The recent riot in Tulsa, Oklahoma, the reported activities of the Ku Klux Klan, and the disclosures concerning Negro peonage gives special timeliness to the creation of a new Commission on Negro Churches and Race Relations by the Federal Council of the Churches of Christ in America. The purpose of this action is to consolidate the influence of the Churches in bringing about better relations between the white and the colored races in this country.
The first meeting of the new Commission was held in Washington, D.C., on July 12, under the chairmanship of John J. Eagan of Atlanta, Georgia, who is president of the Atlanta Council of churches and one of the leading Christian laymen of the South. A vice-chairman is to be named from the Negro Churches. The Commission is made of about 100 leading representatives of the white and colored Churches, the majority being residents of the South.
At the initial meeting in Washington the whole day was spent in discussing the distinctive contribution of the Churches to bettering relations between races. It was agreed that the Church, being committed to the principle that humanity is an organism, cannot accept as a satisfactory solution the theory that inter-racial conflict is inevitable, or that the races should be segregated from each other, or that they should be amalgamated, or that any one race is meant to have special privileges which are to be denied to others. The Christian solution, it was clearly seen, lies in the races living together in mutual helpfulness, service and good will.
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To read the rest of this article, go to The Star of Zion, published in Charlotte, N.C., Sept. 8, 1921, at newspapers.digitalnc.org/lccn/sf88092969/1921-09-08/ed-1/seq-1/
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