"Here I am, Stuck in the Middle with You": The Baptist Standard, Texas Baptist Leadership, And School Desegregation, 1954 to 1956: in 1954, the Supreme Court of the United States Declared in a Unified Voice That Racial Segregation in the Nation's Public School System was Unconstitutional. Not Everyone Agreed, Including Some South Carolina Lawmakers‪.‬

Like many Southerners, these legislators felt rebuffed by such a ruling, one that reached to and destroyed, in their minds, the central character of Southern culture. When their governor, George Timmerman, arranged for a renowned religious leader to speak on school desegregation, the legislators gathered to hear his address. Most of them knew of this leader, W. A. Criswell, pastor of First Baptist Church, Dallas, Texas, a key church of the Southern Baptist Convention. Rising to the podium, Criswell stood tall and spoke forcibly. "Let them integrate," he declared. "Let them sit up there in their dirty shirts and make all of their fine speeches. But they are all a bunch of infidels, dying from the neck up." He then stressed the supremacy of the individual Southerner to maintain the lifestyle to which he had grown accustomed.