"D" is for Dabbs, James McBride (1896-1970)

"D" is for Dabbs, James McBride (1896-1970). Writer, teacher, theologian, civil rights leader. Dabbs, a Sumter County native, was a USC graduate.  After serving in World War I, he taught English at Carolina and then served as head of the English Department at Coker College. By the early 1930s he had earned a reputation as an essayist as his work appeared in the country’s leading journals. Among the themes he addressed were the distinctiveness of the South, the mixed blessings of industrialization, education, the African American presence and identity, and southern religion. In the 1940s he began to address the issue of race relations. Dabbs was also one of the South’s principal Christian churchmen and theologians. Among James McBride Dabbs’ best-known and most influential writings were Haunted By God and Who Speaks for the South?