The Bible Told Them So
How Southern Evangelicals Fought to Preserve White Supremacy

Ultimately my problems with this book boiled down to two things. The first is that, in my opinion, anecdotes were extrapolated to over-generalizations. This is not at all to say that the generalizations were false, but simply that, like so many other authors, this author used the “here’s a story, an......more

A detailed analysis of how Baptists and Methodists in South Carolina addressed the significant changes wrought in society by the Civil Rights Movement and the landmark SCOTUS cases of the 1950s and 1960s. The author powerfully demonstrates how a good percentage of white Baptists and Methodists in the......more

A dense, short history that takes a narrow focus on the issue of how segregation lead to colorblind narratives that maintain as much racism as socially acceptable. The use of primary sources was impressive and the writing concise and arguments well explained, but this is not a history book I’d recom......more

History Repeats Itself If you didn’t know the subject of this book and just read the many quotes from white Christians, you might wonder if this book was about 1960 or 2020. Hawkins has done great working reminding us that history may not exactly be repeating itself, but it sure rhymes. Hawkins does......more

The book focuses on the history of white supremacy in South Carolina but the basic patterns appear in every state, I'm sure. The book explains the Bible passages once used to defend slavery and segregation and moves through history to explain how racism adapted its rhetoric to survive numerous chall......more