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

by Jesse Curtis

The following week Graham himself followed up: “I am not sure that it would be wise for you to come to Montgomery just now.”115 Jones’s exclusion from the Montgomery crusade was a plain and simple effort to appease white supremacist opinion. The presence of a black evangelist would indeed have raised tensions. Graham believed it would be worthwhile to preach the gospel without such controversy. The evangelistic calculus was changing, but in Montgomery, Alabama, in the spring of 1965, Christian colorblindness was still a bridge too far. Sacred whiteness still held sway there and could still be placated. The incident had the shape of a parable outlining the future of Christian colorblindness. Jones was the black supplicant seeking inclusion, and Graham was the white evangelical power broker gauging the comfort level of the white majority and the imperatives of evangelization to determine the terms and pace of that inclusion.