Why didn’t they tell us?: the racist & pro-segregation roots of the formation of RTS, the PCA, and the role of First Prez in Jackson, Miss in all of it

The Institute: Why didn't they tell us?: the racist & pro-segregation roots of the formation of RTS, the PCA, and the role of First Prez in Jackson, Miss in all of it

I missed this post by Anthony Bradley from two weeks ago as the PCUSA General Assembly was getting underway. Important stuff!

Peter Slade's book Open Friendship in a Closed Society: Mission Mississippi and A Theology of Friendship (Oxford University Press, 2009) reveals difficult information about the racist and pro-segregationist formation of the Reformed Theological Seminary, the Presbyterian Church in America, and the role of First Presbyterian Church in Jackson, MS.

If you're black in the PCA this book will be very, very hard to read. Sorry folks, the racial history of the denomination is more than just a "blind spot." According to Slade, there was more going on.

I am amazed that people outside of the PCA know more about the denomination's history than it's own members it seems.

After reading this history I have been struggling to answer why: (1) no one talks about these facts in general and (2) why were several of us blacks were not told about this in the early 1990s when many of us came into to the PCA? Why didn't anyone tell us the following as described in Slade's book 15-20 years ago: …

… For those us African Americans who came into the PCA in early 1990s (I came in 1994) and have been committed ever since (we're not going anywhere), I don't understand why Peter Slade, a United Methodist, has been courageous enough to bring these things to light. Why is the racial history never told as a part of the PCA's history? Why did I have to find this out after-the-fact? Why am I learning these things from a United Methodist? Why haven't I been told these details by Presbyterians?

For at least 6 YEARS I have been repeatedly, and regularly called "nigger," "Anthony Bradley, the Negro Prince of the PCA," "The Token Negro and Filthy Pervert and a Stain on the Bedsheets of Life," "Anthony Bradley, the Affirmative Action Ph.D," and other racial slurs all over the internet since some white Reformed people discovered me; and it has not stopped. I had no idea what I was getting myself into in the early 1990's and nobody told me what to expect. I have been completely caught of guard and I'm lucky to get a shoulder shrug from people who knew this would happen. Why didn't anyone tell us? …