A governor won office on a theology that God ordained segregation

Evidence

With the strong backing of the Hederman family, Ross Barnett rose to become the most powerful politician in Mississippi during the civil rights movement. He won the governorship by running an overtly segregationist campaign that appealed to religious conservatives by baptizing his white supremacist politics in Christian theology, with claims such as: “God was the original segregationist” and “The Negro is different because God made him different to punish him.” — Robert P. Jones, White Too Long, 118

Categorization

• XREF: connects to: White American churches historically worshipped a Jesus who demanded racial hierarchy. — Robert P. Jones, White Too Long: The Legacy of White…, 31; Secularization of government leaves lingering theological traces in race relations; The church projected apartheid as a coherent theological vision onto an existing state structure (+6 more)

Broader Connections

• Secularization of government leaves lingering theological traces in race relations #expands (0.82)
• Race structures the modern state through theological categories #expands (0.80) — David Theo Goldberg, The Threat of Race, 1823
• Race served as a theological marker separating the blessed from the cursed #exemplifies (0.78) — David Theo Goldberg, The Threat of Race, 1370
• The church projected apartheid as a coherent theological vision onto an existing state structure #responds-to (0.75)
• Apartheid’s political doctrine was generalized from a theological principle of separate churches #qualifies (0.72)