Reformed Presbyterian Minutes of Synod 1997 - Rparchives.org

218 MINUTES OF THE 1997 SYNOD OF THE
The same was true at the seminary, in that the president of th
gave up his office in order that I might have living accommodations, because
the culture said that blacks and whites should not live together.
.... I was not allowed to live with the others; because they did not want to
come in conflict, I suppose, with the culture. The culture determined a great
deal for the church, (pp. 51-52)
Dr. Robert Copeland in his 1986 history of the Seminary, Spare No Exertions,
records the recollections of a student from that era that "Dr. Bottoms was not
allowed to live with us or use the same restroom. He had a little cubbyhole on the
first floor beside the side entrance, and went to the cellar to use a bathroom." (p.
90)
Later in the 1930's Claude Brown attended our Seminary. His firstyear he
slept in a separate room on the first floor as had Lawrence Bottoms. At the
beginning of his second year, two fellow RP students on their own moved his bags
up to the second floor and made a bed for him in the common dormitory room.
There he stayed, and the reaaion that some students feared from the
administration never came.
After reviewing this part of our Seminary's history, the Board asked the Rev.
Jim Wright of the Orlando, Florida RP Church to convey our apologies to the
widows of both men, confessing the Seminary's sin in its treatment of their
husbands. He did so, speaking with Mrs. Bottoms who lives outside of Atlanta and
also with Mrs. Brown who still lives in Selma.
The Board also decided to confess sin on behalf of the Seminary to the Synod:
the Seminary's behavior in this matter contradiaed our Church's long-standing
witness on human relations. Our Confession and Testimony have never given any
justification for treating people differently from one another because of the color
of their skin.
Finally, in our resolution adopted in 1995, we wrote that "we ask the Lord to
forgive our Seminary its wrong in this matter, and we plead with Him not to visit
the sins of the fathers on our own and future generations." As Daniel confessed
the sins of his fathers before the Lord, so we also desire to do the same and that
publicly.
I have asked the President of the Seminary, the Rev. Jerry O'Neill, to lead us in
prayer at this point.
William J. Edgar,
for the Seminary Trustees