The Myth of Colorblind Christians: Evangelicals and White Supremacy in the Civil Rights Era

by Jesse Curtis

The publisher of Our Kind of People, John Knox Press of Atlanta, promoted it as a salve for white evangelical guilt. The back cover of the original paperback edition offered this extraordinary description of the book’s contents: “OUR KIND OF PEOPLE attacks the Christian guilt complex arising from the civil rights movement and puts it to rest with a skillful mixture of scriptural precedent and human psychology. In doing so, Wagner transforms the statement that ‘11 A.M. on Sunday is the most segregated hour in America’ from a millstone around Christian necks into a dynamic tool for assuring Christian growth.” In this framing, Wagner’s defense of homogeneity was important not because of what it did for evangelicals of color but because it helped white evangelicals feel better about their segregated churches.