I am grateful to [the author] for further recovering the central role of religion in the civil rights era. * Patheos.com *
This is an inspired and sparkling religious history of the three major white denominationsSouth Baptists, Presbyterians, and Methodistsin the state of Mississippi for the three decades of the Civil Rights movement...This is notsimply a tale about what happened in the struggle for black equality in Mississippi from 1945 to 1975. It is a mirror, reflecting what is still happening in segregated churches all over America, not just in Mississippi, not just in the South, but all over this great republic. * Baptist History & Heritage *
Carolyn Renee Duponts examination of Mississippi white evangelicals fervent support of segregation during the 1950s and 1960s offers historians a fresh interpretation of the confounding paradox of God-fearing whites condoning and even participating in massive resistance. [] This book successfully challenges the reader to think beyond a variety of biases inherent in discussion of literatures relationship with ethnic, regional, and national identities. * The Journal of Southern History *
Dupont's book is an essential companion to any study of the civil rights movement, not only for its treatment of how religion impacted the movements history but also for the way it exposes how easily oppression can be wrapped in a cloak of religiosity that blinds its adherents to injustice occurring all around them. * The Historian *
Gripping and detailed,Mississippi Prayingtells how the fight to maintain white supremacy was deeply embedded in all the states institutions, particularly its churches. Such a narrative challenges readers to understand how some forms of racism topple, while others yet persist. * Southern Spaces *
[...]Dupont has written an intriguing and impassioned book that should stimulate debate. * The American Historical Review *
By examining white Baptist, Methodist, and Presbyterian confrontations with the civil rights movement, Dupont (Eastern Kentucky Univ.) offers a compelling answer to the question of why the most religious state in the US was also its most racist. -- E.R. Crowther * CHOICE *
Dupont makes a valuable contribution to the scholarship on the intersection of race and religion by highlighting religion's centrality in the struggle for black equality. Mississippi Praying is must reading for scholars interested in religion, race, and African American studies. -- Walt Bower * Religious Research Association Review *
Duponts prose should be the envy of historians everywhere. Crisp, incisive, and thought-provoking, it moves the reader easily through nine chronological chapters. She draws on powerful examples to make her case, covering everything from Brown v. Board of Education, to the Southern Baptist Conventions conservative reconfiguration, and the splitting of Southern Presbyterians in the 1960s and 1970s. -- Marginalia
Provides a wealth of insight. . . . Dupont has offered the single best study documenting and analyzing the conflicted role of white southern Protestant churches, and their leaders, in reacting to the civil rights struggle. Her analysis is compelling, her writing forceful and fluid, and her research substantial and original. -- Paul Harvey,University of Colorado
Mississippi Praying helps us better understand how white southerners made sense of their Christian faith and their segregationist practices. Dupont shows how the evangelical faith of many white Mississippians, far from being a source of other worldly escape from the political realm, served as a bulwark in their fight to maintain white supremacy. It is a critical story for properly understanding both the southern civil rights struggle and the history of modern American Christianity. -- Joseph Crespino,Emory University
