Events—School Prayer Issue

In 1962, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that mandatory prayer and Bible readings in public schools were unconstitutional. However, the practice continued in the Richmond County schools, with its Board of Education even passing a resolution encouraging Bible reading and prayer.

This was finally challenged when the our Social Responsibility Committee issued a resolution in October 1967 saying “The Unitarian Fellowship of Augusta, in keeping with the American tradition of religious freedom and separation of church and State, endorses the elimination of unlawful religious exercises in the public school system.” This was made public in the Augusta Chronicle.

The Chronicle reported (under the headline “Unitarian school prayer stand draws fire”) on their poll of area pastors about their opinion of the resolution and (surprise!) all those polled disagreed with the banning of prayer from schools (Oct 10, 1967). Letters to the editor followed, of course, for support of the pastors, but a couple of letters appeared in support of the Supreme Court ruling and the Unitarian resolution. (Oct 19, 1967; Oct 31, 1967)

In December of 1967, the Social Responsibility Committee represented by attorney John Ruffin, went before the Richmond County Board of Education and asked them to eliminate religious activities in all county schools. Ruffin noted that it was unlawful because it showed a preference to Christianity. About 30 area ministers attended to protest Ruffin’s presentation and the Board of Education continued to favor religious activities in the schools; however, they did refer the information to committee to be reviewed for the legal aspects. (Dec 13, 1967;Dec 15,1967). The Augusta Chronicle was silent on what the Board of Education eventually did after the Social Responsibility Committee attended the Board meeting.

However, a few days after the meeting, an editorial appeared Dec 17 entitled: Opposed and neutral too?” It began, “Aside from some surprise that an organization of a religious nature should attempt to help drive religion from any area of life, Richmond County residents likely will have a number of reactions to the effort by the Unitarian Social Responsibility Committee to shut the door on devotional exercises in schools here.” It went on to say that outlawing a voluntary practice is far from neutrality and recommended objective courses in religion in the public schools to fill the gap in religious knowledge. (Dec 17, 1967)  This seemed to be the last public word about the Unitarian position.

So, for over three months in 1967 the Unitarians were in the public eye on the issue of prayer and Bible Study in school. Although this issue never disappeared completely, it did fade; but here we are almost 40 years later, with the issue resurfacing as strongly as ever.