Alabama Baptist Convention Warning: You are not logged in. Your IP address will be publicly visible if you make any edits. If you log in or create an account, your edits will be attributed to your username, along with other benefits.Anti-spam check. Do not fill this in! ===Civil rights movement=== The [[civil rights movement]] of the 1950s and 1960s forced changes in the position of the organization on segregation. In 1956 the Christian Life Commission of the ABC described the first black student of the [[University of Alabama]] as a "seeming tool of the [[NAACP]]" and said it could not view the policy of forced integration as "the will of God for our state in 1956". The ABC commission called for "more independent" black ministers to help defuse racial tensions, but had difficulty finding ministers who were not associated with the NAACP, at least in sympathy.<ref>{{cite book |page=102 |title=Southern civil religions in conflict: civil rights and the culture wars |author=Andrew Michael Manis |publisher=Mercer University Press |year=2002 |isbn=0-86554-785-8}}</ref> In 1995, the Southern Baptist Convention voted to adopt a resolution renouncing its [[racist]] roots and apologizing for its past defense of slavery.<ref>{{Cite web |url=http://www.sbc.net/resolutions/amResolution.asp?ID=899 |title=SBC Resolution: RESOLUTION ON RACIAL RECONCILIATION ON THE 150TH ANNIVERSARY OF THE SOUTHERN BAPTIST CONVENTION |access-date=April 18, 2011 |archive-date=April 28, 2011 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110428203113/http://www.sbc.net/resolutions/amResolution.asp?ID=899 |url-status=dead }}</ref><ref>''This Side of Heaven: Race, Ethnicity, and Christian Faith.'' Ed. Robert J. Priest and Alvaro L. Nieves. Oxford University Press, 2007, pp. 275 and 339</ref> ABC churches and denominational leadership were supportive of this apology. In 1999 Dr. Thomas E. Corts, president of [[Samford University]] said "The Alabama Baptist Convention ... are on record as saying that we need to grant opportunities to all races, and we don't want to compromise that opportunity. We're all God's children."<ref>{{cite web |url=http://www.salon.com/books/it/1999/05/14/baptist |date=May 14, 1999 |title=All God's children |author=JON BOWEN }}</ref> Summary: Please note that all contributions to Christianpedia may be edited, altered, or removed by other contributors. If you do not want your writing to be edited mercilessly, then do not submit it here. You are also promising us that you wrote this yourself, or copied it from a public domain or similar free resource (see Christianpedia:Copyrights for details). Do not submit copyrighted work without permission! Cancel Editing help (opens in new window) Discuss this page