University of North Carolina Press Christian Citizens: Reading the Bible in Black and White in the Postemancipation South

Review Few have documented and delineated such applications of doctrinal principles with Jemison's level of exactness...Jemison reminds us of Christianity's central role in America's tortured racial history. - The Journal of Southern HistoryJemison's analysis of common Christian ideology within the fraught politics of reunion, race, and gender makes this book an important contribution to our understanding of ongoing political, social, and racial conflicts among Americans. - The Journal of the Civil War EraJemison drives home the resilience of white supremacy [and] expertly shows how proslavery ideas morphed . . . to justify white--and . . . male-- supremacy in the decades after the Civil War --Journal of the Gilded Age and Progressive Era[Jemison] adds to the field of post-Reconstruction religious history by clearly articulating the impact faith had on the spiritual and civic lives of black and white southerners, and how both recognized the importance of faith in adjusting to changing times. --Civil War Book ReviewA powerful, convincing, and timely book. . . . Jemison has produced a first-rate study that takes a place of honor in the historiography of American religion.--Journal of Church and StateSpotlights the urgent question of the abyssal fractures in our body politic. Scholars of diverse interests may thus turn to Christian Citizens for important stories from America's postbellum era, for deep historiographical engagement, and for its compelling and clearly articulated relevance to the here and now.--Political TheologyAn important work about the intersection of religion, race, gender, and nineteenth century Southern politics with important implications not only for Civil War/Reconstruction scholars, but also for modern political historians.--The Civil War MonitorJemison justifies her arguments with excellent research into the development of a religious culture that differed greatly from the hopes that were presented by the original evangelical leaders of the Christianity movement in the postemancipation years.--Southeastern LibrarianThis well-researched and well-written book offers a corrective to certain of the popular myths about race relations in the pre-Civil War South, and of postemancipation relations; it also has a good deal to teach us about race relations today.--Library JournalA thorough exploration of how Black and white Christians drew on their faith in the aftermath of the Civil War to make radically divergent claims about an ideal political order. . . . [an] enlightening investigation.--Publishers Weekly Product Description With emancipation, a long battle for equal citizenship began. Bringing together the histories of religion, race, and the South, Elizabeth L. Jemison shows how southerners, black and white, drew on biblical narratives as the basis for very different political imaginaries during and after Reconstruction. Focusing on everyday Protestants in the Mississippi River Valley, Jemison scours their biblical thinking and religious attitudes toward race. She argues that the evangelical groups that dominated this portion of the South shaped contesting visions of black and white rights. Black evangelicals saw the argument for their identities as Christians and as fully endowed citizens supported by their readings of both the Bible and U.S. law. The Bible, as they saw it, prohibited racial hierarchy and Amendments 13, 14, and 15 advanced equal rights. Countering this, white evangelicals continued to emphasize a hierarchical paternalistic order that, shorn of earlier justifications for placing whites in charge of blacks, now fell into the defense of an increasingly violent white supremacist social order. They defined aspects of Christian identity so as to suppress black equality - even praying, as Jemison documents, for wisdom in how to deny voting rights to blacks. This religious culture has played into remarkably long-lasting patterns of inequality and segregation. About the Author