Religion: Christianity v. Jim Crow

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Two Worlds. Montgomery's Dr. Martin Luther King (TIME, Feb. 18) wound up the conference with a challenge to clergymen of both races. To Negro pastors he said: "We have the responsibility of freeing our white brother from the bondage of crippling fears." To the white majority: "The nation is looking to the white minister in the South for leadership. I am aware of the difficulties that many white ministers confront. But in spite of these difficulties, the Christian minister must remember that he is a citizen of two worlds. Not only must he answer to the mores, but he must give account to God. He must again and again hear the words of Paul ringing across the centuries: 'Be not conformed to this world, but be ye transformed by the renewing of your mind.' "

Leaving Scarritt College's Wightman Chapel, where they received communion from white and from Negro clergymen, the pastors were not all optimistic about the jobs they faced. A North Carolina preacher summed up the conference for the 300 who came and for the 4,000 who did not: "I always felt there were many others in the South that felt as I did, but I was never sure. Now I know that there are at least 299 others."

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