Belmont University students pose with Will Campbell outside his cabin in Mt. Juliet, Tenn.
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MT. JULIET, Tenn. (ABP) — Religion majors at Belmont University ended their semester on a high note Dec. 14, visiting and chatting with legendary Baptist civil-rights activist and author Will Campbell at his home in Mt. Juliet, Tenn.
Two dozen seniors graduating either in December or May from the Baptist school in nearby Nashville crowded into the historic log cabin, relocated to Campbell's property, that serves as his office. The annual visit caps a colloquium class designed to help students transition from college to whatever lies next.
"We try to integrate the various disciplines they've experienced and we work to get them thinking about how to be practicing theologians," said Judy Skeen, the Belmont religion professor who teaches the course.
Skeen starts students off in the semester by requiring them to read either Brother to a Dragonfly, Campbell's 1977 memoir that earned him the Lillian Smith Prize, the Christopher Award and a National Book Award nomination; or The Glad River, a novel that won Campbell a first-place award from the Friends of American Writers in 1982. As a result, by the time they arrive at Campbell's cabin they are well-acquainted with the reputation of the man whom many regard a living legend.
Student Hailey Reynolds asks Campbell to autograph a copy of one of his books.
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Born July 18, 1924, in Amite County, Mississippi, and educated at Wake Forest University (then College) and Yale Divinity School, Campbell is most widely known as part of the inspiration for "Rev. Will B. Dunn," the parson from the late cartoonist Doug Marlette's comic strip "Kudzu."
Campbell held a brief pastorate in Louisiana before taking a job as director of religious life at the University of Mississippi in 1954. He resigned two years later because of hostility, including death threats, that resulted from Campbell's support for racial integration.
He took a position as a field officer for the National Council of Churches, a job that put him on the front lines of the Civil Rights Movement. He was one of four clergy who escorted nine black students into previously all-white Central High School in Little Rock, Ark., in 1957. He was the only white person present at the founding of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference by Martin Luther King.
Campbell left the NCC in 1963 to become director of the Committee of Southern Churchmen, an association of white liberals formed in the latter years of the Civil Rights Movement. The organization's flagship publication, Katallegete, took its title from a word in the Greek New Testament translated in II Cor. 5:20 as "be reconciled."
Will Campbell shares stories with Belmont University students at his cabin office in Mt. Juliet, Tenn.
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Though he enlisted in the Army during World War II, Campbell protested the Vietnam War and helped draft resisters find sanctuary in Canada. He also has spoken out against the death penalty.
Asked by one student what their generation can do to positively influence society in their lifetime, Campbell replied, "Stop war."
"War, there's just nothing decent about it," he said. "I signed up and went away for three years in the South Pacific, and I learned a lot, but I learned that war is evil."
"I think the presence of war right now is the greatest evil that we have to face," he said.
Displaying trademark humility and self-effacing humor, Campbell downplayed his place in history.
"I'm not any big wheel," he remarked. "You know, I've written a few books. Big deal. I'm a fair writer, I think."
Brett McReynolds, whose trip to Mt. Juliet was his last act before graduating Dec. 18, begged to differ. After the meeting he described Campbell as an "icon" and an example of a life lived "trying to do what you are supposed to do."
Student Hailey Reynolds termed it a "highlight of the semester."
"It was great meeting an author whose books we had read," she said.
Skeen, who has taught at Belmont since 1998, has been arranging the annual student visitation for nine years.
"For me, it's about the living, breathing connections students make when they meet an author, and it's about gratitude for Will and the path he made for all of us," she said. "I'm struck by how they listen to him and how he chooses stories more than answers to respond."
Darrell Gwaltney, dean of Belmont's School of Religion, tagged along for the first time this year, in part because his daughter Megan was part of the group.
"It's great for the students," Gwaltney said. "It's a tangible opportunity for them to meet someone who has lived a pretty profound life."
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Bob Allen is senior writer for Associated Baptist Press.