Southern Conference on African American Studies,
Inc., C. Calvin Smith Book Award
This volume highlights the little-known story of
Robert R. Church Jr., the most prominent black Republican of the 1920s and
1930s. Tracing Church’s lifelong crusade to make race an important part of the
national political conversation, Darius Young reveals how Church was critical
to the formative years of the civil rights struggle.
A member of the black elite in Memphis,
Tennessee, Church was a banker, political mobilizer, and civil rights advocate
who worked to create opportunities for the black community despite the
notorious Democrat E. H. “Boss” Crump’s hold over Memphis politics. Spurred by
the belief that the vote was the most pragmatic path to full citizenship in the
United States, Church founded the Lincoln League of America, which advocated
for the interests of black voters in over thirty states. He was instrumental in
establishing the NAACP throughout the South as it investigated various
incidents of racial violence in the Mississippi Delta. At the height of his
influence, Church served as an advisor for Presidents Harding and Coolidge,
generating greater participation of and recognition for African Americans in
the Republican Party.
Church’s life and career offer a window into the
incremental, behind-the-scenes victories of black voters and leaders during the
Jim Crow era that set the foundation for the more nationally visible civil
rights movement to follow.
Publication of the paperback edition made
possible by a Sustaining the Humanities through the American Rescue Plan grant
from the National Endowment for the Humanities.
