Will Davis Campbell (

Amite County, Mississippi Amite County is a county located in the state of Mississippi on its southern border with Louisiana. As of the 2020 census, the population was 12,720. Its county seat is Liberty. The county is named after the Amite River, which runs through ...

, July 18, 1924 –

Nashville, Tennessee Nashville is the capital city of the U.S. state of Tennessee and the seat of Davidson County. With a population of 689,447 at the 2020 U.S. census, Nashville is the most populous city in the state, 21st most-populous city in the U.S., and ...

June 3, 2013) was a

Baptist Baptists form a major branch of Protestantism distinguished by baptizing professing Christian believers only ( believer's baptism), and doing so by complete immersion. Baptist churches also generally subscribe to the doctrines of soul compe ...

minister, lecturer, and activist. He was a Southern white supporter of African-American

civil rights Civil and political rights are a class of rights that protect individuals' freedom from infringement by governments, social organizations, and private individuals. They ensure one's entitlement to participate in the civil and political life o ...

. Campbell was also a lecturer and author, most notably for his autobiographical work ''Brother to a Dragonfly'', a finalist for the

National Book Award The National Book Awards are a set of annual U.S. literary awards. At the final National Book Awards Ceremony every November, the National Book Foundation presents the National Book Awards and two lifetime achievement awards to authors. The Nat ...

in 1978.

Early life and career

Campbell was born in Amite County,

Mississippi Mississippi () is a state in the Southeastern region of the United States, bordered to the north by Tennessee; to the east by Alabama; to the south by the Gulf of Mexico; to the southwest by Louisiana; and to the northwest by Arkansas. Miss ...

, in 1924, the son of a farmer and his wife. He credited his family with having raised him to be culturally tolerant, even though his family church had Bibles emblazoned with a Ku Klux Klan symbol. He was ordained as a minister at age 17 by his local Baptist congregation. He attended

Louisiana College Louisiana Christian University (LCU) is a private Baptist university in Pineville, Louisiana. It enrolls 1,100 to 1,200 students. It is affiliated with the Louisiana Baptist Convention (Southern Baptist Convention). Louisiana Christ ...

, then enlisted in the army during

World War II World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposing ...

. He served as a medic. After the war, he attended

Wake Forest College Wake Forest University is a private research university in Winston-Salem, North Carolina. Founded in 1834, the university received its name from its original location in Wake Forest, north of Raleigh, North Carolina. The Reynolda Campus, the u ...

(BA, English),

Tulane University Tulane University, officially the Tulane University of Louisiana, is a private research university in New Orleans, Louisiana. Founded as the Medical College of Louisiana in 1834 by seven young medical doctors, it turned into a comprehensive pub ...

, and

Yale Divinity School Yale Divinity School (YDS) is one of the twelve graduate and professional schools of Yale University in New Haven, Connecticut. Congregationalist theological education was the motivation at the founding of Yale, and the professional school has ...

(B.D., 1952). Though he held a pastorate in

Louisiana Louisiana , group=pronunciation (French: ''La Louisiane'') is a state in the Deep South and South Central regions of the United States. It is the 20th-smallest by area and the 25th most populous of the 50 U.S. states. Louisiana is borde ...

from 1952 to 1954, Campbell spent most of his career in other settings. In 1954, he took a position as director of religious life at the

University of Mississippi The University of Mississippi ( byname Ole Miss) is a public research university that is located adjacent to Oxford, Mississippi, and has a medical center in Jackson. It is Mississippi's oldest public university and its largest by enrollment ...

, only to resign in 1956. This was in part due to the hostility—including death threats—he received for supporting racial integration. He subsequently took a position as a field officer for the

National Council of Churches The National Council of the Churches of Christ in the USA, usually identified as the National Council of Churches (NCC), is the largest ecumenical body in the United States. NCC is an ecumenical partnership of 38 Christian faith groups in the Un ...

(NCC), and joined the

civil rights movement The civil rights movement was a nonviolent social and political movement and campaign from 1954 to 1968 in the United States to abolish legalized institutional racial segregation, discrimination, and disenfranchisement throughout the Unite ...

. In 1963, Campbell left the NCC to become director of the Committee of Southern Churchmen (CSC), which was his base for continuing activism. The CSC published a journal, ''Katallagete,'' its title deriving from New Testament

Greek Greek may refer to: Greece Anything of, from, or related to Greece, a country in Southern Europe: *Greeks, an ethnic group. *Greek language, a branch of the Indo-European language family. **Proto-Greek language, the assumed last common ancestor ...

for the Pauline phrase 'be reconciled', a reference to 2 Corinthians 5:20. The journal published articles about politics and social change, as understood through the lens of the Christian faith. It expressed ideas of the

neo-orthodox In Christianity, Neo-orthodoxy or Neoorthodoxy, also known as theology of crisis and dialectical theology, was a theological movement developed in the aftermath of the First World War. The movement was largely a reaction against doctrines of ...

movement, which Campbell had become acquainted with at Yale. Edited by James Y. Holloway of

Kentucky Kentucky ( , ), officially the Commonwealth of Kentucky, is a state in the Southeastern region of the United States and one of the states of the Upper South. It borders Illinois, Indiana, and Ohio to the north; West Virginia and Virginia ...

Berea College Berea College is a private liberal arts work college in Berea, Kentucky. Founded in 1855, Berea College was the first college in the Southern United States to be coeducational and racially integrated. Berea College charges no tuition; every a ...

, ''Katallagete'' was published from 1965 until the early 1990s. The CSC relinquished control of the journal to Campbell and Holloway in 1983. By 2005, Campbell described the CSC as "nothing ... a name and a tax exemption and whatever I and a few other people were doing on a given day." He continued to work on his own together with a network of acquaintances, including singers Johnny Cash and

Willie Nelson Willie Hugh Nelson (born April 29, 1933) is an American country musician. The critical success of the album '' Shotgun Willie'' (1973), combined with the critical and commercial success of '' Red Headed Stranger'' (1975) and '' Stardust'' (1 ...

, comedian

Dick Gregory Richard Claxton Gregory (October 12, 1932 – August 19, 2017) was an American comedian, civil rights leader, business owner and entrepreneur, and vegetarian activist. His writings were best sellers. Gregory became popular among the Afric ...

, cartoonist and playwright

Jules Feiffer Jules Ralph Feiffer (born January 26, 1929)''Comics Buyer's Guide'' #1650; February 2009; Page 107 is an American cartoonist and author, who was considered the most widely read satirist in the country. He won the Pulitzer Prize in 1986 as North- ...

, and writer Studs Terkel. Although remaining a Baptist, Campbell reportedly conducted

house church A house church or home church is a label used to describe a group of Christians who regularly gather for worship in private homes. The group may be part of a larger Christian body, such as a parish, but some have been independent groups that see ...

worship services at his home in Mt. Juliet, Tennessee until late in his life. Campbell died on June 3, 2013, in Nashville, from complications of a stroke he suffered in May 2011. He was 88 and was survived by his wife of 67 years, Brenda Fisher, a son, Webb, and two daughters, Bonnie and Penny.

Activism

Civil rights

In 1957, while working for the National Council of Churches, Campbell participated in two notable events of the civil rights movement: he was one of four people who escorted the black students who integrated the Little Rock, Arkansas, public schools; and he was the only white person present at the founding of the

Southern Christian Leadership Conference The Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC) is an African-American civil rights organization based in Atlanta, Georgia. SCLC is closely associated with its first president, Martin Luther King Jr., who had a large role in the American civ ...

(SCLC) by

Martin Luther King Jr. Martin Luther King Jr. (born Michael King Jr.; January 15, 1929 – April 4, 1968) was an American Baptist minister and activist, one of the most prominent leaders in the civil rights movement from 1955 until his assassination in 1968 ...

Some black delegates opposed including him, but

Bayard Rustin Bayard Rustin (; March 17, 1912 – August 24, 1987) was an African American leader in social movements for civil rights, socialism, nonviolence, and gay rights. Rustin worked with A. Philip Randolph on the March on Washington Movement, ...

sponsored him. In 1961, he helped "Freedom Riders" of the

Congress of Racial Equality The Congress of Racial Equality (CORE) is an African-American civil rights organization in the United States that played a pivotal role for African Americans in the civil rights movement. Founded in 1942, its stated mission is "to bring about ...

(CORE) and the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC) to integrate interstate bus travel, despite white mob violence, in Alabama. In a 1964 interview with

Robert Penn Warren Robert Penn Warren (April 24, 1905 – September 15, 1989) was an American poet, novelist, and literary critic and was one of the founders of New Criticism. He was also a charter member of the Fellowship of Southern Writers. He founded the liter ...

for the book '' Who Speaks for the Negro?'', Campbell discussed many of the issues of the civil rights movement, including the assassination of

Medgar Evers Medgar Wiley Evers (; July 2, 1925June 12, 1963) was an American civil rights activist and the NAACP's first field secretary in Mississippi, who was murdered by Byron De La Beckwith. Evers, a decorated U.S. Army combat veteran who had served i ...

by Byron De La Beckwith,

desegregation busing Race-integration busing in the United States (also known simply as busing, Integrated busing or by its critics as forced busing) was the practice of assigning and transporting students to schools within or outside their local school districts in ...

, and the relationship between theology and social activism. He appealed to Southern Christian churches to end their own segregation and fight discrimination, rather than remain silent. Campbell eventually left organized religion, though he remained firmly Christian. Campbell later said, "I never considered myself ... an activist in the civil rights movement, though a lot of other people considered me an activist." His uncompromising theology led him to keep his distance from political movements. He insisted that "anyone who is not as concerned with the immortal soul of the dispossessor as he is with the suffering of the dispossessed is being something less than Christian" and that "Mr. Jesus died for the bigots as well". These convictions sometimes caused friction between Campbell and other civil rights figures. Campbell was an "...unofficial chaplain to the local chapter of the Ku Klux Klan ... He refused to 'cancel' white racists out of his life. He refused to demonize them as less than human." He visited

James Earl Ray James Earl Ray (March 10, 1928 – April 23, 1998) was an American fugitive convicted for assassinating Martin Luther King Jr. at the Lorraine Motel in Memphis, Tennessee, on April 4, 1968. After this Ray was on the run and was cap ...

in prison. He remarked in 1976, "It's been a long time since I got a hate letter from the right. Now they come from the left." In his book ''The Stem of Jesse'', Campbell examined the experience of Sam Oni, the first black student to attend

Mercer University Mercer University is a private research university with its main campus in Macon, Georgia. Founded in 1833 as Mercer Institute and gaining university status in 1837, it is the oldest private university in the state and enrolls more than 9,000 s ...

in Macon, Georgia, as well as the moral courage of Joseph Hendricks, who shepherded Mercer through the process of desegregation. He also profiles Samaria Mitcham Bailey, a young American female of African descent, and her resolve in coping with the racial challenges she faced while matriculating at Mercer University.

Other issues

Campbell participated in

protests against the Vietnam War Protests against the Vietnam War took place in the 1960s and 1970s. The protests were part of a movement in opposition to United States involvement in the Vietnam War. The majority of the protests were in the United States, but some took place ar ...

and helped draft resisters find sanctuary in Canada. In the late 1970s, he spoke out against the death penalty, particularly after forming a relationship with John Spenkelink, whom the state of

Florida Florida is a state located in the Southeastern region of the United States. Florida is bordered to the west by the Gulf of Mexico, to the northwest by Alabama, to the north by Georgia, to the east by the Bahamas and Atlantic Ocean, and to ...

executed in 1979.Gaillard, "The Scandalous Gospel of Will Campbell" Campbell also expressed his opposition to abortion. Like William Stringfellow and

Jacques Ellul Jacques Ellul (; ; January 6, 1912 – May 19, 1994) was a French philosopher, sociologist, lay theologian, and professor who was a noted Christian anarchist. Ellul was a longtime Professor of History and the Sociology of Institutions on ...

—both contributors to ''Katallagete''—Campbell expressed his distrust of government and his belief that people must make their own history. These views distinguish Campbell's thought from that of most religious liberal activists. He is considered aligned with more recent postliberal theologians, who denounce the liberal (as well as conservative) esteem for civil society as a misplaced faith, a form of idolatry taking the place of God and Jesus Christ in Christian life.

Works

This list contains every, or nearly every, book-length work authored primarily by Campbell, but it makes no attempt to list shorter works. *''Race and the Renewal of the Church'' (1962) *''Up to Our Steeples in Politics'' (1970, reprint 2005) (with James Y. Holloway) *''The Failure and the Hope: Essays of Southern Churchmen'' (1972, reprint 2005) (edited with James Y. Holloway) *''... and the criminals with him ..." Lk 23:33: A first-person book about prisons'' (1972) *''Brother to a Dragonfly'' (1977): part autobiography, part elegy for Campbell's brother, part oral history of the Civil Rights Movement *''The Glad River'' (1982): novel *''Cecelia's Sin'' (1983): historical novel set among the early Baptists *''The Lord's Prayer for Our Time'' (1983) (with Will McBride and Bonnie Campbell) *''Forty Acres and a Goat'' (1986): autobiography (40 acres is about 16 hectares) *''The Convention: A Parable'' (1988): allegory based on the conflict between moderates and fundamentalists within the Southern Baptist Convention *''Covenant: Faces, Voices, Places'' (1989) (with photographs by Al Clayton) *''Chester and Chun Ling'' (1989): children's book, illustrated by Jim Hsieh *''Providence'' (1992, reprint 2002) *''The Stem of Jesse: The Costs of Community at a 1960's Southern School'' (1995, reprint 2002): account of racial integration at

*''"Little Red Riding: The Babtist Red-headed Girl" (1996, reprinted 2001): children's book, illustrated by Picasso''
"Elvis Presley as Redneck"
(1995): address delivered at First Elvis Presley Symposium, University of Mississippi *''The Pear Tree That Bloomed in the Fall'' (1996): children's book, illustrated by Elaine Kernea *''And Also With You: Duncan Gray and the American Dilemma'' (1997): a tribute to the Rt. Rev. Duncan M. Gray, whom Campbell calls one of his heroes *''Bluebirds Always Come on Sunday'' (1997) *''Shugah and Doops'' (1997) *''Soul Among Lions: Musings of a Bootleg Preacher'' (1999) *''Robert G. Clark's Journey to the House'' (2003): a biography of the man who, in 1967, was elected

's first black state legislator since

Reconstruction Reconstruction may refer to: Politics, history, and sociology *Reconstruction (law), the transfer of a company's (or several companies') business to a new company *'' Perestroika'' (Russian for "reconstruction"), a late 20th century Soviet Unio ...

* "Writings on Reconciliation and Resistance" (2010) * "Crashing the Idols: The Vocation of Will D. Campbell" (2010) * "And the Criminals With Him: Essays in Honor of Will D. Campbell and the Reconciled" Edited by Will D. Campbell and Richard C. Goode. (2012)

References

External links

Will Davis Campbell Collection (MUM00062)
owned by the University of Mississippi Department of Archives and Special Collections.
Will D. Campbell Collection
Special Collections at The University of Southern Mississippi
Civil Rights leader, preacher Will Campbell dead at 88
* LIFE MAGAZINE, Henry Groskinsky The Day MLK was Assassinated: a photographers story LIFE.COM {{DEFAULTSORT:Campbell, Will D 1924 births 2013 deaths 20th-century American novelists 20th-century Baptist ministers from the United States Activists for African-American civil rights American anti–death penalty activists American anti–Vietnam War activists Christian radicals Louisiana Christian University alumni National Humanities Medal recipients People from Nashville, Tennessee Tulane University alumni University of Mississippi faculty Wake Forest University alumni Yale Divinity School alumni United States Army personnel of World War II American male biographers 20th-century American biographers American male novelists Novelists from Mississippi Baptists from Tennessee Military personnel from Mississippi 20th-century American male writers United States Army soldiers