Episcopalian Bishop of Arkansas Robert Raymond Brown was a prominent man of faith. As a result of the Little Rock Central High School Desegregation Crisis, his name penetrated the conversation among congregations and opened debate about blurring the relationship of clergyman and political activist. He penned the Pastoral Letter that stated the Episcopal Church's position in favor of desegregation and racial equality. Congregates around the nation argued its merits, and with various views towards segregation, responded with a flood of correspondence to Brown's office. Certain of his moral absolutes, he responded to segregationists' vehement outcry with the citywide Day of Prayer.
In 1910, Brown was born in the High Plains-locality of Garden City, Kansas. However, resided in the South for rest of his life. He served as rector of parishes in Texas and Virginia. He developed a concern for African Americans' educational needs. From 1945 to 1950, he was a trustee at the American Church Institute for Negroes. He worked alongside clergymen and maintained schools and colleges for Southern African Americans. In 1956, the Diocese of Arkansas consecrated him at its bishop.
Pray for Little Rock
He remained silent during the early days of the crisis, when the image of white harassers threatening Little Rock Nine-member Elizabeth Eckford showed the world what racism looked like. Weeks later, a mob of 1,000 strong surrounded the school building and began the events of Black Monday. City police struggled to maintain the barricades, as segregationists chanted racial epithets and schemed to storm the classrooms in search of the Little Rock Nine. It left the African-American students no option but to flee their classrooms.
Brown wrote in his diary on that day. "Up early to drive to Little Rock. Astounded to learn via radio of the physical violence at Central High School." He met with the Ministerial Alliance Association, a gathering of the city's Episcopal clergy, that morning to develop a response. In his book, Bigger than Little Rock, he remarked how prevailing theological or biblical differences held no influence in their shared stance. Clergy needed to speak, they believed.
"To remain silent was to condone the sin, and to appear neutral was to commit a real Christian heresy," he wrote. "To fail to make a judgment upon such violence was to give consent to its tyranny."
After the meeting of the association, he penned the Pastoral Letter and released it to the public. It reflected that the violence outside of Central High School stood against the Church's teachings. Violence was not Christian. Racism was incompatible to doctrine.
"[The Crisis] urges us to our knees in shame over our inability to exert an adequate Christian leadership in this hour," he wrote. "And having attempted every secret remedy known to me without success…I must take my open stand with that of my Church and call upon every loyal Episcopalian to do the same."
The Effects of the Pastoral Letter
Every morning after his statement, Brown entered his office to find an average of 50 letters and telegrams with supportive or critical reactions. Clergy from around the country hailed Brown for his stance on civil rights and offered their prayers. News reporters in the city to cover the crisis, who were Episcopalian in faith, left with notes of personal gratitude. "I wanted to record…the pride I have felt in all the Episcopal churches in Little Rock," a United Press correspondent wrote. Some Arkansans, too, thanked him for his moral authority.
Correspondence continued for months, as clergy shared the Pastoral Letter with congregations and their local newspapers. Brown turned into a nationally-recognized civil rights advocate deep in the segregated South. The bulk of unfavorable responses, often with religious themes, came from out of state.
One Louisiana resident beseeched him to "please keep our church out of both ungodly sides."
A man from Richmond, Virginia, the capital of the Confederacy, wrote, "Why did God place the Black race in the jungles; Did not that segregate the Blacks from all other races? [Segregationists] are not sinning, we are just upholding God’s decision."
Meanwhile, a Texan, critical of Brown, offered a passage from the Gospel of Mark, "What will the profit be if you gain the world and lose your own soul?"
Soon after the Pastoral Letter's release, Brown organized a Day of Prayer that included multiple Christian denominations, faith-based organizations, and other religions. Representatives from several Jewish synagogues participated in the event. People from all over the state gathered in their churches and worshiped. They prayed for Arkansas’s youth, the preservation of law and order, and ending prejudices.
Brown's work on civil rights carried into the next decade, when President Lyndon Banes Johnson appointed him to the National Citizen's Committee for Community Relations.
Brown retied from his role as bishop in 1970. He died in Little Rock in 1994.
Brown, Robert. Bigger than Little Rock. Greenwich, Connecticut: The Seabury Press, 1958.
"The Church Awakens: African-Americans and the Struggle for Justice." The Archives of the Episcopal Church. https://www.episcopalarchives.org/Afro-Anglican_history/exhibit/index.php (accessed August 30, 2017).
McDonald, Margaret Simms. White Already to Harvest: The Episcopal Church in Arkansas: 1838-1971. Sewanee, Tennessee: University Press, 1975.
"On the Sixth Ballot." The Living Church, May 22, 1955.
Jared Craig is the virtual exhibit coordinator a the UA Little Rock Center for Arkansas History and Culture. His research interests include political history in the American South, folklore, crime history, and the media.