Disagreement within the Fellowship of Southern Churchmen
Neale describes some disagreement within the Fellowship of Southern Churchmen. Difficulty communicating created some tensions, but the bonding effect of bringing together different people with similar goals—such as at Buckeye Cove—outweighed these problems.
Citing this Excerpt
Oral History Interview with Nancy Kester Neale, August 6, 1983. Interview F-0036. Southern Oral History Program Collection (#4007) in the Southern Oral History Program Collection, Southern Historical Collection, Wilson Library, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.
Full Text of the Excerpt
- DALLAS BLANCHARD:
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Were there any internal dissentions?
- NANCY KESTER NEALE:
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Oh certainly. Fine of life. Again, for the same kinds of reasons with
different kinds of priorties of them with these different groups,
different kinds of ways of perceiving the world and what ought to be
done about social conditions. Are you thinking about anything in
particular.
- DALLAS BLANCHARD:
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No I am just probing.
- NANCY KESTER NEALE:
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Sure. Yes, at different times there would be an emphasis that dad ought
to go do stuff out in the field when he was working harder at Buck-eye
Cove, because that is what he thought that was what he was supposed to
do. And that is when he ran into trouble, because he suddenly found out
that people were disapproving his not having been out making money for
the Fellowship and doing other stuff. When as he understand it the
expectation was that he would help build the conference grounds at
Buck-eye Cove. That knocked him off of his pants for quite a while. I
think one of the things that the Fellowship could have profited from was
is known today about good communicaiton skills. Not everybody, but
people would carry a lot of stuff along for a while and then it would
suddenly come out. Whereas if eveybody would have been a little bit more
forthcoming sooner, it would not have worried so about conflict and seen
it as o.k. and healthy, then they could have worked stuff out sooner I
think. But there were people who would get mad, and people who would get
discouraged and want to leave and whatever. But I think there was an
amazing bonding effect going on here at the same time, because these
were people and families from all over the thirteen or fourteen states
who were under amazing duress in their community
for their own beliefs. And when they would get together with very
different kinds of groups at our house for example, I can picture some
of the very different lifestyles and everything else. They had that bond
that we must stick together. There just are not a whole lot of options
for us if we believe in what we are doing. So that served as a kind of
glue. And I think that more people stayed with that organizaiton because
of its committment whether it was social or religious or both.