Baptist Identity and Elusive Interracialism in the Segregated South: D. V. Jemison, E. P. Alldredge, and the Work of a Black Baptist Seminary

Abstract American Baptist Theological Seminary (ABTS), founded as a black Baptist school in 1924, sprung from an unusual partnership between black and white Baptists in the Jim Crow South. The black National Baptist Convention (NBC) and white Southern Baptist Convention (SBC) jointly funded and governed the Nashville seminary, emphasizing from the outset the strength of their common Baptist identity, though persistent frictions reared up with regularity. The relationship between two leaders involved with ABTS in the mid-twentieth century – National Baptist David V. Jemison and Southern Baptist Eugene P. Alldredge – offers an intriguing lens for viewing the hopes and pitfalls that attended Baptist interracialism in the segregated South. Their correspondence in the 1940s reveals a growing friendship and fellowship as they collaborated in seminary work and bonded over their likeminded Baptist convictions, followed by an abrupt rift after Alldredge’s paternalistic meddling in NBC politics led Jemison to defend black Baptist autonomy. Thus, the Jemison–Alldredge relationship poignantly illustrates two conflicting realities facing such attempts at Baptist interracialism: Baptist identity did offer a legitimate nexus for interracial fellowship, yet the racial hierarchy and prejudices of a segregated society also circumscribed those efforts, as black Baptists walked a tightrope between assuaging white concerns and maintaining their own independence.