Dave Miller of SBC Voices, went to a conference and took notes of a talk given by Daniel Akin, president of the local Southern Baptist seminary.
At Southeastern in the 90s. A student fired from his church because some black students came to VBS. They came and presented themselves for membership and the deacons immediately fired him because these black children came for baptism and membership.
There are Southern Baptist churches all over this area, and seminary students often work at them as a sort of work-study thing; the church gets some cheap labor, the seminarian gets some experience. What is more, I’ve heard an almost identical story 3-4 times about a church scarcely a mile from my house; indeed, that church might be the actor in this story. I don’t have any difficulty believing it.
Make no mistake: American slavery was economic — but the Bible was used to justify it, and the racist legacy and all the wasted, ruined lives belong to the Godly.