Welcome
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How do ordinary Southern towns become theaters of theological drama? This digital archive invites you to inhabit the tumultuous landscape of the American Civil Rights Movement via various Themes, through different timeframes or Scenes and from the personal perspective of diverse Actors. Read stories both familiar and untold in light of the hypothesis that God was – in some perplexing and hither to undelineated way – present there.
Both sides of the civil rights discourse were saturated with religion; in every mass meeting, church service, and Klan rally, God’s name was invoked and God’s power claimed. White conservatives and civil rights activists, black militants, black moderates and klansmen, all staked their particular claims for racial justice and social order on the premise that God was on their side. This site provides an opportunity to listen to all these voices and to investigate how religious convictions played an active role in the unfolding drama of the civil rights movement.
In addition to stories told through personal interviews, The Civil Rights Movement as Theological Drama provides access to a wealth of annotated bibliographic entries of documentary evidence from the time period. This cohesive body of information demonstrates the struggles of peacemaking, community building, and lived theology during a pivotal moment in history.
This Month in Civil Rights
In May of 1961, a mixed group of civil rights activists boarded two buses in Washington, D.C. in order to "test" enforcement of a recent Supreme Court decision outlawing segregation in bus terminals. Their destination was New Orleans, where they would celebrate the seventh anniversary of the Supreme Court's decision in Brown vs. Board of Education. At various bus terminals, the black "Freedom Riders" would go to the white dining areas and waiting rooms while the white "Freedom Riders" would go to the area reserved for blacks. Over the course of the journey, the Freedom Riders and sympathizers (including a representative of the Justice Department dispatched by Attorney General Robert Kennedy) were beaten at an Alabama bus terminal and one of their buses was firebombed.
