We Come Late, Late We Come The National Council of Churches in the Civil Rights Movement

Abstract

The National Council of Churches (NCC) was established in 1950 as an ecumenical organization for Protestant churches across the United States to exchange dialogue and work together, especially in response to the Civil Rights Movement. Its leaders intended to use the moral authority held by churches in their communities to encourage white Americans to embrace integration and condemn racism. The NCC had several devoted leaders and members who achieved symbolic victories, like sending a delegation to the March on Washington, and tangible victories, like organizing Midwestern churchgoers to persuade their congressmen to pass the Civil Rights Act. These actions, while substantial, were overshadowed by inertia, inconsistent messaging, and ideological moderation throughout the organization’s majority white membership. These traits were due in large part to the NCC’s inability to reckon with white Protestantism’s long history of racism in the United States and made it hesitant to act and quick to abandon the struggle once the Black Power Movement rose to prominence in the 1970s. The NCC remains a poignant example of how an organization’s inability to recognize its own privileged standing in American society inevitably prevents it from dismantling the inequalities which granted it that standing in the first place, no matter its original intentions.