ONE NATION UNDER GOD:UA HISTORIAN STUDIES ROLE OF RELIGION IN RACIAL RELATIONS

FAYETTEVILLE, Ark. - There can be no doubt that religion played a prominent social role in the 19^th century South. But beyond the tent revivals and rousing sermons, a University of Arkansas researcher contends that religion also may have shaped the patterns of social segregation.

In fact, Beth Barton Schweiger, assistant professor of history, says it may be because of religion’s prominent social role that it exerted such influence over racial relations.

"Churches were the center of social interaction for people in the 19^th century South," Schweiger said. "When black and white congregations began to segregate after the Civil War, it represented more than just a religious split. It set the stage for a much more profound separation, a social and racial separation."

As a scholar of religious history, Schweiger recently published The Gospel Working Up. Part of the Oxford University Press Religion in America series, this book examines the personal attitudes and professional activities of three generations of Baptist and Methodist clergymen in the 19^th century South.

Citing church records and religious newspapers as well as personal letters, journals and manuscripts, Schweiger refutes the historic equation of religion with tradition and reveals a clergy both more spiritually and more socially progressive than was previously assumed. In addition, her book uses religious history to offer insight into the evolution of racial relationships before and after the Civil War.

According to Schweiger, people often assume that Southern Protestant churches have always been sharply segregated. In actuality, during the era of slavery, black and white worshippers not only attended the same churches but prayed together at the same services. Within that context, white citizens, slaves and freemen mingled, sharing spiritual rituals and mutual faith.

"Within churches, there was a chance for interaction between races on a different level than within the society at large," Schweiger said. "There was a sense - even among the most die-hard white racists - that in church, African Americans were indeed human beings and equals in terms of their access to spiritual salvation."

Despite this spiritual equality, black worshippers still played distinctly subordinate roles in the church, denied formal leadership or responsibility. But Schweiger claims that in spite of these strictures, the white clergy often depended on African American members to act as informal agents of the church - dispensing spiritual counsel or disciplinary action when other black members required it.

This symbiotic arrangement endured even as the Civil War approached and racial tensions heightened. Seeking a small measure of independence, some black worshippers had sought to hold separate services. But because the law prohibited African Americans from congregating without white supervision, these groups remained within the denomination of the white church and were led by white clergy.

With the close of the Civil War, however, and the sudden emancipation of the slaves, both of these arrangements came to an end. Now able to attain full independence, black congregations flocked from white services. They not only founded their own churches, but many broke with white denominations, joining traditionally black sects such as the African Methodist Episcopalians or founding new denominations altogether.

In some cases, Schweiger’s research shows that this break between black and white churches initially bore no acrimony. A number of white pastors offered aid and encouragement to their former African American members. However, as black churches gained more independence and began to refuse help - viewing white involvement as interference - resentment grew.

It took less than two decades for that resentment to harden into legal segregation, Schweiger said. Reviewing her sources, Schweiger found a distinct change in the way white pastors referred to African Americans. Black worshippers who formerly would have been called "brothers and sisters under Christ," were now referred to as a "civic problem."

Even more damaging than this shift in language, was the shift in treatment of blacks. By the mid-1870s, virtually all African Americans had abandoned white churches. By the 1890s, Jim Crow laws were proliferating at an astonishing rate, culminating with the 1896 case of Plessy v. Ferguson, which codified racial segregation into national law.

"It took approximately one generation for white resentment of blacks to harden into persecution," Schweiger said. "One of the reasons I think that happened was because the schism between black and white churches produced a generation of people who had never interacted with each other within a structured and supportive institution like the church."

Although inter-racial interaction still took place through the business of day-to-day life, none of these activities held the meaningful, collective power of worship, according to Schweiger. Though work and shopping and close habitation brought blacks and whites together, it did not inspire them to consider themselves a community nor remind them that they were united under any higher power.

"The sharing of religious ritual, the singing of songs and reading of scripture represent an important interaction," Schweiger said. "I don’t want to say it solved any problems between the races, but I do think it provided an important space and place for people to demonstrate their humanity to each other on a weekly or daily basis.

"Funerals, weddings, baptisms - rituals like that have a powerful uniting influence, and sometimes that even reached across racial lines," she added.

Without such interaction, such constant reminding, white citizens found it easier to dismiss the humanity of African Americans. As a result, in less than two decades, they constructed a society of complete racial segregation. A century later, Americans are still working to tear that system down.