Religion and Race: Southern Presbyterians, 1946 to 1983

Joel Alvis focuses on the relationships and tensions in the Presbyterian Church, U.S., whose ecclesiastical boundaries never expanded significantly beyond its original territory in the Confederacy and border South. By the time of the civil rights movement, the church was actively involved in ecumenical activities despite its regional isolation, and that involvement created unease in some quarters of the denomination. This concise institutional history traces how the church shaped and was s...