by Guy Lancaster Guy Lancaster is author or editor of several books on racial violence in Arkansas, most recently the revised edition of Blood in Their Eyes: The Elaine Massacre of 1919 , is tentatively scheduled for release by the University of Arkansas Press in the fall of 2021. James Henry Hammond was the Governor of South Carolina (1842-1844) and U.S. Senator (1857-1860). He was a principle proponent of the idea of slavery as a positive good for the Black and White races alike, demonstrating the epistemic closure of white supremacy.
“Putting on my pith helmet.” That’s the phrase I used to describe the mental stance I would adopt whenever my wife and I went to her parents’ church on one of our visits to Hot Springs, Arkansas. Theirs was a rather fundamentalist Presbyterian congregation, one that gave truth to the description of Calvinists as the “frozen chosen,” although the pastor did occasionally adopt a youthful and hip style of delivery, perhaps in a paradoxical attempt to make the doctrine of limited atonement more acceptable to a wider audience. It was ultimately easier for us to tag along on Sunday mornings than to have the weighty and tearful discussion with her parents about our actual beliefs (or lack thereof) should we refuse, but each time by the end of the service my jaw would be clenched so tightly that it was difficult to do the usual post-worship chitchat.