80 years ago — November 22, 1939
The 18th annual observance of Race Relations Sunday was approaching. The Federal Council of Churches shared a message drafted by Philip Jones, pastor of the Madison Avenue Presbyterian Church in New York, “challenging the churches in a time of world conflict, suffering and wreck of war, to be aware of the ‘lack of social justice in our own country,’ and ‘to purify herself of the great modern heresy of racial discrimination within her own walls.’” It called Christians to oppose “cruelty and injustice which greed, bigotry and prejudice create.” But more than this, Christians are called to action in communities to effect change. Christians are called to correct “unequal educational opportunities for minority races, inequitable administration of public benefits of social security and the like, the withholding of civic privileges and rights from citizens of color, and an unbrotherly conduct in the daily life of people of different racial groups. Concrete suggestions are given to the local church for stimulating activity toward these results, and a note of penitence is sounded for indifference, greed and injustices which infest our American society.”
From an editorial by associate editor J.H. Marion Jr.
