It's begun..... Florida

[wnylib]

32. Yes, it was, by some people.

But at the same time that it was used by slaveholders to justify slavery, it was also used by religious people like Quakers and northern Baptists to oppose slavery. My gggg-grandfather was a Baptist abolition activist in northwestern PA. Too old (70) to fight in the Civil War, but his son did.

My husband's gg-grandfather was the son of Baptist missionaries and fought, along with his brothers, for the Union Army in what they called a "righteous cause." My husband's aunt showed me letters that they wrote to family during the war. One included the comment, "Let's reelect old Abe and get this war over with."

Then there's the Battle Hymn of the Republic as evidence that some people believed that defeating slavery was a righteous cause.

But my post was referring to people in the present. Mainline Protestant churches are anti racist today. Racism is strongest today in RW white Evangelical, fundamentalist Churches. OTOH, many African American churches are also Evangelical or Pentecostal, but not racist.