By any measure, they are old lions. Henry Langford turned 90 earlier this year. Jim Fox and Elmer West are both 86 and counting. But they can still roar. As young lions they challenged the prevailing social order, risking their professional lives.
During the Civil Rights Movement of the 1960s, most Baptist pastors in the South either believed in segregation or chose to tolerate the system and its attendant discriminations. For those old enough to remember the times, it is no wonder that most were timid. In some localities the best which could be expected was the obligatory Race Relations Sunday which occasionally in some places included a pulpit exchange.
Fred Anderson
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In 1954, when the Supreme Court’s landmark school desegregation decision was issued, Henry Langford, then age 35, was pastor of country churches in the heartland of Old Virginia. At the time he was writing weekly columns for the county newspapers in Halifax and Pittsylvania. He wrote one on economic and social issues, exposing the hard plight of tenant farmers. He observed that many tenant farmers lived in sub-standard housing without indoor plumbing. “People literally owed their souls to the company store,” remembers Langford. “The tenant farmers paid high interest on their charges.”
He wrote another column calling the Brown vs. Board of Education decision “long overdue.” He titled the column “Do Unto Others.” In part, he wrote: “We, the people, need not be afraid of our Constitution. It is our guide and we must abide by it. After a number of years of adjustment, much prejudice from both races will disappear and we will have a better understanding among all the people.”
If nothing else, Langford proved that people were reading the local newspaper. “Political leaders in the county would see my church members and buttonhole them about their preacher.” Anyone who lived through the era knows what a white person was called if they espoused even fair social justice for blacks; and Henry Langford was figuratively branded.
“My boys were small at the time and going to school and they heard what the other children said about me. There were anonymous phone calls.” The pastor was “voted out” of the church. It was next to impossible to find another pastorate. For 21 years, 1960-91, he led the Alcohol-Narcotics Education Council of Virginia Churches. He has never ceased roaring about social evils and justice.
Jim Fox was a young lion of 36 when the same issue — racial integration — was the hot button. He was pastor of a church in Front Royal when several black students applied to enter the then all-white high school. “I preached and taught that the black students needed to be admitted. The governor of Virginia who believed in ‘massive resistance’ closed the Warren County public schools rather than have them integrated as federal law required.”
Fox resigned from the church and accepted a call to a church in Alexandria. On his very first Sunday as pastor, in January 1959, a deacon from his former pastorate came to the church and asked to speak to the church moderator. The deacon was armed with a scrapbook full of clippings from the local newspaper about the racial crisis in Front Royal. The newspaper had reported about Fox’s sermons on race. Again, the well-known epithet applied to open-hearted whites was used. The deacon explained to the moderator that he wanted them to know just what kind of preacher they had called. Fox recalls that the moderator showed the deacon the door.
“During my first year [at the Alexandria church], I applied the gospel to the race issue in one of my sermons. The whole sermon was not on race. An entire sermon on race would have been an overload for that congregation. One of the three points of my sermon applied the Christian gospel to racial relationships. It flowed naturally out of the sermon text as a basic part of my message. While I was speaking on this racial sub-point, a couple in their 60s walked out of the worship service.
“On Monday, I dropped in on the retired couple. They welcomed me in. I sat down and said, ‘I am concerned because you walked out as I was preaching yesterday. I was thinking you might have been sick.’ One of them replied, ‘Yes, I was sick about what you were preaching about race.’ I did not make this visit to defend or expand on my position. I went to care for the couple and to listen. Listen I did! When they were talked out, I said, ‘It is obvious we do not agree on this subject as brothers and sisters in Christ. As your new pastor, I want to love and care for you. I want you to love and care for me. Do you think this is possible?’ They replied, ‘Yes, that is possible.’ ” And the couple remained in the church and there were friendly relations between them and their pastor.
Reflecting upon the past, Fox said: “This couple had been reared in southern rural Virginia. They had been thoroughly indoctrinated in racism; but they did make some changes during my ministry. I now realize that those changes were not made so much because of my preaching and teaching the gospel as it related to race. The changes were made primarily through the relationship we developed with one another. I began to realize how powerfully God can use my relationship to get to other people and use other people’s relationships with me to influence me. Our relationships in the hands of God have great power and potentiality.”
Elmer S. West had just turned 41 when he arrived in Annandale to serve as pastor of a relatively new church which was growing by leaps and bounds. “Fairfax County was the fastest-growing county in the country at the time. Our church was part of an ecumenical group of about 30 churches which challenged our members about open housing. I guess 99 percent of the people in the area were white. We got out and campaigned and never before or since have I had so many doors slammed in my face. It was an interesting time!”
West was serving Mars Hill Church, hard by the North Carolina Baptist college, at the time of Martin Luther King’s assassination. Although the college community was predominately white, the church was packed for the memorial service held after the tragedy. He received a telephone call from a pastor down the road, Cecil Sherman of First Church, Asheville, who was informing him of a march to be held in his city. “Cecil and I and one other white male marched down the streets of Asheville with hundreds of angry and grieving black citizens.” The episodes on racial justice were preparing West for his next career move as program director of the Southern Baptist Convention’s Christian Life Commission. Now he really learned what happens when young lions roar against injustice.
Fred Anderson is executive director of the Virginia Baptist Historical Society and the Center for Baptist Heritage and Studies. He may be contacted at [email protected] or at P.O. Box 34, University of Richmond, VA 23173.