Emmanuel McCall is probably the most “instrumental player in expanding Southern Baptists to include a lot of African-American churches,” said Bill Sumners, director of the Southern Baptist Historical Library and Archives (SBHLA).
When McCall first came to the Home Mission Board (HMB), now the North American Mission Board, as the first professional, full-time black staffer the year was 1968 — the year that President Lyndon B. Johnson signed the Civil Rights Act of 1968 and a year when race relations in the South were nowhere near resolved. And it was that year that there were only a handful of ethnic churches of any type in the Southern Baptist Convention (SBC).
When McCall retired from the HMB in 1991, there were more than 900 black churches and much reconciliation had taken place between the races.
Now almost 20 years later there are more than 3,200 black churches and church-type missions in the SBC, a result of McCall’s 23 years of work in the SBC with race relations.
“He was vital in that role,” Sumners said. “Any look at recent history in the Southern Baptist Convention and you will see his unique role that he played with the Home Mission Board.”
That’s why Sumners wanted McCall’s personal archives at the SBHLA.
And while McCall had four different sites vying for his collection of materials, he chose SBHLA to house his 11 cartons full of magazine and newspaper clippings, sermons, personal correspondences, personal papers, film strips, pictures and other material pertaining to Southern Baptists and racial reconciliation. This is the only comprehensive collection of material of its kind at the SBHLA.
McCall, who serves as an adjunct professor at McAfee School of Theology at Mercer University in Atlanta, hopes by having his collection at the SBHLA will further research and serve as a resource for others to use in the future.
“It would help to know who some of the people are who brought the Southern Baptists into the 20th century,” he said. “(These are) records of their ministries and specific actions taken by the convention. … I can be sure that whoever in the future has interest will have access to it.”
Sumners agreed.
“I told Dr. McCall that we thought that because of a lot of the other archival material we had in our collection that there are a lot of things that compliment his material that tell the story how Southern Baptists moved from being pretty much all white to being probably the most ethnically diverse religion in America,” he said. “We were very much interested in having Dr. McCall’s material here because it documents his life and it documents Southern Baptists and race relations.
“I think he was convinced that his material would be open and available for scholars to use,” Sumners added.
But Sumners calls it “tragic” that the files and information from the HMB’s black church division while McCall was there are somehow missing.
“The only tragic thing of this is we wish we had more stuff from the Home Mission Board from that whole era of that whole department,” he said. “(It’s a) sad story and we wish we had more of those kind of records. (But) Dr. McCall’s material helps us to fill in the gap.”
When McCall first came on staff with the HMB, his role was that of associate director in the department of work with National Baptists. In 1975, he was named director of the office, which changed names to the black church relations department. When he retired in 1991, the name of the department had changed again to the black church division.
“In that capacity I assisted churches and other Southern Baptist Convention entities in racial reconciliation,” McCall said.
Having graduated from Southern Baptist Theological Seminary (SBTS) in Louisville, Ky., with a master of divinity and a master of religious education, McCall was invited back by his alma mater to serve as an adjunct faculty member from 1970 to 1996. During that time, McCall developed the black church studies program that was later used by three other SBC seminaries.
And in 1990, SBTS bestowed on McCall its highest recognition, the E.Y. Mullins Distinguished Denominational Service Award, for his work in race relations. Also the Black Southern Baptist Denominational Network annually presents an award named after McCall for Baptists excelling in denominational service.
McCall’s work during his time at the HMB culminated in 1995 when the SBC passed a resolution on racial reconciliation on its 150th anniversary. McCall was instrumental in getting that resolution passed.
And now his work for racial reconciliation within the SBC during the Civil Rights era will forever be documented and made available to all at the SBHLA.
For more information, visit www.sbhla.org.
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