The Southern Baptist Convention formally apologized for racism only in 1995

Evidence

At a 1995 meeting in Atlanta that commemorated the 150th anniversary of its founding, the Southern Baptist Convention finally got around to apologizing for its perpetuation of racism, its role in defending slavery and Jim Crow, and its failure to support the civil rights movement. The messengers at the convention voted to pass a formal resolution that repudiated “historic acts of evil such as slavery from which we continue to reap a bitter harvest.” They also acknowledged that SBC churches “failed, in many cases, to support, and in some cases opposed, legitimate initiatives to secure the civil rights of African-Americans” and issued an apology “to all African-Americans for condoning and/or perpetuating individual and systemic racism in our lifetime.” — Robert P. Jones, White Too Long, 160

Categorization

• CANDY: A crisp, concrete dated fact about when the SBC finally issued its racial apology, usable in casual conversation about institutional reckoning timelines.
• XREF: connects to: The Southern Baptist Convention was founded specifically to defend slaveholding Christianity. — Robert P. Jones, White Too Long: The Legacy of White…, 17

Broader Connections

• The Southern Baptist Convention was founded specifically to defend slaveholding Christianity. #expands (0.80) — Robert P. Jones, White Too Long, 17