Tuskegee Institute (University), 77, 79 two thousand and three hundred days, 12–18, 20, 28 Underground Railroad, 12 Union College, 115 Unitarians, 84 United States v. Cruikshank, 43 United States v. Reese, 43 unity, 84, 89, 119, 139 Universal Negro Improvement Association, 98 University of California at Los Angeles, 112 University of Michigan, 116 University of Nebraska, 115–16 U.S. Supreme Court, 43, 106, 112–13, 115 Utopia Health Benevolent Association, 98, 152 Utopia Park, 98–99, 100 Vanderbilt University, 127 veterans, 97, 108, 112, 153 Villard, Oswald Garrison, 95 von Hohenheim, Paracelsus, 75 Wagner, John H., Sr., 138, 145 Walling, William English, 95 Walnut Street Chapel, 48 Warnick, Franklin G., 56 Washington, Booker T., 76–82, 101 Washington Sanitarium (Washington Adventist Hospital), 142–43 Wekel, Ida, 44, 49 Wells-Barnett, Ida B., 95, 161 Western Michigan University, 107 Westworth, W. A., 94 Wheeler, Frederick, 32 White, Ellen G., 6, 11–12, 33–34, 39, 44, 48, 51, 53–64, 66, 94, 110, 117, 120, 151, 154, 158–59 White, James Edson, 6, 44–50, 56, 58–59, 62, 76, 93–94, 162

White, James Springer, 16, 33–34, 39, 59 White, Walter, 111 Wilberforce University, 121 Wilkins, Roy, 111 Williams, Hosea, 141 Williams, W. H., 94 Wilson, Neal, Jr., 149 Wilson, Woodrow, 97, 152 Wilsonia Baptist Church, 49 women, 5, 7, 15, 40, 59, 61–62, 76, 101, 110–11, 119, 124, 154 Wood, James Frederick Bryan, 61 Woodard, C. N., 94 Woodward, C. Vann, 53 World War I, 97, 142, 152 World War II, 7, 105, 108, 112, 115, 131–32, 134–35, 153 Young, Andrew, 129