Only the maverick Morning News found any merit in the Methodist stand. The Conference’s action, wrote Editor O’Dowd, “was proper and timely ... [and] to be commended.” Segregation extremists, he thought, would have a hard time labeling this as the action of “communistic and brainwashed” outsiders.[192]
On the local level several Methodist churches, generally in the low-country, have exhibited concern about growing integration support among church elements. The Hemingway Methodist Church adopted a statement condemning the Supreme Court ruling as “groundless and defenseless,” an “improper interpretation of the U. S. Constitution” and an “unholy invasion of State’s Rights.” To place the white and colored children together in churches and schools would be “to guarantee the loss of the sense of biological difference” between the races which would becloud “our fair land with a mongrelized, second-rate people cancelling five or more centuries of progress.” Integration was being accomplished “by propaganda and open advocacy and by the cunning of idea infiltration.” The Methodists of Hemingway graciously conceded “the Negro to be human just as the white man, to be a growing citizen and entitled to equal cultural and economic advantages.” The “mixing” of the races in church and school, however, should be “allowed to die and remain so forever.”[193]
The Women’s Society of Christian Service of the Kingstree Methodist Church insisted that “voluntary separation” of the races was no denial of the “Fatherhood of God and the Brotherhood of Man.” The Society desired “the advancement of Colored People, but not through the agency of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People.” In the spirit of humility and soul searching, the ladies resolved that “we desire to continue to work out our way of worshipping God and in helping our Colored Brethren to do the same for themselves. All sections of our great country are not the same, and what is best for one section may not be best for another. We believe that in the sight of God we have been working out our problems in a way acceptable to Him, even though that way be not perfect, perhaps.”
“In some areas of Brotherhood” Church elements favoring integration were “moving too fast,” continued the Kingstree ladies. “The coming of the kingdom of God is gradual. We should concentrate on some of our sins of greed, selfishness, worldliness, etc., before we attempt too great a change otherwise.”[194]
The Manning Methodist Church adopted a resolution which affirmed belief in the divine origin of man and the principle that all men “stand on a spiritual equality.” But the Manning Methodists asserted that “certain social, economic and cultural factors exist which make it impractical and undesirable that members of the Negro race be received into and made a part of this congregation.” Should the South Carolina Methodist Church adopt a policy of racial integration in its churches, the Manning Methodists would find it “impractical” to continue connection with that body.[195]
The closeness of the division of opinion amongst South Carolina Methodists toward the question of church integration was dramatized at their annual conference in August, 1957, when by a vote of 287-261 it was agreed to permit the denomination’s Negro churches to affiliate with white Methodists where both agreed. Presiding Bishop Nolan B. Harmon of Charlotte, North Carolina, was careful to point out that the new course of policy had nothing to do with integration so far as individuals were concerned and emphasized that no white church was obliged to take in anyone. J. C. Holler of Columbia, conference lay reader and one of the authors of the proposal, declared that “the object of the plan was to take the race issue out of church law.” It solidified local control as represented by States Rights, he asserted. But opponents of the proposal thought differently. A Methodist layman, D. D. Brown of Hemingway, warned that the plan was “a highway to integration—a sedative to keep us quiet while the integration plan is put into force.” Such proposals, he added, played into the hands of “subversives” and would hasten the “mongrelization” of the races. The Reverend B. Rhett Turnipseed, a retired clergyman from Greenville, delivered an impassioned speech against the proposal. At the time of the unification of the Northern and Southern branches of the Methodist Church, said the Reverend Turnipseed, he was assured by two bishops that the question of integration within the church would not arise. “Brethren,” he declared, “I have kept the faith. My position hasn’t changed.... It is unfortunate at this time for a denomination to register itself for a paper like this. This is my swan song.”[196]
The Baptist Church, the state’s largest denomination, faced, or more accurately dodged, the race issue at its annual convention in November, 1954. The convention received a report from its Social Service Commission urging Baptists to “protect the public school system and seek to strengthen it in all possible ways.” Noting that “these are the times that try men’s souls,” the Commission offered several “guideposts” for Baptists to follow “in this crisis.” “God’s will” should be “earnestly and prayerfully” sought. White Carolinians should recognize and “humbly confess” that “in spite of strenuous efforts, and because of inherited traditions ... adequate educational opportunities for all our children” had not been provided in the past. And finally, Baptist action should be based upon the recognition “of every person as an individual, precious in the eyes of God.”[197] The Baptists, by receiving a noncommittal statement of principles rather than in adopting a formal resolution, deftly sidestepped the issue.
Individual Baptist ministers who have spoken out too strongly against racial segregation have not been immune to pressure. The most widely publicized incident involved the Reverend G. Jackson Stafford, pastor of the Batesburg Baptist Church. The Reverend Stafford’s case was particularly notable because Federal District Judge George Bell Timmerman, Sr., and his son, Governor George Bell Timmerman, Jr., were members of his congregation. Judge Timmerman, who has the hard face of a Puritan elder, was chairman of the board of deacons. Stafford’s difficulties arose from his vote in favor of a resolution adopted by the Southern Baptist Convention endorsing the Supreme Court’s desegregation decision. As a result, opposition to the minister rapidly developed within the Batesburg congregation and finally forced his resignation. With rare courage Stafford refused to renounce his convictions “regarding Christian race relations.” He charged that his resignation was made necessary by “several highly placed members of the Batesburg church playing politics” with religion.[198]
One of the most notable and quoted addresses against integration by a minister was delivered before the state Baptist conference on evangelism in 1956 by the Reverend Dr. W. A. Criswell, president of the Southern Baptist Convention and pastor of the First Baptist Church of Dallas, Texas. Dr. Criswell told the Carolina evangelists:
That thing [integration] they are trying to ram down our throats is a thing of idiocy and foolishness. Any man who says he is altogether desegregated is soft in the head.