October 2005

Religion / Civil Rights

224 pages, 6 x 9

978-0-86554-946-3

$30.00s, Paper

Illustrations, index, bibliography

MUP/P296

Kathryn M. Galchutt

The story of one Lutheran’s involvement with the Civil Rights Movement

Andrew Schulze was a white pastor of the Lutheran Church-Missouri Synod who spent his early ministry serving black mission churches in Springfield, Illinois (1924–1928); St. Louis, Missouri (1928–1947); and Chicago, Illinois (1947–1954). He was an early proponent of integration during these years, fighting continual battles to get black students admitted to Lutheran schools. In the 1930s, he began to lobby to end the mission status of black churches and black schools, a goal which was finally realized in 1947. In 1941 he wrote a treatise on race relations in the church, My Neighbor of Another Color. Schulze was behind the development of the Lutheran Human Relations Association of America (LHRAA), an organization officially begun in 1953.

While the number of active LHRAA supporters only numbered a few thousand of some 9 million Lutherans in America, they were a particularly influential group in the area of Lutheran race relations. From the 1950s to the 1970s, the Lutheran Human Relations Association of America was based at Valparaiso University, in Valparaiso, Indiana. Schulze ended his career at Valparaiso University, serving as head of the LHRAA and as part-time professor of theology. The history of Andrew Schulze’s life is significant in itself, but it also involves a number of areas that warrant further exploration: the problem of racism in the church, the impact of the Civil Rights Movement in the Midwest, and the interaction between churches and larger society.

Kathryn M. Galchutt teaches at Concordia College.

Titles of Related Interest

An Ex-Colored Church: Social Activism in the CME Church, 1870–1970

A Pilgrimage of Faith: My Story

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