The Color of Compromise: The Truth about the American Church’s Complicity in Racism

by Jemar Tisby

What comes through in the letter, more than anything else, is their reasonableness. They acknowledge the “natural impatience” of black people whose civil rights have been denied. They affirmed that “hatred and violence have no sanction in our religious and political traditions.”19 They even allowed that black people had recourse to pursue remedies for certain issues in the courts. What then could be objectionable about a group of religious community leaders uniting to encourage restraint and patience in pursuing civil rights for black people? But it is the very reasonableness of the letter that reveals the underlying problem of complicity with racism. This letter from white Christian moderates illustrates the broader failure of the white church, a failure to recognize the daily indignity of American racism and the urgency the situation demanded. These clergymen likely had good intentions, but they did not realize that the talking and negotiating for which they advocated had been attempted and had yielded little to no progress. They denounced the violence that direct action would supposedly incite, but they did relatively little about the countless lynchings, church bombings, and beatings black people across the nation suffered at the hands of segregationists. They were overly cautious when the circumstances demanded a measure of outrage and courageous confrontation. In general, this approach exemplifies how many Christian moderates during the civil rights movement responde...