Civil Rights Legacy
Some biographers, such as Robert Weisbrot, speculate that Father Divine was a forerunner to the civil rights struggles of the 1950s and 1960s, heavily influenced by his upbringing in the segregated South. Others, such as Jill Watts, reject not only this characterization, but also the theory that Father Divine grew up in the Deep South. Watts asserts that Rockville was less oppressive than the South or even Baltimore, Maryland, and believes his civil rights positions are unintelligible without evaluating them in the context of the Doctrine of Father Divine.
Although Father Divine strove extensively against lynching and bigotry, he accepted many of the negative characteristics assigned African Americans. He concluded that those who identified themselves as "black" manifested these characteristics. In short, he believed blacks perpetuated their own oppression by thinking racially. He once said that he was not poor because he did not belong to a poor downtrodden race—that he was not black.
Read more about this topic: Father Divine
Famous quotes containing the words civil rights, civil, rights and/or legacy:
“What I fear is being in the presence of evil and doing nothing. I fear that more than death.”
—Otilia De Koster, Panamanian civil rights monitor. As quoted in Newsweek magazine, p. 15 (December 19, 1988)
“I’ve never been afraid to step out and to reach out and to move out in order to make things happen.”
—Victoria Gray, African American civil rights activist. As quoted in This Little Light of Mine, ch. 3, by Hay Mills (1993)
“Service ... is love in action, love “made flesh”; service is the body, the incarnation of love. Love is the impetus, service the act, and creativity the result with many by-products.”
—Sarah Patton Boyle, U.S. civil rights activist and author. The Desegregated Heart, part 3, ch. 3 (1962)
“What is popularly called fame is nothing but an empty name and a legacy from paganism.”
—Desiderius Erasmus (c. 1466–1536)