Mississippi Praying

Southern White Evangelicals and the Civil Rights Movement, 1945-1975

Nonfiction, Religion & Spirituality, Christianity, Evangelism, History, Americas, United States
Cover of the book Mississippi Praying by Carolyn Renée Dupont, NYU Press
View on Amazon View on AbeBooks View on Kobo View on B.Depository View on eBay View on Walmart
Author: Carolyn Renée Dupont ISBN: 9780814724088
Publisher: NYU Press Publication: August 23, 2013
Imprint: NYU Press Language: English
Author: Carolyn Renée Dupont
ISBN: 9780814724088
Publisher: NYU Press
Publication: August 23, 2013
Imprint: NYU Press
Language: English

Winner of the 2013 Frank S. and Elizabeth D. Brewer Prize presented by the American Society of Church History

Mississippi Praying examines the faith communities at ground-zero of the racial revolution that rocked America. This religious history of white Mississippians in the civil rights era shows how Mississippians’ intense religious commitments played critical, rather than incidental, roles in their response to the movement for black equality.

During the civil rights movement and since, it has perplexed many Americans that unabashedly Christian Mississippi could also unapologetically oppress its black population. Yet, as Carolyn Renée Dupont richly details, white southerners’ evangelical religion gave them no conceptual tools for understanding segregation as a moral evil, and many believed that God had ordained the racial hierarchy.

Challenging previous scholarship that depicts southern religious support for segregation as weak, Dupont shows how people of faith in Mississippi rejected the religious argument for black equality and actively supported the effort to thwart the civil rights movement. At the same time, faith motivated a small number of white Mississippians to challenge the methods and tactics of do-or-die segregationists. Racial turmoil profoundly destabilized Mississippi’s religious communities and turned them into battlegrounds over the issue of black equality. Though Mississippi’s evangelicals lost the battle to preserve segregation, they won important struggles to preserve the theology that had sustained the racial hierarchy. Ultimately, this history sheds light on the eventual rise of the religious right by elaborating the connections between the pre- and post-civil rights South.

View on Amazon View on AbeBooks View on Kobo View on B.Depository View on eBay View on Walmart

Winner of the 2013 Frank S. and Elizabeth D. Brewer Prize presented by the American Society of Church History

Mississippi Praying examines the faith communities at ground-zero of the racial revolution that rocked America. This religious history of white Mississippians in the civil rights era shows how Mississippians’ intense religious commitments played critical, rather than incidental, roles in their response to the movement for black equality.

During the civil rights movement and since, it has perplexed many Americans that unabashedly Christian Mississippi could also unapologetically oppress its black population. Yet, as Carolyn Renée Dupont richly details, white southerners’ evangelical religion gave them no conceptual tools for understanding segregation as a moral evil, and many believed that God had ordained the racial hierarchy.

Challenging previous scholarship that depicts southern religious support for segregation as weak, Dupont shows how people of faith in Mississippi rejected the religious argument for black equality and actively supported the effort to thwart the civil rights movement. At the same time, faith motivated a small number of white Mississippians to challenge the methods and tactics of do-or-die segregationists. Racial turmoil profoundly destabilized Mississippi’s religious communities and turned them into battlegrounds over the issue of black equality. Though Mississippi’s evangelicals lost the battle to preserve segregation, they won important struggles to preserve the theology that had sustained the racial hierarchy. Ultimately, this history sheds light on the eventual rise of the religious right by elaborating the connections between the pre- and post-civil rights South.

More books from NYU Press

Cover of the book After the Cure by Carolyn Renée Dupont
Cover of the book Growing Up Queer by Carolyn Renée Dupont
Cover of the book Qualitative Data by Carolyn Renée Dupont
Cover of the book Sophia Parnok by Carolyn Renée Dupont
Cover of the book Mexican Americans Across Generations by Carolyn Renée Dupont
Cover of the book Sex and Sexuality in Early America by Carolyn Renée Dupont
Cover of the book A Grand Illusion? by Carolyn Renée Dupont
Cover of the book The Epistle on Legal Theory by Carolyn Renée Dupont
Cover of the book A Respectable Woman by Carolyn Renée Dupont
Cover of the book The Racial Middle by Carolyn Renée Dupont
Cover of the book A Great Conspiracy against Our Race by Carolyn Renée Dupont
Cover of the book Cow Boys and Cattle Men by Carolyn Renée Dupont
Cover of the book Mahabharata Book Six (Volume 1) by Carolyn Renée Dupont
Cover of the book New Desires, New Selves by Carolyn Renée Dupont
Cover of the book White Kids by Carolyn Renée Dupont
We use our own "cookies" and third party cookies to improve services and to see statistical information. By using this website, you agree to our Privacy Policy