The Petal paper. [volume], November 30, 1961, Image 1

About The Petal paper. [volume] (Petal, Miss.) 1953-19??

Image provided by: Mississippi Department of Archives and History

                
On Oct. 19 I ran in this column excerpts from the MANUAL
FOR SOUTHERNERS, an “educational project” of the citizens
councils. The part I ran was designed for grades 5 and 6, and
was Section 11 of that lesson.
A number of letters came in asking if I had written the
copy. They wanted to know if it was irony or satire or just
what. Well, before Heaven, I didn’t write it; that copy, as well
as this today, was taken from the citizens councils monthly paper.
Believe me, there is no humor in this, not when you consider
there are parents who’ll teach, or let it be taught, to their
children.
But, alas, no sermon. Herewith is Section 1, grades 5 and 6,
taken from the MANUAL FOR SOUTHERNERS:
THE SOUTHERN STATES
The United States of America is your country, and it has
forty-eight states in it. The forty-eight states are grouped into
several big sections, or parts. On your map you can find the
Northern states, the Eastern states, the Western states, and the
Southern states. Georgia, Florida, South and North Carolina,
Virginia, Alabama, Tennessee, Arkansas, Texas, Louisiana, and
Mississippi are some of the Southern states. You will see that
they are all right together when you study your map.
MANY AMERICAN LEADERS WERE SOUTHERNERS
Many of you probably think you live in South America be
cause you say you come from the South. But Southerners, or
the people from the South, are from “South United States,” and
not from South America at all. Some of America’s greatest and
most beloved leaders were Southerners, just as you are.
EARLY AMERICA WAS RULED BY ENGLAND
These Southern men had much to do with making our coun
try free and strong. When America was a young nation, or
country, it had only thirteen states. These states were between
the Atlantic Ocean and the Appalachian Mountains. When you
look at your map you will see that our country today is much
bigger. The thirteen young states were not free as they are
today. They belonged to England, which is a country on the
other side of the Atlantic Ocean. Whenever the people wanted
to do something back in our early history, they had to ask the
King of England first. If the King didn’t want them to do
something, he just said “No, you can’t do it,” and they had to
mind him, or he would punish them.
SOUTH LED THE WAY TO FREEDOM
Now, the early Americans got tired of being told what to
do by a King in a foreign country. They wanted to be free and
to make their own laws. We Southerners were especially tired
of the old King of England and his laws. So when men from all
thirteen states began meeting together and talking over their
problems, many Southern men took the lead to win freedom for
America against England.
PATRICK HENRY WAS A SOUTHERNER
Patrick Henry, A Southerner, who came from Virginia made
a speech against the King of England and said to other Ameri
cans, “Give me liberty (freedom) or give me death!” Patrick
Henry was a brave man to say that in those days. The old
king might very well have put him in jail or had him killed.
But the brave Southerner said he would rather be free than be
a slave to any King.
OUR FOREFATHERS WON OUR FREEDOM
Finally the men of our country told King George of England
that they were going to be a separate country. They told him
they were going to make their own laws and run their own
business. King George didn’t want to lose the thirteen states.
He sent his army over to America to arrest the leaders like
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A BOOK
REVIEW
LILLIAN SMITH
KILLERS OF THE DREAM, by
Lillian Smith. W. W. Norton,
New York. $4.50.
In this brilliant and moving
work, Lillian Smith recreates the
“southern experience." She does
this in order to help her fellow
southerners, and indeed all men
to understand the forces that have
led us to “kill the dream" of a
democracy in which equality, jus
tice and liberty were true terms
and not the playthings they have
become.
Miss Smith illustrates the work
with a description of her own
growth, of the influences of her
childhood in a small southern
town, the terrible and poignant
polyphony of taboos, manners and
exploitation that led to white su
premacy. Southerners had been
degraded by the Civil War of
everything except their whiteness.
The Negro became the object of
their personal affection and si
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LETTERS
Cleveland 6, Ohio
Dear Mr. East:
If there is anything that gives
me concern, it is people like Dr.
Anderson Jr. who label their own
rationalizations as an interpreta
tion of God’s word. I am referring
to Dr. Anderson’s letter about
bomb shelters which you printed
in the November 16th. Petal
Paper.
Dr. Anderson’s opinion about
not building a private bomb shel
ter is ok with me, but I must ob
ject to his conclusion that God is
on His side. I myself am in favor
of building bomb shelters.
Please tell Dr. Anderson that the
reason I know God is not on his
side is that I have had a direct
revelation from Him, and I know
He is on my side in this.
Sincerely yours,
Noah
(per) Miss Grace Mehiing.
A Report On—
THE AGONY of the SOUTHERN MINISTER
By RALPH McGILL
In the 131-year-old city of Co
lumbus, Ga., a town on the bank
of the Chattahoochee River with
a population of 85,000 whites and
40,000 Negroes, the Rev. Robert
Blakely McNeill, 44, endured with
faith and patience the slow prog
ress of convalescence following a
coronary suffered June 10.
His severe physical shock came
just three days after a spiritual
one. A judicial commission of the
Southeast Georgia Presbytery had
dismissed him from the pastorate
of the First Presbyterian Church,
its chairman reading the brief, al
most curt, notice from the pulpit
Mr. McNeill had filled for six and
a half years.
Seven long months before, the
same commission, after a request
for a hearing by seven of the
congregation, had said that the
racial issue was the central one
behind the opposition to the pas
tor. According to Rob McNeill’s
friends, this “Spanish-Inquisition
like hostility” was fostered by a
hard core of “about fifty church
members.”
Actually, Rob McNeill, Ala
bama-born, Southern-reared and
educated, had never once used his
pulpit to urge integration. Even
his most bitter enemies admit as
much. But in an article published
in Look magazine in May, 1957, he
had advocated a moderate course
ui creative cumavi uciwecu uic
races as a necessary approach to
racial harmony and Christian duty.
He emphasized that he rejected
sexual and contrived social mix
ing. But he also made it plain
he had meant that Negroes should,
and must, be accepted in the ad
ministration of community affairs.
From that day on, there were
those in his congregation who, for
these mild statements, remorse
lessly set out to drive him from
the church. By June they were
appealing to the Presbytery.
Statements like these were heard,
“No nigger will ever darken the
door of the church,” and, “If a
nigger comes, I go.”
It was even reported that some
of the more relentless opponents
among the 1,200 professed Chris
tians in the congregation were
heard to say, on learning of the
coronary that brought Mr. Mc
Neill close to death, that the Lord
finally had “taken care of him.”
Others, seemingly dismayed at the
possibility that the illness might
create sympathy, said, “It’s a fake
attack.”
However, Rob McNeill was not
alone. Members of his congrega
tion manned a reception table
outside his hospital room in two
hour shifts from early morning
until late at night, to greet and
register visitors and to protect
him from intrduers. There were
special prayers in hundreds of
homes, and his wife and three
children, who suffered their share
of vile language and death threats
by phone, were never without
friends.
McNeill’s supporters agreed then
that he must go to another pas
torate, though they longed to con
front his opposition in a further
church hearing. He was, at the
time of his heart attack, consid
ering a call to a large Charleston,
W. Va., church, but was unwilling
to surrender to the malignant
forces against him. But now he
has accepted.
A leader along those who op
posed him is quoted as saying,
“Now we must find a preacher
with the right kind of religion.”
This story of Robert McNeill,
Christian minister in the Deep
South, who sought to have his
own life reflect the two great
commandments of love as specifi
cately designated by his Master,
is—save for the heart attack and
the drama of his unexpected pub
lic firing—not an unusual one in
the South. In varying degrees it
is shared by all Southern minis
ters and priests who have the
courage to take even the most
moderate of positions on racial in
tegration. Pressure from some of
the congregational leaders, ostra
cism and obstuction, repeated tele
phone calls in the dead of night,
ugly, whispered filth, threats of
violence and death inspired by
minds of stewing with God alone
knows what evil — these are all
part of a pattern familiar to the
ministers of Southern churches
who try to take the attitude of
tolerance required by Christianity,
the ethics of Western civilizatioi
the Constitution and courts of the
United States and their own na
tional church organizations.
Despite the virulence of the at
tacks upon them, these moderate
ministers do not, in general, take
the position that each church
should have a thoroughly mixed
congregation. That is not likely
to come about in the South any
more than it has or will soon in
the North; social and economic
patterns of community life pre
clude it, quite aside from the in
tegration controversy.
The stand these ministers do
take is twofold: First, Christians
and Christian churches should, as
a matter of principle, be in the
forefront of the forces working for
racial tolerance and obedience to
the law, particularly in the matter
of public school integration. Sec
ond, as a token of this principle,
white congregations should cease
to reject the very thought of a
Negro crossing the threshold; al
though Negroes need not be ad
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