October 1st was former President Jimmy Carter’s birthday. Born in 1924, that makes him 97. I thought of him the other day after I read a short piece by Robert P. Jones in Time. Jones entered the public schools of Jackson in 1975 as a third grader, graduated from Forrest Hill High School then went to Mississippi College, where he earned a math degree in 1990. He then went to Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary in Ft. Worth, Texas for a Master of Divinity degree and on to Emory University’s Candler School of Theology, where he earned a Ph.D. in religion.
Even if you have not read Jones’s book, White Too Long, The Legacy of White Supremacy in American Christianity, you could guess some things about his faith journey. Both Mississippi College and Southwestern are a long, long way from Candler, in miles as well as religious outlook.
Jones’s journey into an ever-larger theological world led him to see the cocoon of his upbringing in Woodville Heights Baptist Church. For example, informal Sunday evening services often included members’ testimonies where the emphasis was on “personal sin.” Jones reflected on these services in the Time article, “Nothing outside our intimate lives, not even (or particularly) major racial upheavals in our community, were perceptible objects of Christian concern.”
You may have experienced or observed up close that white Christian churches at that time were all too willing to apply the ethical teachings of the Bible to oneself while refusing to apply them to institutions. Those institutions might be tangible ones like banks and schools, or intangible ones--widely accepted, informal social practices like separate water fountains and neighborhoods segregated by race.
Here is where the former President’s early experience might provide some guidance. Though there were obvious differences in wealth and aspirations among Jimmy on the one hand, and A.D. (his best friend) on the other, no differences in rank or status were acknowledged when they were working in the fields, fishing on the creek banks, or playing ball in the yard.
However, at fourteen, Carter was developing closer ties to the white community. He was trying out for varsity basketball and beginning to be interested in dating. Then one day, “A.D., Edmund and I approached the gate leading from our barn to the pasture. To my surprise, they opened it and stepped back to let me go through first. ... It was a small act, but a deeply symbolic one. ... a precious sense of equality had gone out of our personal relationship, and things were never again the same between them and me” (p. 230).
Carter reflected, “I guess all of us just assumed that this was one more step toward maturity and that we were settling into our adult roles in an unquestioned segregated society” (p. 230).
The invisible hand of white supremacy had done its job, and it could do it because it was invisible. It was easy for Jones’s church to fence off personal sin from institutional sin, when the latter was unseen, and attention was riveted on the former.
So, is there a hint in Carter’s experience for avoiding this trap? I don’t know. On the one hand we humans are capable of almost infinite blindness. On the other hand, we are capable of profound insight and are known to actually change our minds and hearts on occasion.
Based on young Jimmy’s experience, questioning “the way things are” seems to be necessary for our eyes to behold what is plainly before us. But here we hit a wall: how do we know “the way things are?” and what do we see when we open our eyes?
Mature Jimmy reflected, in his autobiographical account, An Hour Before Daylight, “I don’t remember ever questioning the mandatory racial separation, which we accepted like breathing or waking up ... every morning” (p. 96).
So, we have some choices to make. What kind of world do we want to live in? We choose and are obliged to live with the consequences.
Dick Conville is a retired university professor and long-time resident of Hattiesburg. He can be reached at rlconville@yahoo.com.
