Religion in Mississippi

Download Religion in Mississippi PDF Online Free

Author :
Publisher : Univ. Press of Mississippi
ISBN 13 : 9781617035807
Total Pages : 412 pages
Book Rating : 4.0/5 (358 download)

DOWNLOAD NOW!


Book Synopsis Religion in Mississippi by : Randy J. Sparks

Download or read book Religion in Mississippi written by Randy J. Sparks and published by Univ. Press of Mississippi. This book was released on 2011-09-23 with total page 412 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In the 1600s Colonial French settlers brought Christianity into the lands that are now the state of Mississippi. Throughout the period of French rule and the period of Spanish dominion that followed, Roman Catholicism remained the principal religion. By the time that statehood was achieved in 1817, Mississippi was attracting Methodists, Baptists, Presbyterians, and other Protestant evangelical faiths at a remarkable pace, and by the twentieth century, religion in Mississippi was dominantly Protestant and evangelical. In this book, Randy J. Sparks traces the roots of evangelical Christianity in the state and shows how the evangelicals became a force of cultural revolution. They embraced the poorer segments of society, welcomed high populations of both women and African Americans, and deeply influenced ritual and belief in the state's vision of Christianity. In the 1830s as the Mississippi economy boomed, so did evangelicalism. As Protestant faiths became wedded to patriarchal standards, slaveholding, and southern political tradition, seeds were sown for the war that would erupt three decades later. Until Reconstruction many Mississippi churches comprised biracial congregations and featured women in prominent roles, but as the Civil War and the racial split cooled the evangelicals' liberal fervor and drastically changed the democratic character of their religion into arch-conservatism, a strong but separate black church emerged. As dominance by Protestant conservatives solidified, Jews, Catholics, and Mormons struggled to retain their religious identities while conforming to standards set by white Protestant society. As Sparks explores the dissonance between the state's powerful evangelical voice and Mississippi's social and cultural mores, he reveals the striking irony of faith and society in conflict. By the time of the civil rights movement of the 1960s, religion, formerly a liberal force, had become one of the leading proponents of segregation, gender inequality, and ethnic animosity among whites in the Magnolia State. Among blacks, however, the churches were bastions of racial pride and resistance to the forces of oppression.

Gods of the Mississippi

Download Gods of the Mississippi PDF Online Free

Author :
Publisher : Indiana University Press
ISBN 13 : 0253008034
Total Pages : 241 pages
Book Rating : 4.2/5 (53 download)

DOWNLOAD NOW!


Book Synopsis Gods of the Mississippi by : Michael Pasquier

Download or read book Gods of the Mississippi written by Michael Pasquier and published by Indiana University Press. This book was released on 2013-02-27 with total page 241 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: From the colonial period to the present, the Mississippi River has impacted religious communities from Minnesota to the Gulf of Mexico. Exploring the religious landscape along the 2,530 miles of the largest river system in North America, the essays in Gods of the Mississippi make a compelling case for American religion in motion—not just from east to west, but also from north to south. With discussion of topics such as the religions of the Black Atlantic, religion and empire, antebellum religious movements, the Mormons at Nauvoo, black religion in the delta, Catholicism in the Deep South, and Johnny Cash and religion, this volume contributes to a richer understanding of this diverse, dynamic, and fluid religious world.

The Mississippi Flows Into the Tiber

Download The Mississippi Flows Into the Tiber PDF Online Free

Author :
Publisher :
ISBN 13 : 9780929891132
Total Pages : 1013 pages
Book Rating : 4.8/5 (911 download)

DOWNLOAD NOW!


Book Synopsis The Mississippi Flows Into the Tiber by : John Beaumont

Download or read book The Mississippi Flows Into the Tiber written by John Beaumont and published by . This book was released on 2014-01-01 with total page 1013 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:

The Shattered Cross

Download The Shattered Cross PDF Online Free

Author :
Publisher : LSU Press
ISBN 13 : 0807174440
Total Pages : 293 pages
Book Rating : 4.8/5 (71 download)

DOWNLOAD NOW!


Book Synopsis The Shattered Cross by : Linda Carol Jones

Download or read book The Shattered Cross written by Linda Carol Jones and published by LSU Press. This book was released on 2020-12-09 with total page 293 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In The Shattered Cross, Linda Carol Jones explores the lives and work of five priests of the Séminaire de Québec, the first French Catholic missionaries to serve along the Mississippi River between 1698 and 1725. Using an array of archival holdings in Québec and France, Jones provides deep insight into the experiences of these pioneer priests and their interactions with regional Native peoples and cultures. Encounters between early French Catholic missionaries and Native peoples were always complex, often misunderstood, and typically fraught with an array of challenges. As Jones demonstrates, these priests faced a combination of environmental, personal, economic, and leadership difficulties that, along with cultural misunderstandings and poorly designed strategies, made their missionary work arduous. Nevertheless, their efforts led, in some instances, to assimilation of select Christian elements into Native cultures, albeit through creative, mutual adaptation, not solely through Catholic efforts. In describing the challenges the Séminaire priests faced in their Christianization efforts, Jones reveals patches of middle ground that served to transform both missionary and Native cultures when least expected. She relates the story of Father Marc Bergier, who took the openness and compassion he felt for the Native peoples he encountered in Québec with him as he descended the Mississippi River and worked among the Tamarois. Bergier revealed a willingness to reject certain aspects of Catholic teaching in order to accept various Native traditions. Jones also investigates the case of Father Jean-François Buisson de Saint-Cosme, strongly suspected by church leaders of having an inappropriate interest in women while serving as a priest in Acadie, several years before his departure down the Mississippi. Jones suggests that Father Saint-Cosme’s subsequent sexual relations with the sister of the Great Sun of the Natchez may have been an attempt to step into a middle ground with her so as to end the Natchez tradition of human sacrifice upon the death of a Great Sun. Expectations of Séminaire leaders in Québec and Paris meant that those with the best chance for success on the Mississippi were internally driven, acknowledged a sense of calling to be a part of the overarching mission of the seminary, and adhered to the advice of its leadership. The missionary experiences of these five men—their varied encounters with Native peoples, Jesuit missionaries, and French coureurs de bois—align and diverge in unexpected ways, presenting a mosaic that adds to our understanding of both the tribulations French Catholic missionaries faced and the consequences of their efforts along the Mississippi River in the early eighteenth century.

Celebraciones Dominicales en Ausencia de Presbítero

Download Celebraciones Dominicales en Ausencia de Presbítero PDF Online Free

Author :
Publisher : USCCB Publishing
ISBN 13 : 9781574557114
Total Pages : 438 pages
Book Rating : 4.5/5 (571 download)

DOWNLOAD NOW!


Book Synopsis Celebraciones Dominicales en Ausencia de Presbítero by : Catholic Church

Download or read book Celebraciones Dominicales en Ausencia de Presbítero written by Catholic Church and published by USCCB Publishing. This book was released on 2006-09 with total page 438 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: As the number of available priests has declined, the Sunday Mass is becoming less and less available in some parishes and dioceses. Sunday Celebrations in the Absence of a Priest addresses this growing reality by providing the appropriate ritual to be used in the celebrating community. This revised ritual edition of Sunday Celebrations in the Absence of a Priest is fully bilingual, with Spanish and English printed side by side. It includes Morning Prayer, Evening Prayer, and two appendices, Directory for Sunday Celebrations in the Absence of a Priest and Gathered in Steadfast Faith. This beautifully bound ritual book includes three ribbons and is printed in two colors. It will be a welcome addition to the sacristy or library of every parish, school, convent, and religious house.

Desegregating Dixie

Download Desegregating Dixie PDF Online Free

Author :
Publisher : Univ. Press of Mississippi
ISBN 13 : 1496818873
Total Pages : 539 pages
Book Rating : 4.4/5 (968 download)

DOWNLOAD NOW!


Book Synopsis Desegregating Dixie by : Mark Newman

Download or read book Desegregating Dixie written by Mark Newman and published by Univ. Press of Mississippi. This book was released on 2018-10-04 with total page 539 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Winner of the 2020 American Studies Network Book Prize from the European Association for American Studies Mark Newman draws on a vast range of archives and many interviews to uncover for the first time the complex response of African American and white Catholics across the South to desegregation. In the late nineteenth and first half of the twentieth century, the southern Catholic Church contributed to segregation by confining African Americans to the back of white churches and to black-only schools and churches. However, in the twentieth century, papal adoption and dissemination of the doctrine of the Mystical Body of Christ, pressure from some black and white Catholics, and secular change brought by the civil rights movement increasingly led the Church to address racial discrimination both inside and outside its walls. Far from monolithic, white Catholics in the South split between a moderate segregationist majority and minorities of hard-line segregationists and progressive racial egalitarians. While some bishops felt no discomfort with segregation, prelates appointed from the late 1940s onward tended to be more supportive of religious and secular change. Some bishops in the peripheral South began desegregation before or in anticipation of secular change while elsewhere, especially in the Deep South, they often tied changes in the Catholic churches to secular desegregation. African American Catholics were diverse and more active in the civil rights movement than has often been assumed. While some black Catholics challenged racism in the Church, many were conflicted about the manner of Catholic desegregation generally imposed by closing valued black institutions. Tracing its impact through the early 1990s, Newman reveals how desegregation shook congregations but seldom brought about genuine integration.

Mississippi Praying

Download Mississippi Praying PDF Online Free

Author :
Publisher : NYU Press
ISBN 13 : 0814708412
Total Pages : 304 pages
Book Rating : 4.8/5 (147 download)

DOWNLOAD NOW!


Book Synopsis Mississippi Praying by : Carolyn Renée Dupont

Download or read book Mississippi Praying written by Carolyn Renée Dupont and published by NYU Press. This book was released on 2013-08-23 with total page 304 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Mississippi Praying examines the faith communities at ground-zero of the racial revolution that rocked America. This religious history of white Mississippians in the civil rights era shows how Mississippians’ intense religious commitments played critical, rather than incidental, roles in their response to the movement for black equality. During the civil rights movement and since, it has perplexed many Americans that unabashedly Christian Mississippi could also unapologetically oppress its black population. Yet, as Carolyn Renée Dupont richly details, white southerners’ evangelical religion gave them no conceptual tools for understanding segregation as a moral evil, and many believed that God had ordained the racial hierarchy. Challenging previous scholarship that depicts southern religious support for segregation as weak, Dupont shows how people of faith in Mississippi rejected the religious argument for black equality and actively supported the effort to thwart the civil rights movement. At the same time, faith motivated a small number of white Mississippians to challenge the methods and tactics of do-or-die segregationists. Racial turmoil profoundly destabilized Mississippi’s religious communities and turned them into battlegrounds over the issue of black equality. Though Mississippi’s evangelicals lost the battle to preserve segregation, they won important struggles to preserve the theology that had sustained the racial hierarchy. Ultimately, this history sheds light on the eventual rise of the religious right by elaborating the connections between the pre- and post-civil rights South. Carolyn Renée Dupont is Assistant Professor of History at Eastern Kentucky University in Richmond, KY.

River of Fire

Download River of Fire PDF Online Free

Author :
Publisher : Random House
ISBN 13 : 1400067308
Total Pages : 321 pages
Book Rating : 4.4/5 ( download)

DOWNLOAD NOW!


Book Synopsis River of Fire by : Helen Prejean

Download or read book River of Fire written by Helen Prejean and published by Random House. This book was released on 2019-08-13 with total page 321 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: “River of Fire is Sister Helen’s story leading up to her acclaimed book Dead Man Walking—it is thought-provoking, informative, and inspiring. Read it and it will set your heart ablaze!”—Mark Shriver, author of Pilgrimage: My Search for the Real Pope Francis The nation’s foremost leader in efforts to abolish the death penalty shares the story of her growth as a spiritual leader, speaks out about the challenges of the Catholic Church, and shows that joy and religion are not mutually exclusive. Sister Helen Prejean’s work as an activist nun, campaigning to educate Americans about the inhumanity of the death penalty, is known to millions worldwide. Less widely known is the evolution of her spiritual journey from praying for God to solve the world’s problems to engaging full-tilt in working to transform societal injustices. Sister Helen grew up in a well-off Baton Rouge family that still employed black servants. She joined the Sisters of St. Joseph at the age of eighteen and was in her forties when she had an awakening that her life’s work was to immerse herself in the struggle of poor people forced to live on the margins of society. Sister Helen writes about the relationships with friends, fellow nuns, and mentors who have shaped her over the years. In this honest and fiercely open account, she writes about her close friendship with a priest, intent on marrying her, that challenged her vocation in the “new territory of the heart.” The final page of River of Fire ends with the opening page of Dead Man Walking, when she was first invited to correspond with a man on Louisiana’s death row. River of Fire is a book for anyone interested in journeys of faith and spirituality, doubt and belief, and “catching on fire” to purpose and passion. It is a book, written in accessible, luminous prose, about how to live a spiritual life that is wide awake to the sufferings and creative opportunities of our world. “Prejean chronicles the compelling, sometimes-difficult journey to the heart of her soul and faith with wit, honesty, and intelligence. A refreshingly intimate memoir of a life in faith.”—Kirkus Reviews

Catholic Does Not Equal the Vatican

Download Catholic Does Not Equal the Vatican PDF Online Free

Author :
Publisher :
ISBN 13 :
Total Pages : 168 pages
Book Rating : 4.:/5 (321 download)

DOWNLOAD NOW!


Book Synopsis Catholic Does Not Equal the Vatican by : Rosemary Radford Ruether

Download or read book Catholic Does Not Equal the Vatican written by Rosemary Radford Ruether and published by . This book was released on 2008 with total page 168 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "Millions of Catholics throughout the world, despite a profound commitment to their faith, feel deeply ambivalent about the hierarchical Catholic institution and the rightward agendas of the current and previous popes. These Catholics long for a church that would more closely reflect their own beliefs and experiences, a church that would offer a welcoming community and serve as a global leader in the fight for justice." "Catholic Does Not Equal the Vatican heralds the revival of such a church - a democratic and participatory church that transcends narrow Vatican doctrine and thrives despite Vatican censure. This book by scholar and activist Rosemary Radford Ruether examines the serious moral contradictions in Vatican Catholicism and offers a vision of a faith grounded in Christ's teachings and committed to justice and peace."--BOOK JACKET.

Atlas of Christian History

Download Atlas of Christian History PDF Online Free

Author :
Publisher : Fortress Press
ISBN 13 : 1506416888
Total Pages : 176 pages
Book Rating : 4.5/5 (64 download)

DOWNLOAD NOW!


Book Synopsis Atlas of Christian History by : Tim Dowley

Download or read book Atlas of Christian History written by Tim Dowley and published by Fortress Press. This book was released on 2016-11-01 with total page 176 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A new atlas of Christian history has been needed for many years. Now, Fortress Press is pleased to offer the Atlas of Christian History from acclaimed author and editor Tim Dowley. The Atlas of Christian History is built new from the ground up. Featuring more than fifty new maps, graphics, and timelines, the atlas is a necessary companion to any study of Christian history. Concise, helpful text, written by acknowledged authorities, guide the experience and interpret the visuals. Consciously written for students at any level, the volume is perfect for independent students, as well as those in structured courses. The atlas is broken into five primary parts that correspond well to most major introductions to the topic. The final section on the modern era pays significant attention to the growth of Christianity as a global religion. Extensive maps are provided that illuminate Christianity in Asian, African, and Latin American contexts.

Catholicism and the Shaping of Nineteenth-Century America

Download Catholicism and the Shaping of Nineteenth-Century America PDF Online Free

Author :
Publisher : Cambridge University Press
ISBN 13 : 1107010241
Total Pages : 293 pages
Book Rating : 4.1/5 (7 download)

DOWNLOAD NOW!


Book Synopsis Catholicism and the Shaping of Nineteenth-Century America by : Jon Gjerde

Download or read book Catholicism and the Shaping of Nineteenth-Century America written by Jon Gjerde and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2012 with total page 293 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Offers a series of fresh perspectives on America's encounter with Catholicism in the nineteenth-century. While religious and immigration historians have construed this history in univocal terms, Jon Gjerde bridges sectarian divides by presenting Protestants and Catholics in conversation with each other. In so doing, Gjerde reveals the ways in which America's encounter with Catholicism was much more than a story about American nativism. Nineteenth-century religious debates raised questions about the fundamental underpinnings of the American state and society: the shape of the antebellum market economy, gender roles in the American family, and the place of slavery were only a few of the issues engaged by Protestants and Catholics in a lively and enduring dialectic. While the question of the place of Catholics in America was left unresolved, the very debates surrounding this question generated multiple conceptions of American pluralism and American national identity.

Black and Catholic in the Jim Crow South

Download Black and Catholic in the Jim Crow South PDF Online Free

Author :
Publisher : Paulist Press
ISBN 13 : 0809143712
Total Pages : 178 pages
Book Rating : 4.8/5 (91 download)

DOWNLOAD NOW!


Book Synopsis Black and Catholic in the Jim Crow South by : Danny Duncan Collum

Download or read book Black and Catholic in the Jim Crow South written by Danny Duncan Collum and published by Paulist Press. This book was released on 2006 with total page 178 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Just over 40 years ago Mississippi was burning. A series of racially motivated murders and brutal repression of the movement to register black voters had drawn the moral outrage of the nation. But in the historic city of Natchez, in the midst of that dreadful period, an African American Catholic parish and its white priest chose to stand at the center of the African American freedom movement. Based on the oral histories of Holy Family Church in Natchez, Black And Catholic In The Jim Crow South tells the story of black Catholics' 20th-century struggle through the voices of the people who lived through it. It tells of the origins of the Holy Family Church from its founding as a place of worship for black slaves or servants to the central role that the parish played in the civil rights movement, when it leaped the boundaries of its original mission to become a center for struggle and hope. Danny Duncan Collum provides vivid interviews with members of Holy Family parish who lived through this period of ferment, hope, and terror. He documents the courageous stand taken by both his parish and by the Catholic hierarchy against the supporters of segregation, ranging from the state government to the Klu Klux Klan.

Wingless Chickens, Bayou Catholics, and Pilgrim Wayfarers

Download Wingless Chickens, Bayou Catholics, and Pilgrim Wayfarers PDF Online Free

Author :
Publisher : Mercer University Press
ISBN 13 : 0881462144
Total Pages : 270 pages
Book Rating : 4.8/5 (814 download)

DOWNLOAD NOW!


Book Synopsis Wingless Chickens, Bayou Catholics, and Pilgrim Wayfarers by : L. Lamar Nisly

Download or read book Wingless Chickens, Bayou Catholics, and Pilgrim Wayfarers written by L. Lamar Nisly and published by Mercer University Press. This book was released on 2011 with total page 270 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Flannery O'Connor, Tim Gautreaux, and Walker Percy, are all Catholic writers from the South-and seem to embody very fully both parts of that label. Yet as quickly becomes clear in their writing, their fiction employs markedly different tones and modes of addressing their audience. O'Connor seems intent on shocking her reader, whom she anticipates will be hostile to her deepest beliefs. Gautreaux gently and humorously engages his reader, inviting his expected sympathetic audience to embrace the characters' needed moral growth. Percy satirically lampoons an array of social ills and failings in the Church, as he tries to get his audience laughing with him while he makes his deadly serious point about the flaws he finds in the church and larger culture. Why do these three writers assume such divergent images of their audience? Why do texts by three writers who each embrace their Southern locale and their Catholic beliefs seem to have so little in common? To answer these questions, Nisly helps readers understand these authors' fiction by examining the role that place and time had in shaping each author's idea of an audience-and, by extension, his or her manner of addressing that audience. More specifically, Nisly focuses on each author's experience of Catholic community and each author's placement in relation to the Second Vatican Council. Linking together biographical information and a reading of their fiction, Nisly argues that O'Connor's, Gautreaux's, and Percy's sense of audience has been shaped in significant ways by each author's own local experience of Catholicism in his or her home region as well as the larger, global changes of Vatican II that transformed Roman Catholicism.

Catholic Almanac's Guide to the Church

Download Catholic Almanac's Guide to the Church PDF Online Free

Author :
Publisher : Our Sunday Visitor
ISBN 13 : 1612781756
Total Pages : 476 pages
Book Rating : 4.6/5 (127 download)

DOWNLOAD NOW!


Book Synopsis Catholic Almanac's Guide to the Church by : Matthew Bunson

Download or read book Catholic Almanac's Guide to the Church written by Matthew Bunson and published by Our Sunday Visitor. This book was released on 2001-10-31 with total page 476 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Your Concise Guide to All Things Catholic No matter what you want to know about the Catholic Church, you'll find the answer in this one-volume guide. From the composition of the Curia to contemporary saints, from major doctrines to the Third Secret of Fatima, if it's part of the Catholic world, it's here.

Encyclopedia of Religion in the South

Download Encyclopedia of Religion in the South PDF Online Free

Author :
Publisher : Mercer University Press
ISBN 13 : 9780865547582
Total Pages : 898 pages
Book Rating : 4.5/5 (475 download)

DOWNLOAD NOW!


Book Synopsis Encyclopedia of Religion in the South by : Samuel S. Hill

Download or read book Encyclopedia of Religion in the South written by Samuel S. Hill and published by Mercer University Press. This book was released on 2005 with total page 898 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The publication of the Encyclopedia of Religion in the South in 1984 signaled the rise in the scholarly interest in the study of Religion in the South. Religion has always been part of the cultural heritage of that region, but scholarly investigation had been sporadic. Since the original publication of the ERS, however, the South has changed significantly in that Christianity is no longer the primary religion observed. Other religions like Judaism, Buddhism, and Hinduism have begun to have very important voices in Southern life. This one-volume reference, the only one of its kind, takes this expansion into consideration by updating older relevant articles and by adding new ones. After more than 20 years, the only reference book in the field of the Religion in the South has been totally revised and updated. Each article has been updated and bibliography has been expanded. The ERS has also been expanded to include more than sixty new articles on Religion in the South. New articles have been added on such topics as Elvis Presley, Appalachian Music, Buddhism, Bill Clinton, Jerry Falwell, Fannie Lou Hamer, Zora Neale Hurston, Stonewall Jackson, Popular Religion, Pat Robertson, the PTL, Sports and Religion in the South, theme parks, and much more. This is an indispensable resource for anyone interested in the South, religion, or cultural history.

School History of Mississippi

Download School History of Mississippi PDF Online Free

Author :
Publisher :
ISBN 13 :
Total Pages : 458 pages
Book Rating : 4.3/5 (2 download)

DOWNLOAD NOW!


Book Synopsis School History of Mississippi by : Franklin Lafayette Riley

Download or read book School History of Mississippi written by Franklin Lafayette Riley and published by . This book was released on 1915 with total page 458 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:

Religion and the Rise of Jim Crow in New Orleans

Download Religion and the Rise of Jim Crow in New Orleans PDF Online Free

Author :
Publisher : Princeton University Press
ISBN 13 : 1400880173
Total Pages : 320 pages
Book Rating : 4.4/5 (8 download)

DOWNLOAD NOW!


Book Synopsis Religion and the Rise of Jim Crow in New Orleans by : James B. Bennett

Download or read book Religion and the Rise of Jim Crow in New Orleans written by James B. Bennett and published by Princeton University Press. This book was released on 2016-06-28 with total page 320 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Religion and the Rise of Jim Crow in New Orleans examines a difficult chapter in American religious history: the story of race prejudice in American Christianity. Focusing on the largest city in the late-nineteenth-century South, it explores the relationship between churches--black and white, Protestant and Catholic--and the emergence of the Jim Crow laws, statutes that created a racial caste system in the American South. The book fills a gap in the scholarship on religion and race in the crucial decades between the end of Reconstruction and the eve of the Civil Rights movement. Drawing on a range of local and personal accounts from the post-Reconstruction period, newspapers, and church records, Bennett's analysis challenges the assumption that churches fell into fixed patterns of segregation without a fight. In sacred no less than secular spheres, establishing Jim Crow constituted a long, slow, and complicated journey that extended well into the twentieth century. Churches remained a source of hope and a means of resistance against segregation, rather than a retreat from racial oppression. Especially in the decade after Reconstruction, churches offered the possibility of creating a common identity that privileged religious over racial status, a pattern that black church members hoped would transfer to a national American identity transcending racial differences. Religion thus becomes a lens to reconsider patterns for racial interaction throughout Southern society. By tracing the contours of that hopeful yet ultimately tragic journey, this book reveals the complex and mutually influential relationship between church and society in the American South, placing churches at the center of the nation's racial struggles.