In His Image, But ...

Résumé du livre

Despite the fact that religious leaders of the white South have invariably preached that "God created man in his own image," they have, with comparatively few exceptions (at least until recently) assigned the black race to an inferior place in the human family. Hence, except for sporadic and largely sterile antislavery legislation in the early post-revolutionary years, the regional communions (exclusive of the Society of Friends) zealously defended human bondage as a divinely appointed institution. Consequently, when the nation erupted in civil war, these same communions overwhelmingly supported a violent rebellion in a desperate effort to keep the black man enslaved and subservient to the white man. After the Confederacy collapsed and the slaves were liberated, the major southern denominations speedily adopted an ecclesiastical policy of black-white separatism, and their white clergy were foremost in implementing that policy. Meanwhile, the leaders of these white denominations also passionately opposed every effort to elevate the freedmen to civil and political equality. This book critically examines the various aspects of this anti-black movement between 1780 and 1910, and it lays bare the baleful impact of white racism upon human relations in the South. While not ignoring secondary writings, the author baes his conclusions upon a first-hand examination of the primary documents. Although the South is the area of major attention, its racial ideology and patterns of white supremacy are explored in relation to the racial sentiments and practices prevailing elsewhere in the United States. From this inter-regional perspective, the author argues that while racism has usually been more virulent in the South, it has never been a peculiar malady of southerners. It is evident, for example, that racism tainted the antislavery movement in the free states as it did in the slave states. It is likewise clear that in the post-Civil War era, racist sentiments in the North were a potent factor in encouraging the South to restrict the rights of black Americans. -Publisher