ANGLICAN CONGRESS Irresolution On Negro Rights

Press, Volume CII, Issue 30212, 17 August 1963, Page 13

ANGLICAN CONGRESS Irresolution On Negro Rights

(N.Z Press Association —C'opvnvatJ TORONTO, August 15. Delegates to the Anglican World Congress clashed today in a controversy over how far

the Church should become engaged in the struggle for Negro civil rights.

Mingled hissing and scattered applause greeted a statement ' _ Mr Francis West, a segregationist leader and lay delegate from Martinsville, Virginia who said that church support for the proposed march on Washington on August 28 indicated "fuzziness in clerical minds ” “The Church thus becomes a mere hand-maiden of the pseudo-liberals.” he said

He protested that it was repugnant to “use Christ anity ac a front” in the civil rights issue.

Mr West was one of several delegates who spoke from the floor after formal addresses on the subject of the Church's role in politics. He was the only one to oppose support for civil rights demonstrations

As Mr West was speaking a Negro clergyman was standing quietly beside him awaiting a turn at the microphone Mr Vincent Massey, who was moderator Of the discussion, adjourned the meeting for lunch after Mr West’s speech The issue was later taken up at closed study groups. Mr Charles Taft, a lay delegate from Cincinnati, told the speakers that they had failed to face fully the race issue. The main problem, he said, was how the Church could overcome the “studied resistance” of laymen to the civil rights issue. At the moment the Church was giving a “choice between greys”—instead of giving clear-cut guidance. The Rev. C. E. Crowther,

f.rmerly of Cape Town South Africa, and now chaplain at the University of California, in Los Angeles asked the congress to “speak boldly to some Southern clergy and laymen who have not stood up to be counted” on the side of civil rights for Negroes “The Episcopal Church in some states practises segregation . . . in the name of Christ this congress should say something to these people,” he said.