Bob Jones' Segregation Broadcast

[unworthyservant]

The following is some quotes from a radio address given by Dr. Bob Jones, founder of Bob Jones University, a fundamentalist Christian University in Greenville, SC in 1960 in order to defend his position that segregation was scriptural and bolster the university's refusal to admit black students.  For historical perspective, this was in the middle of the Civil Rights movement and the Civil Rights bill of 1960 was making it's way through the Congress. While the University had a couple of Asian professors at the time it was a whites only campus. (Even when they did finally allow black students in 1971 they were required to be married to another black and live off campus so as not to encourage mixed marriage) I present this to show how someone can twist the Scripture to fit their own beliefs and then convince others of their point. The entire broadcast is over 45 minutes long and is available online but what follows are just a few quotes from it:

"For many years we have lived together. Occasionally there will be a flare-up. But the white people have helped the colored people build their churches, and we have gotten along together harmoniously and peacefully; and everything has come along fine....

Sometimes we have a little trouble, but then we adjust everything sensibly and get back to the established order. But the good white folks have always stood by their good colored friends, and the good colored folks have always stood by their good white friends. No two races ever lived as close together as the white people and the colored people here in the South and got along so well....

God Almighty may have overruled and permitted the slaves to come over to America so that the colored people could be the great missionaries to the Africans. They could have been. The white people in America would have helped pay their way over there. By the hundred and hundred they could have gone back to Africa and got the Africans converted after the slavery days were over...

Individually, Christian people in the South–white and black–through the years have been able to work together and to understand each other. But now a world of outside agitation has been started, and people are coming in the name of piety, but it is a false piety, and are endeavoring to disturb God’s established order; and we are having turmoil all over America. This disturbing movement is not of God. It is not in line with the Bible. It is Satanic. Now, listen and understand this. Do not let people lead you astray...

“Well,” you say, “The colored folks have not been treated right.” I agree with you. Neither have the poor white people been treated right. When I was a boy in Southeast Alabama, we lived in what was called the white section of the State. There were not many colored people there. The slaves were in the western part and in the midsection of the State. Down in Southeast Alabama there were some slaves but not many; but they had the reconstruction days–hard days–and the time came along when people were having a hard time. Some white folks were not treated right. They paid 20 percent interest on money. They were oppressed by people who had money. The colored people down in my country were treated just as well as the white people by businessmen...

You can go to any city in the country and find the poor people living in a certain section there. I do not say that things are right. But things are not going to be made right by trying to overthrow God’s established order. That is not the way to make things right. You cannot make them right that way. The colored people in the South today are better off than they are anywhere else in the world. The situation is not a perfect situation for the white folks or the colored folks or for anybody else; but we have never had a perfect situation in this world since Adam and Eve disobeyed God in the Garden of Eden...

If we would just listen to the Word of God and not try to overthrow God’s established order, we would not have any trouble. God never meant for America to be a melting pot to rub out the line between the nations. That was not God’s purpose for this nation. When someone goes to overthrowing His established order and goes around preaching pious sermons about it, that makes me sick–for a man to stand up and preach pious sermons in this country and talk about rubbing out the line between the races–I say it makes me sick...

Yes, God chose the Jews. If you are against segregation and against racial separation, then you are against God Almighty because He made racial separation in order to preserve the race through whom He could send the Messiah and through whom He could send the Bible. God is the author of segregation. God is the author of Jewish separation and Gentile separation and Japanese separation. God made of one blood all nations, but He also drew the boundary lines between races...

After the Civil War the colored people wanted to build their schools and churches, and white friends made financial contribution to the building of these schools and churches. Back in those days it was not easy when the white folks were paying most of the taxes–don’t you colored friends forget that when you are inclined to turn away from your white friends. You colored people might also remember that your ancestry in the South who were slaves breathed an atmosphere of culture back in those pre-Civil War days. Think of what your ancestors received in such an atmosphere. Think of the religion that they learned and how they found God in slavery days. Think of those old white preachers who preached to your colored ancestors when they were slaves...

We should have let the Africans stay in Africa instead of bringing them here for slaves, but did you colored people ever stop to think where you might have been if that had not happened? Now, you colored people listen to me. If you had not been brought over here and if your grandparents in slavery days had not heard that great preaching you might not even be a Christian. You might be over there in the jungles of Africa today, unsaved. But you are here in America where you have your own schools and your own churches and your own liberties and your own rights, with certain restrictions that God Almighty put about you–restrictions that are in line with the Word of God...

We should not let this outside agitation disturb us down here. Now, listen just a minute. You colored people are entitled to good schools. You ought to have them. I would like for you to remember something. Just remember that the South went through reconstruction and had a hard time. It was not easy. Then remember something else, too. When your ancestors were slaves in the homes of these Southern people, they got a breath of culture that they could not have gotten even in the schoolrooms of America...

You say slavery was not right. Well, I say it was not right. I say the colored people should have been left over in Africa, and we should have sent missionaries over there and got them converted. That is what we should have done. But we could not have converted them as fast that way; and God makes the wrath of men to praise Him. They were brought over here, and look what they have. They have their churches. They have a freedom here they do not have anywhere else in the world. They have an understanding here. Let’s not wipe out the line of understanding...

Whenever you get a situation that rubs out the line that God has drawn between races, whenever that happens, you are going to have trouble. That is what is happening today in this country...

Now I can sit down with any Christian Japanese, and Christian Chinese, and Christian African, etc., anywhere in the world and as a Christian have fellowships. That is a different relationship. A Christian relationship does not mean a marriage relationship. You can be a Christian and have fellowship with people that you would not marry and that God does not want you to marry and that if you should marry you would be marrying outside the will of God. Why can’t you see that?..."

CLOSING PRAYER

"Our heavenly Father, bless our country. We thank Thee for our ancestors. We thank Thee for the good, Christian people–white and black. We thank Thee for the ties that have bound these Christian white people and Christian colored people together through the years, and we thank Thee that white people who had a little more money helped them build their churches and stood by them and when they got sick, they helped them. No nation has ever prospered or been blessed like the colored people in the South. Help these colored Christian not to get swept away by all the propaganda that is being put out now. Help us to see this thing and to understand God’s established order and to be one in Christ and to understand that God has fixed the boundaries of the nations so we would not have trouble and misunderstanding. Keep us by Thy power and use us for Thy glory, for Jesus’ sake. Amen."

[Willa]

It would seem that Marion disapproved of Moses' second wife who was Ethiopian.  When she and Aaron revolted against Moses she became a leper.  It seems that Mr Jones did not have the mind of Christ in these matters.  God sees only the saved and the lost.

 Num 12:1  And Miriam and Aaron spake against Moses because of the Ethiopian woman whom he had married: for he had married an Ethiopian woman.

-- Num 12:7  Not so with my servant Moses. He is faithful in all my house.

 Num 12:8  With him I speak mouth to mouth, clearly, and not in riddles, and he beholds the form of the LORD. Why then were you not afraid to speak against my servant Moses?”   Num 12:9  And the anger of the LORD was kindled against them, and he departed.

 Num 12:10  When the cloud removed from over the tent, behold, Miriam was leprous, like snow. And Aaron turned toward Miriam, and behold, she was leprous.

[Jayne]

Bob Jones was born in 1883.  What did you expect him to believe four years before the Civil Rights Act was enacted?  He was 77 years old when he made this speech in 1960 and would be dead 8 years later.

I'm not sure of the point of the OP.

That the ignorance of Bob Jones abounded?  The average person already knew that who is familiar with him.

Edited September 15, 2019 by Jayne