When the Supreme Court declared in 1954 that segregated public

schools were unconstitutional, the highest echelons of

Protestant, Catholic, and Jewish religious organizations

enthusiastically supported the ruling, and black civil rights

workers expected and actively sought the cooperation of their

white religious cohorts. Many white southern clergy, however,

were outspoken in their defense of segregation, and even those

who supported integration were wary of risking their positions by

urging parishioners to act on their avowed religious beliefs in a

common humanity. Those who did so found themselves abandoned by friends, attacked by white supremacists, and often driven from

their communities.

Michael Friedland here offers a collective biography of several

southern and nationally known white religious leaders who did

step forward to join the major social protest movements of the

mid-twentieth century, lending their support first to the civil

rights movement and later to protests over American involvement

in Vietnam. Profiling such activists as William Sloane Coffin

Jr., Daniel and Philip Berrigan, Abraham Joshua Heschel, Eugene

Carson Blake, Robert McAfee Brown, and Will D. Campbell, he

reveals the passions and commitment behind their involvement in these protests and places their actions in the context of a burgeoning ecumenical movement.