Tyler’s Early Church Endorsed White Supremacy

It was a matter of Southern theological pride to be among the slave-owning class, and it was supported by “the overwhelming majority of churches and ministers” in the South, especially in Tyler, Texas. Southerners engaged in “the white man’s burden” or the “Lord’s work” would soon be stunned by the defeat of the Confederacy and the end of their way of life. “And so after the Civil War Blacks and whites simply went their separate ways,” Texas College professor of history and religion Edward J. Robinson says. “It’s called de facto segregation.”