To the slowly gathering protest of Southern Protestants against racial segregation last week was added the most powerful voice yet to be heardthe 830,000-member Southern branch of the Presbyterian Church. In a five-day conference at Birmingham, the 97th General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church in the U.S. drafted a sharply worded statement condemning discrimination in the schools, defending Koinonia, the besieged interracial community at Americus, Ga. (TIME, April 29), and scourging the Ku Klux Klan and White Citizens' Councils.
"In this nation, where Christianity and democracy are bywords," said the assembly, "it is unthinkable that a Christian should join himself to Klan...