Oral history project chronicles the role of churches in civil rights

By Denyse Clark
Diversity Institute Fellow

11.08.02

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In 1963, members of Carroll Street Methodist Church asked the Rev. Bill Barnes to leave his position as the congregation’s pastor because he invited blacks to attend worship services. They even held a fundraiser to encourage his departure.

Around that same time, South End Methodist Church saw many members of its once all-white congregation move out when blacks moved in, Barnes said. Today that church’s building houses a credit union.

“White flight was a reality in both churches and homes,” Barnes recently recalled.

At the height of the 1960s civil rights era, Barnes and other local clergy with small numbers of their devout followers sought to bring about positive social change through activism and non-violent protests.

The Nashville Public Library has launched a Civil Rights Oral History Project to collect and preserve such stories as a way of chronicling contributions by Nashville’s past community leaders.

On Sunday, Oct. 20, a crowd of about 250 sat in the main library’s auditorium — a former site of a lunchroom sit-in — to hear about “The Role of the Church in the Civil Rights Movement.” The topic was discussed frankly, albeit briefly, by Barnes and the Rev. Dr. James Lawson, longtime local clergymen and past organizers of civil rights efforts in Nashville.

Lawson, pastor emeritus of Holman United Methodist Church in Los Angeles, said he learned and practiced the power of passive resistance to initiate positive social change.

“The Civil Rights Movement in Nashville began with a simple goal to desegregate the city’s lunch counters and restaurants,” said Lawson.

Churches were used to organize and gather participation for bringing about social change during that era, Lawson said.

“The church later became a place for healing and renewal, primarily for minority churches,” he said. Barnes, retired pastor of Nashville’s Edgehill United Methodist Church, added that during the civil rights era many white churches feared desegregation practices. But under Barnes leadership, Edgehill became the city’s first United Methodist church to have a racially mixed congregation. African-Americans accounted for about 40 percent of the congregation, he said.

Barnes and Lawson were to follow up their brief discussion of the issues on Sunday with a taping session on Monday in which Barnes will interview Lawson. That tape and others like it will be made available for library patrons to check out and view inside the library.

Sue Loper, coordinator of the Civil Rights Oral History Project, said the Nashville Room staff has already collected 15 stories. She made an appeal during the Sunday discussion for people to contact her if they have historical accounts to share.

The oral history project is an outgrowth of the Civil Rights Collection, a pictorial account of the 1960s Civil Rights Movement, Loper said. That exhibit is currently located on the second floor of the library.

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