In his book, The Last Segregated Hour: The Memphis Kneel-Ins and the Campaign for Southern Church Desegregation, Stephen Haynes documents efforts to integrate churches, primarily through “kneel-ins.” Haynes describes the kneel-in movement’s origins and progress throughout the 1960s, in a variety of states across the south. However, Haynes primarily focuses on the 1964 kneel-in that took place at Second Presbyterian Church in Memphis, TN. He uses SPC as a lens to explore different perspectives on the kneel-ins from individuals on both sides. Also, he demonstrates how the kneel-ins legacy extends far beyond 1964, and instead is still a wound in some ways for the institution and the individuals involved.
Haynes identifies a gap in scholarship …show more content…
One of the main arguments against kneel-ins, as argued by the SPC, was that protestors were not truly coming to worship but instead were there to make a public scene or push a political agenda. Haynes does call these kneel-ins spectacles of exclusion and spectacles of embrace , but the spectacle was intended to challenge “the last bastion of white power and control.” It was Southerner’s fear of losing their sacred, segregated spaces that caused such outcry against kneel-ins, causing them to physically block or forcibly remove black visitors. While detractors argue protestors were there with political, violent agendas, the truth Haynes shows is this is not the account of protestors given in newspaper reports, student’s accounts, and the training in nonviolence protest students received. Haynes argues that underlying these fears about political agendas and how the protestors presented themselves was the fear of white and black students intermingling. Thus, The Last Segregated Hour demonstrates the power of how stories, like the Memphis kneel-ins, get told and
Haynes identifies a gap in scholarship …show more content…
One of the main arguments against kneel-ins, as argued by the SPC, was that protestors were not truly coming to worship but instead were there to make a public scene or push a political agenda. Haynes does call these kneel-ins spectacles of exclusion and spectacles of embrace , but the spectacle was intended to challenge “the last bastion of white power and control.” It was Southerner’s fear of losing their sacred, segregated spaces that caused such outcry against kneel-ins, causing them to physically block or forcibly remove black visitors. While detractors argue protestors were there with political, violent agendas, the truth Haynes shows is this is not the account of protestors given in newspaper reports, student’s accounts, and the training in nonviolence protest students received. Haynes argues that underlying these fears about political agendas and how the protestors presented themselves was the fear of white and black students intermingling. Thus, The Last Segregated Hour demonstrates the power of how stories, like the Memphis kneel-ins, get told and