The Christian Chronicle (Oklahoma City, Okla.), Vol. 75, No. 11, Ed. 1 Thursday, November 1, 2018 Page: 9 of 35
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ACROSS THE NATION
THE CHRISTIAN CHRONICLE 9
NOVEMBER 2018
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PAUL WHITE
Billy Curl, one of the first black under-
graduates admitted to Abilene Christian,
reflects on professor Carl Spain's legacy.
'HISTORY WAS MADE'
Weeks before Spain spoke in
1960, a black student named Floyd
Rose was denied admission to
Abilene Christian on racial grounds.
Even before Spain’s address, the
college had appointed an integration
committee to study the race issue and
make recommendations to its board.
But the process might have taken
years if not for the impetus fueled by
Spain’s “theological attack on racial
segregation,” according to research
by Doug Foster, director of ACU’s
Center for Restoration Studies.
“I know that history was made when
he made that speech,” said Billy Curl,
an ACU graduate who was one of the
first black students admitted as a full-
time undergraduate in 1962.
Curl, an elder and retired minister
of the Crenshaw Church of Christ in
Los Angeles, serves on ACU’s board
of trustees. He reflected on Spain’s
legacy at an opening luncheon for
the new center.
“I don’t know whether Carl Spain
got on his knees or not, but I do
know he prayed,” said Curl, who
L
recalled learning the value of prayer
while growing up as the son of an
East Texas sharecropper. “And when
you get on your knees and pray,
something is going to happen.”
On the same day as the center’s
ribbon cutting, Alisha Taylor — a
2017 ACU graduate and Jerry Taylor’s
daughter — performed a two-person
play called “The Mountaintop” with
fellow alumnus Vincson Green.
The drama depicts the last night of
Martin Luther King Jr.’s life, which is
more vivid to Alisha Taylor because
of visits she and her father have
DRIVEN TO SEEK RECONCILIATION
After high school, Taylor
earned a bachelor’s degree from
Southwestern Christian College
in Terrell, Texas, the only histori-
cally black college associated with
Churches of Christ.
Later, he completed M.Div.
and D.Min. degrees at Southern
Methodist University in Dallas.
He preached for congregations in
Texas, North Carolina and Georgia
before joining the faculty at ACU,
where for years he has focused on
racial unity projects.
All these years later, his child-
hood experiences with racism still
drive him.
They compel him to seek recon-
ciliation and work to bring healing
to a society so often torn apart by
racial division, he told The Christian
Chronicle.
“We are in a period where fear and
anger have been turned up to the
top notch volume-wise, where people
are afraid, uncertain,” Taylor said of
Durham, heard about it, she invited
him to preach in class.
His topic?
“The need for people to be racially
sensitive,” Taylor said.
No race is more special than
another, he told his classmates.
“We are all equal in the sight of
God,” he stressed.
made to historic sites in Memphis.
Asked about her father’s passion
for racial unity, the 23-year-old Taylor
said: “I think it just goes back to Jesus
Christ and his mission of wanting to
create a space where love is the most
important thing. Everything that
my dad does is based out of love for
others and for God and Jesus.”
Sisi
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the racial climate in America. “The
trust level is very low, and those are
the dynamics that go into creating
an environment of hostility to where
people stop exerting any energy
to even talk to each other, to try to
resolve problems in peaceful ways.”
SPEAKING'REDEEMING WORDS'
ACU’s enrollment this semester
tops 5,200 students — 36 percent of
them non-white.
Despite progress on racial matters,
much work remains to be done, Jerry
Taylor said at the center’s opening.
‘When senseless shootings happen,
like the recent one in Dallas that took
the life of our dearly departed brother
Botham Jean, we as Christians must
not remain silent and confuse good for
evil and evil for good,” Taylor said.
He cited other examples that
he said demand a response from
Christians, such as contaminated
drinking water in majority-black
Flint, Mich., and white nation-
alist rallies in places such as
Charlottesville, Va.
“We may not always know what to
do immediately when these terrible
events happen,” Taylor said. “But as
the church of Jesus Christ, we can ask
God to give us the courage to speak
redeeming words into situations that
carry the foul scent of racial injustice.”
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BOBBY ROSS JR.
Celebrating the ribbon cutting for the Carl Spain Center on Race Studies and Spiritual Action are, from left, Abilene Christian
University President Phil Schubert, Spain's grandson Gavin Rogers, Spain's daughter Claudette Rogers, founding director Jerry
Taylor, ACU management sciences professor Orneita Burton and ACU Provost Robert Rhodes.
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PHOTO PROVIDED BY ABILENE CHRISTIAN UNIVERSITY
Carl Spain, shown in his younger days, was
a Bible professor who delivered an explo-
sive sermon on racial discrimination at
Abilene Christian's 1960 Bible Lectureship.
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Tryggestad, Erik. The Christian Chronicle (Oklahoma City, Okla.), Vol. 75, No. 11, Ed. 1 Thursday, November 1, 2018, newspaper, November 1, 2018; Oklahoma City, Oklahoma. (https://texashistory.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metapth1509395/m1/9/?q=%22~1%22~1: accessed July 16, 2024), University of North Texas Libraries, The Portal to Texas History, https://texashistory.unt.edu; crediting Abilene Christian University Library.