Baptist Editor Seeks End to Racial Hostility

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Collection:: Land of (Unequal) Opportunity: Documenting the Civil Rights Struggle in Arkansas
Title:: Baptist Editor Seeks End to Racial Hostility
Creator:: Arkansas Baptist Newsmagazine
Publisher:: Fayetteville, Ark. : University of Arkansas Libraries
Date of Original:: 1957-09-12
Subject:: African Americans--Arkansas
Civil rights--Arkansas
Race discrimination--Arkansas
Segregation--Arkansas
People:: McDonald, Erwin L. (Erwin Lawrence)
Location:: United States, Arkansas, 34.75037, -92.50044
Medium:: documents (object genre)
Type:: Text
Format:: application/pdf
Description:: Editorial by Erwin L. McDonald, editor of Arkansas Baptist Newsmagazine, urging readers to pray for the end of the integration tensions.
Integration -- Blacks -- African-Americans -- Education -- Little Rock Central High School -- Religion -- Baptist Church -- Little Rock -- Pulaski
Personally Speaking... Sitting on the Fence SITTING ON the fence used to be an enjoyable way to pass the time back in earlier days when there were rail fences and people who had time to sit. A lot of the world's problems used to be solved back at Bunker Hill, in Pope County, by my Dad and his neigh- bors as they sat on the fence and talked. But sitting on the fence has just about dissapeared as a prac- tice. Even if we had time for it today, it is not easy to sit on a barbed wire fence, an it is especially difficult to sit on a fence that has a charge of electricity running through it. Now when we speak of "sitting on the fence" we use the expression figura- tively. A lot of time we use this ex- pression of someone who for one rea- son or another hesitates to come right out and say he feels just as we do about some issue of the day. Those Arkansas who have been "sit- ting on the fence" on the race issue of integration or segregation are find- ing the fence to be carrying a rather high charge of emotional electricity at the time this is written. Since the race issue is one that finds our Baptist of the state on the fence and on both sides of the fence, and since this paper is the official organ of the Arkansas Baptist State Conven- tion and not the private publication of this editor, we are taking no stand either for or against integration. But we want to be counted with those who stand for law and order, for clear, cool thinking, and for the lives motivated by the love of Christ. Both sides of the fence profess to be motivated by a desire to have what is best for the people of the State: both sides can quote scriptures which, to their own satisfaction, justify their stands. Abraham Lincoln, the Great Emancipator, is likewise quoted by both sides. At the moment our State govern- ment and our national government are not agreed as to which has prece- dence in determining what is the law of the land as it relates to the issue before us. Where there is more than enough heat already, we doubt that the flar- ing of additional tempers would add any light to help us find our way out of the jungle. It might be that we ought to lay aside our fixed bayonets and get some bent knees and talk to the Lord about the mess we are in. [Edwin L. McDonald, signature] ARKANSAS BAPTIST
Metadata URL:: http://digitalcollections.uark.edu/cdm/ref/collection/Civilrights/id/471
IIIF manifest:: https://digitalcollections.uark.edu/iiif/2/Civilrights:471/manifest.json
Additional Rights Information:: Please contact Special Collections for information on copyright.
Original Collection:: Erwin L. McDonald Papers, (MS 9307), University of Central Arkansas Archives and Special Collections
Contributing Institution:: University of Arkansas, Fayetteville. Libraries
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