I am white and my adopted daughter (white) married an African-American man, so I think I can be very open while discussing this without prejudice.
In the south, yes, there is more segragation; not necessarily from churches that are white, don''t want African-Americans (totally untrue); but it appears that African-Americans like to hang in their groups and whites like to hang in their groups. We now have a lot of Mexicans and they hang in their groups.
You have to remember, that the cases where an African-American wanted to enter a white university and was stopped were for purposes of pushing the laws of segregation aside. In reality, when I was young (in the 60's) our grade-school was segregated. We had our own school and the African-Americans in town had their own school. Neither one was really happy with the segregation laws when it occured while I was in Junior High. They had to leave their school and were packed into our classes. They were probably less happy than the whites.
It is NOTHING to see African-Americans sitting in church with whites, or vice-versa. We all get along just fine. There ARE churches; however, where African-Americans want to go -- probably been there 100 years, like many of the white churches. And, they just never really mix. Not that they would have a problem, People in the south still just hang in cliques.
If I were to walk into an African-American church here in town, they would welcome me with open arms and be just as nice as they could be. Same, the other way around. But, just like the Mexicans, the people tend to hang in the groups that were started years ago; and often these churches are old and just continue to attract the same crowds.
Back in the days of slavery. Sure the SBC broke away from the NBC due to the issue (and others), but the SBC I know today is NOT prejudice in any shape, form or fashion. Now, are there prejudice people out there? Sure, but we try to change that.
This wasn't right, but I do know that when the SBC members did have slaves, they were expected to treat them right, keep them well feed and comfortable and they usually attended church with the plantation owners. Usually, sitting with each other in the balcony. Was this right? No, but there were some good people back in the day that tried to do what was right even though they believed in a very wrong belief of having human slaves.
Today, we do NOT support seperation or segration, but it does occur just as the women in a church tend to like their "hen parties" and the men will have a Saturday morning breakfast.
If, indeed, GB heard someone saying that it was the way to do things, I for one, disagree with it, but I don't feel it is the norm among SBC and is probably even stronger among some of the independent Baptist Churches in the south that have always been "all white".
I do know that there are other parts of the South where these feelings may be stronger, but this is what is typical in our part of the South and pretty much throughout Texas. If you move due east of here, you may see a little more of it due to the hard feelings of relatives who died during the civil war. Although we had some major decisive battles close to us, we were NOT in the heart of the South vs. North conflict.
Soooo, I simply take my metal detector and go looking for musket balls. But, my collection of real Indian arrowheads is even bigger.
