The next Sunday after Graham’s statement, on Easter Morning, one of those Southern rebels from Billy Graham’s past kicked back. Bob Jones Sr.—founder of the infamous Bob Jones University, former adviser to Graham in his youth, and, in a sense, Graham’s own Scot-Irish meddling “uncle” in the faith—went to the microphone at his radio station and rattled off his own counter-statement, “Is Segregation Scriptural?” Bob Jones University (BJU) later transcribed the sermon and distributed it frequently to their constituency and sold it in pamphlet form in their campus bookstore. From 1960 until 1986, this sermon was their official statement defending their racism.
No library in the world catalogs this statement. BJU’s archives have labeled this “restricted access” and will not copy its pages. This is the statement BJU does not want you to see despite the fact that they distributed it so widely until 1986. I have acquired a series of texts never before seen by outside historians (and rarely seen by insiders) from Bob Jones University from 1952 through 1975. These are official letters, public statements, and internal memos. Observing the repetitive paragraphs across the statements proves that these were boilerplate.
This post was originally published on May 25, 2011.
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6 thoughts on “Civil War II — Manassas”
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Until I read through those old documents (kudos to you for getting them on the net), BJ’s current statement about race was simply vague. Now that I see the history in their own words, I see a deceitful cover up of what was their “biblical” stand against integration. They are still quoting the same verses, just spinning them different! Keep shining the light in those dark, stinky places, Camille!
My alma mater owes an apology to the entire body of Christ and especially to any African-American Christians.
Forgiveness should be asked of anyone who has been hurt by this attitude of racial superiority, whether a person has believed this junk about others or about themself.
The phrase ‘white supremacy’ just rocks my soul. How tragic that a professing christian, would want to rally people around a self-exalted flag pole of the great white men thing! It’s so pathetic!’Unite’? Unite people under a tainted flag of anti’social propoganda and hate? The words ‘corporate sin’ and’corporate resposnsiblity’ and passive complicity by , doing ‘nothing’ come to mind. Don’t we ‘all’share some christian responsibility, to repent of how white christians have treated blacks? Yes, BJU Alma Mater does need to repent. But so do the rest of us, for all those years of thinking this was ‘not our problem!’ The best way for evil to continue is for good people to do nothing about it. Keep up the good work, Camille. Barbara
Do you posted on this blog or elsewhere the original booklet by BJ Sr.? I would like to see it.
Disregard- found it:
https://docs.google.com/file/d/0B6A7PtfmRgT7Q1kzZEVXUThMLWc/edit
Such hateful, evil, and ignorant statements…and this guy founded a “University”???!!!!!! YIKES!!!!