(from “Problems of the Christian Life” series, Baptist Standard, June 5, 1968)
American cities in recent years have been torn by riots. Many white Americans, including some Christians, because they disapprove the rioting, are tending to deny the rights of our Negro citizens.
The riots properly can and should be condemned, but we should not close our eyes to the conditions that tend to spawn the riots. Neither should we let our condemnation cause us to lose our interest and concern for the constitutional rights of all citizens, regardless of race or class.
We should also remember that the riots represent only a minority of our colored citizens. Most Negro leaders are strongly opposed to the riots. As American citizens, many of them are just as interested as their white friends in maintaining respect for constituted authorities.
They recognize that a breakdown of respect for law and order in a democracy can rather easily, and it seems inevitably, lead to anarchy. They also understand that anarchy is fallow ground for the rise of a dictatorship. Under the latter, the rights of all are limited or suppressed.
Riots tend to jeopardize the rights of Negroes in another way. The riots of recent years have tended to drive Negro and white people further apart. It has been increasingly difficult to maintain lines of communication. Some Negro leaders as well as white leaders think there is a possibility of our nation moving in the direction of two societies, one black and the other white, with each society separate but equal.
If such a separation occurs, it will be a type of apartheid. It will be a far cry from what Negro and white leaders have contemplated for our nation. They have been advocating a thorough integration of the Negro into the mainstream of American life.
They have wanted the American dream or creed applied consistently and equally to people of all races and cultures. This would mean first-class citizenship for all. The riots threaten this goal. The whole civil rights movement is threatened.
Regardless of our theological persuasion or our social perspective, we should be concerned about the racial situation in our urban centers. We should seek to become acquainted with the grievances of our Negro people, many of whom live in the crowded ghettos in the deteriorating centers of our cities.
Many individual Christians should get involved in doing something about those conditions. The same should be true of many of our churches. This may require a changed perspective concerning the work and ministry of the church. It may require a degree of cooperation that few churches have known with other Baptist churches, with churches of other denominations, and with community agencies.
We Christians should be careful that we do not lose sight of the basic rights of Negroes because we condemn the riots. Let us keep the riots and the rights separated.