Debunking Segregationist Academy Myth

In response the last post of the Feb. 28 debate with Richard Land and Randall Balmer that can be found at http://newsweek.washingtonpost.com/onfaith/evangelicalism.html,

C’mon Randall. You’re a better historian than that. You continue to perpetuate this inside-the-beltway urban myth that the religious right “organized a political movement effectively to defend racial segregation” as a result of Carter administration efforts to lift the tax-exempt status of private Christian academies. This one just doesn’t pass the “smell test,” Randall. Most people involved in the pro-life movement didn’t and don’t send their children to such academies. As I said earlier, I was a sergeant in the pro-life movement from the mid-70s onward and I attended no rallies to defend private schools. If such rallies had been held, few, if any, would have attended. Most Evangelicals I knew considered Bob Jones’ segregationist policies to be abhorrent and embarrassing. And you misrepresent my claim about what gave the pro-life movement its surge and staying power. It wasn’t Roe and it didn’t happen from 1973-1976. It was the horrible flood tide of approximately 1.5 million abortions that drove reluctant Evangelicals into the political process and it happened between 1976 and 1980. In 1976, two-thirds of white Baptists voted for Jimmy Carter against an equally pro-choice Gerald Ford. In 1980, two-thirds of white Baptists voted for the pro-life Ronald Reagan against Jimmy Carter. Anyone attending any pro-life rallies in the last 25 years, (I have attended and spoken at hundreds.) would never have heard any mention of Christian schools or tax exemptions. I’ve been at the rallies and I haven’t heard it mentioned once. As I have told you before, Dr. King is a personal hero of mine, and I resent your attempting to slander pro-life Evangelicals as racist. The Southern Baptist Convention over the last generation has become a multi-ethnic denomination, approximately 20 percent of our membership is ethnic, and over the last decade approximately half of all of our growth has been ethnic. Historians should debunk myths, not perpetuate them. I have yet to meet anyone actually involved in pro-life Evangelical political activism who doesn’t view this inside-the-beltway myth of the “segregation academies” being the sine qua non of conservative pro-life Evangelical activism as outrageous and preposterous. I was told that this was what we were supposed to debate and I’m sorry we were not allowed to get to it until the very end. On a more personal note, I am glad that we are both pro-marriage and pro-wife. I know I don’t deserve mine, but I’m very grateful for her. Have a happy anniversary.

By Richard Land  |  February 28, 2007; 3:34 PM ET Save & Share:                 
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