THE INFLUENCE OF THE THEORY OF EVOLUTION ON RACE RELATIONS IN THE SOUTH

 

Charles Darwin introduced the theory of evolution to perpetuate the superiority or inferiority of various ethnic groups. The original title of his 1959 book was "On the Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection, or the Preservation of Favoured Races in the Struggle for Life."

Modernism as a religious movement in the South, which emerged around 1870, included acceptance of the theory of evolution.

Jim Crow Laws, which were established between the end of Reconstruction in 1877 and the mid-20th century, were rooted in Social Darwinism and were results of the growing popularity and acceptance of theistic evolution and atheistic evolution in the late 19th century and the 20th century. In the late 19th and early 20th centuries the main reasons or arguments used to justify and support Jim Crow Laws were the belief that blacks are less evolved than whites and thus inferior, and the stereotype that all black people are sexually irresponsible or hypersexual.

Obvious counters to this are the Bible teachings on creationism and the danger of negative stereotyping, which were neglected or ignored during the Civil Rights Movement, which focused on symptoms while neglecting to deal with root causes and taught reliance on the centralization and expansion of US government power as a solution to problems that were largely results of US government intrusion. You cannot change hearts through legislation or court orders, and this fostered resentment and racial polarization and was often highly impractical. For example, forced integration cost billions of dollars that the States and the US government did not have (extra buses, extra fuel, extra drivers, etc.) and fostered a we-vs-they mentality among both blacks and whites. In the meantime, the theory of evolution, which was the root of the problem, was still being taught in schools and colleges as fact and endorsed by clergy and churches claiming to stand for civil rights.