Book Review
By Darold Morgan
God`s Long Summer
By Charles Marsh
[Dr. Darold Morgan is a former pastor and the former President of the Annuity Board of the Southern Baptist Convention.]
This is a vital book on a very relevant subject. It takes us dramatically, forcefully, and unforgettably back to Mississippi and the summer of 1964. It is one of several volumes currently examining the civil rights struggle in the nation. Its unique approach and its careful research, combined with the excellent writing skills of the author makes this one of the best of the bunch. The author tells the story of five individuals who were at the heart of the civil rights movement in the deepest part of the Deep South. He comes up with a riveting, heart-breaking account of a movement in American life which is still evolving.
Alternating between some fascinating biographical research and finely honed reportorial skills, the author reaches back into history and resurrects one of the saddest and most graphic chapters in twentieth century America. It is a highly readable volume, but it is also an ambivalent reading experience for the reader is seized by the violent conflict between good and evil in human nature that staggers the imagination. One almost wishes all this were fiction because so much of it reeks with pain, hatred, blindness, and unmitigated evil.
The intent of the author is stated plainly, and he rarely veers from it: "This book invites the reader to revisit the tumultuous landscape of the American civil rights movement in Mississippi." When the reader finishes the book, he or she will recall for a long time the following names: Fannie Lou Hamer, Sam Bower, Douglas Hudgins, Ed King, Cleveland Sellers. The core of the book is an account of their lives, their convictions, and their experiences.
The 1960`s was a time when the Bible still figured prominently in the civil rights movement. To this reviewer the best thing about the book is the simple, basic, biblical faith of Mrs. Hamer. She came from the Mississippi Delta, a sharecropper, nurtured in a Black Baptist Church, uneducated, but amazingly resourceful, a natural leader in her community and state in the voter registration movement. We must not forget how controversial then was this basic right of voting, denied for generations to practically all African-Americans in the South.
Mrs. Hamer`s knowledge of the Bible and the hymnal, her sense of timing, and her courage brought both warmth and depth to these terror-filled times. Her personal sufferings through arrests and beatings, her determination not to hate, her perseverance despite poverty and poor health, her positive attitudes in the face of hostile political maneuvers from so-called friends, all were dealt with on the basis of her convictions about the presence and power of God. In this she identified closely with America`s key civil rights leader, Martin Luther King, Jr., whose skills and non-violent philosophy were, and still are, immensely influential.
The author then shifts gears to Sam Bowers, "the Imperial Wizard of the White Knights of the Ku Klux Klan." Marsh is highly perceptive in his emphasis on Bower`s use of biblical theology to justify the violence and death which his group was responsible for. The contrast with Mrs. Hamer`s interpretation of the Bible is jarring. The documentation of the KKK`s white racist actions in this "Long Summer" is still deeply shocking.
Add to this the position and leadership of Douglas Hudgins, then pastor of the prestigious First Baptist Church of Jackson, Mississippi. One has to conclude that he forfeited the potential of prophetic leadership because he willingly allowed himself to be trapped by the culture of his community and by the fears that unnumbered pastors of all denominations exhibited over and over again through these months of crisis. The author documents the resistance of Hudgins and others to the Southern Baptist Convention`s heroic action in 1954 which overwhelmingly accepted the report of the Christian Life Commission affirming and supporting the Supreme Court decision that segregation on the basis of race in the public schools was unconstitutional. This is unpleasant reading, but it is essential for understanding the background of the racism among us which is still unresolved.
The final two individuals studied are Ed King and Cleveland Sellers. One was a Methodist minister, and the other was a Black civil rights activist. Both are still alive. Both are natives of the South. Both were active in "the long Summer of 1964." King went north for his theological education and became deeply committed to what was then generally considered radical convictions about Christian faith and social justice. Returning to the South in the early sixties, he moved quickly into the heart of this racial strife in his native state of Mississippi. Brave beyond measure, he also was somewhat erratic in his methods and procedures. One of the sad things about the volume is the documenting of his later years.
Sellers represents the angry black man, who tired quickly of the white zealots from the north. He joined the framework of black leaders such as Malcolm X, Stokely Carmichael, and others who effectively eliminated white leadership in the movement. Black power came to be his theme with the piety of Mrs. Hamer and others no longer considered relevant, a trend that is still dominant in this area. Almost out of control himself, he was arrested, sentenced unfairly to years in prison, with the author sadly concluding that his approach "did more tearing down than building. up." To Seller`s credit he came out of prison, followed through on his education with moral and spiritual discipline, and is now a useful college professor with deep convictions about the inevitability of social justice in America.
This book is a valuable, well-written, excellently researched volume which resurrects some of the dark shadows related to the struggle for racial justice in America. The author deliberately does not draw a precise list of conclusions about these matters. The retelling of "God`s Long Summer", he seems to assume, will adequately allow the reader to come to his own conclusions. Yet to the credit of author Charles Marsh, this Baptist pastor`s son never leaves the reader in doubt as to what his convictions are in opposition to the great evil of racism.
