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Southern Witness: Unitarians and Universalists in the Civil Rights Era
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About Southern Witness: Unitarians And Universalists In
Product Description At last, here is the largely untold history of Unitarian and Universalist involvement in the civil rights movement in the South. Covering congregations in nearly thirty cities and towns and spanning ten Southern states, this extensive study sheds new light on the often heroic efforts of laypeople and clergy in confronting segregation. Author Gordon Gibson witnessed some of this history firsthand, as the only UU minister in Mississippi between 1969 and 1984. His interviews with dozens of other activists from the 1950s and 60s has produced many stories, some never before recorded. We learn about Rev. Donald Thompson, shot in the back and run out of town by segregationists in Jackson, Mississippi; Rev. Albert D'Orlando, whose parsonage and church building in New Orleans were firebombed by the KKK; Robert Williams, the Black Power pioneer and radical, and many more. Southern Witness explores institutional history as well, revealing patterns in the way these congregations faced the challenges of racial injustice patterns deeply influenced by the fellowship movement, which planted scores of small, lay-led congregations in that area. Many Southern UUs were radicalized by the movement. These pages tell their tales, as well as the sadder accounts of some who resisted change. Review Gordon Gibson has a light hand, and lets history speak to us in this rich and necessary resource. Although he clearly spent more than a decade clambering through old boxes and abandoned files, his work reads like a series of conversations with old friends. He has given us primary resources the oral histories of many Unitarian Universalists in the south of the 1950s and 60s but he has also created an impeccably researched history of every congregation involved in the struggle for civil rights. It is compellingly readable, and will certainly be the go-to resource for future work. His introductory and concluding chapters are interpretive, and Gibson's clear moral and humane center shines through. He is sensitive to context and awake to the contributions of all. --Rev. Andrea Greenwood In the 1950s and 1960s, no part of the country challenged liberal religious values more than the South. Gordon Gibson gives remarkable examples of conflict and courage as religious liberals confronted race hatred in their own communities. This is a landmark study of Unitarian Universalism all over the South, as each city evokes diverse stories of practical applications of a lived faith, sometimes fearless and sometimes fearful. --Rev. Mark Harris Gibson asserts that while one can write the history of the civil rights movement without mentioning Unitarian Universalism one cannot exclude the individuals who were Unitarian Universalists and give a full account. During that era it took courage to be a UU in the South. This book captures the heroism, trepidation, and wavering of congregations and people committed to live out liberal religious values in a ferociously inhospitable climate. --Rev. Mark Morrison-Reed About the Author During his more than forty years in Unitarian Universalist ministry, Gordon D. Gibson has taken part in voting rights demonstrations in Selma, served as the only Unitarian Universalist minister in Mississippi 1969-1984, and co-founded the Living Legacy Project, which leads pilgrimages to civil rights sites in the South. He is a past president of the Unitarian Universalist History and Heritage Society.
