Biblical Fundamentalism and Racial Beliefs at Bob Jones University

Brown v. Board of Education did not apply to private schools, but the vast majority of legitimate private educational institutions (not to be confused with the white-flight, "segregation academies" that resistance to Brown spawned) slowly but eventually integrated of their own accord. For a variety of reasons, however, a small but significant number of private religious schools resisted both internal and external pressures to change their discriminatory practices with the times; and the government and civil rights advocates were forced to devise alternative strategies to extend the promise and commitment of Brown to these educational institutions. The stories behind the resistance and transformations of these private religious schools remain to be told if a more comprehensive and thorough understanding of school integration and racial attitudes in the Brown era is to be achieved. This study will examine one such prominent case.