One true church : an American story of race, family, and religion / Susan B. Ridgely.

Author/creator Ridgely, Susan B. author.
Format Book
PublicationChapel Hill : The University of North Carolina Press, [2026]
Description224 pages : illustrations, maps ; 24 cm
Subjects
Our Lady of Guadalupe Catholic Church (Newton Grove, N.C.)--History.
Catholics--North Carolina. --Newton Grove. --History.
Race relations--Religious aspects. --Catholic Church.
Relations raciales--Aspect religieux. -- Eglise catholique.
Newton Grove (N.C.)--Church history.
Newton Grove (N.C.)--Race relations.

Contents From Plantation to Parish: Antebellum North Carolina to 1870 -- St. Mark's and the Limits of a Parish's Protection 1870-1904 -- The Delicate Dance of Rural Catholicism in the Protestant South: 1899-1926 -- Maintaining Unity through Segregation?: 1926-1952 -- Can Two Become One?: Striving for Unity 1953 to 1974.
Abstract "In the summer of 1872, a white doctor and a formerly enslaved African American farmer walked through a field near Newton Grove, North Carolina, and mapped out the dimensions of a new clapboard church. The men, John Carr Monk and Solomon Monk, had been raised together on a nearby plantation. While neighbors attended newly segregated Protestant congregations, the Monks converted to Catholicism, which offered a framework of racial universalism. Alongside the church, the parish ran parochial schools for the area's Black and white children long before state public schools existed. But visits from night riders emphasized the congregation's threat to the social order. Despite these threats and others, the church used their common theology and local history to navigate the nativism of the 1920s and the bishop's decision to segregate. Then, in 1953, the church community reintegrated. While the parish was far from a utopia, it embraced the daily struggle to embody the true church that its founders believed God desired. Drawing from archives, ethnographic observations, and the living histories of parish members, Susan B. Ridgely offers a rich understanding of the ongoing interplay of race, religion, and rural life in this parish, in North Carolina, and in the United States"-- Provided by publisher.
Bibliography noteIncludes bibliographical references and index.
Issued in other formebook version : 9781469694627
LCCN2025045064
ISBN9781469694580
ISBN1469694581
ISBN9781469694597 paperback
ISBN146969459X
ISBNepub
ISBNpdf
ISBNPDF ebook
Standard identifier# CIPO000336990