Professor Mark Newman Discusses “Desegregating Dixie”
In honor of Black History Month, FutureChurch hosted Professor Mark Newman of the University of Edinburgh to discuss desegregation and the Catholic Church from his book, Desegregating Dixie: The Catholic Church in the South and Desegregation, 1945-1992.
Winner of the 2020 American Studies Network Book Prize from the European Association for American Studies, Mark Newman draws on a vast range of archives and many interviews to uncover for the first time the complex response of African American and white Catholics across the South to desegregation.
CLICK HERE for a transcript of his remarks on February 23, 2023.
CLICK HERE for a link to a Cambridge Journal article he wrote about the Vatican’s role in Desegregation.
Mark Newman received his PhD from the University of Mississippi and is a fellow of the Royal Historical Society and the Higher Education Academy. His book Getting Right with God: Southern Baptists and Desegregation, 1945-1995 won the Lillian Smith Book Award for nonfiction from the Southern Regional Council, the American Studies Network Book Prize from the European Association for American Studies, and the Anne B. and James B. McMillan Prize from the University of Alabama Press, and the book Desegregating Dixie: The Catholic Church in the South and Desegregation, 1945-1992 the American Studies Network Book Prize from the European Association for American Studies. His article “The Catholic Church in Mississippi and Desegregation, 1963 – 1973” won the Willie D Halsell Prize from the Mississippi Historical Society, the article “Toward ‘Blessings of Liberty and Justice’: The Catholic Church in North Carolina and Desegregation, 1945-1974” received the R. D. W. Connor Award of the Historical Society of North Carolina, and the article “The Catholic Church in the Diocese of Galveston-Houston and Desegregation, 1945-1984” won the Paul Foik Award from the Texas Catholic Historical Society. His research interests include Twentieth century United States: African American history, the civil rights movement, and religion and race relations in the US South.