11 thoughts on “Reading Questions for October 8”

1. In her book Interracialism and Christian Community in the Postwar South: The Story of Koinonia Farm, Tracy Elaine K’Meyer presents Koinonia as the intersection of a Christianity interested in social issues, integration of African-Americans and whites, and community. Prior to reading the book, I had not considered the possibility that the three might not be in perfect union with each other, but the problems that Koinonia faced indicate that the three could conflict. Choosing which vision to prioritize seemed to be the primary issue, with some members arguing that the interracial element received too much focus and that Christian ideals or community required a more encompassing vision.

   K’Meyer’s reading of Koinonia centers around these three themes. This compartmentalizing and her subsequent sectioning of Koinonia’s history into periods based on the prioritization of a particular theme suggests a tendency toward lumping. However, before passing judgment too quickly, we must remember that lumping and splitting can occur in moderation. In this particular case, K’Meyer’s balance between the two greatly enhanced my understanding of the community. Whether or not it accurately represented the community is a question that cannot be answered completely without access to involved members or examination of other primary sources. Although most historical events are less clear-cut than K’Meyer’s presentation of Koinonia’s history, her history still provides persuasive evidence for her arguments, such as a shift toward community indicated through the “three-step procedure” (as opposed to former ideals of “[becoming] a member by walking in the door”) (67). While lumping the community ideals into three themes, K’Meyer still very much explored Koinonia as unique among other Christian communities or civil rights protest groups. When discussing the Reba Place Fellowship, Forest River settlement, and Koinonia, she states that, “although [the three communities] agreed in principle on most things, in practice they could not get along”; they were “incapable of sacrificing particular goals for the good of a unified group” (139). These two sentences eloquently encompass her approach to the book as a whole. She “lumps” the communities together as having very similar goals but still “splits” to acknowledge their differences, thus achieving the best of both worlds.

   History will always be an interpretation of events. No, K’Meyer did not cover all aspects of Koinonia Farm; doing so would be well nigh impossible in a cohesive history with a clear conclusion. However, the presentation of the material allowed for a clearer understanding of the progression of the Koinonia community.

2. For this week’s blog comment, I wanted to try to answer the historiographical questions posed in the prompt about the Koinonia Farm community, as illustrated by the Tracy K’Meyer book, Interracialism and Christian Community in the Postwar South. First, on the topic of whether Koinonia was a successful community or not, I think the community was indeed a success. For the community to even exist in the time and place that it did was an accomplishment itself, as Koinonia happened to subsist during arguably the peak-era of post-slavery segregation and racism in an especially contentious region of Georgia, even if the local “Southern Social Gospel leaders shared a concern for African-American conditions and education.” (17) The Koinonia Farm community could also definitely be classified as a commune, since they were able to bring both blacks and whites together through the shared goals of labor, education and communal integration, signs of a cohesive and collaborative mission. In doing so, the group was not only rejecting the tradition of society at large in terms of offering steps to racial equality, but also “their communalism distinguished them from other Christian liberals of the time, who focused mainly on missions, education and uplift.” (52) By this logic, the community could also be considered a success because despite the various changes in the leadership of the farm, their liberal Christian beliefs always remained at the forefront of their efforts. In fact, even as the organization of the commune changed over time and eventually developed into Koinonia Partners, the “original arrangement of living together to accomplish goals” (172) still remained. Thus, despite facing adversity in many forms, the Koinonia Farm commune should still be considered a success for what it was able to achieve.

   In my opinion, Koinonia was not especially similar to the society that it critiqued, in that in the greater society of Sumter, blacks were primarily excluded from engaging in any sort of activities with whites. Meanwhile, on Koinonia Farm, whites had “more social relations with blacks than most people at the time dreamed of or wanted.” (58) I think the community may have been more similar to other Christian communities in the region, in that local Christian living encompassed the tenants of sharing and to “bring to bear, in the spirit of Christ, all the resources within and without the community to minister to the individuals.” (36) But still, as previously mentioned, Koinonia differentiated themselves through their communal structure.

   On the other hand, their relationships with (and primarily, disagreements within) the outside world did have some impact on Koinonia Farm. Being a community of whites and blacks working together saw opposition from both sides, and made Koinonia a frequent target of both criticism and hostility. It was even mentioned “violence and harassment that Koinonians suffered sapped the energy of the community, as it worked to defend itself, fight of legal attacks and rescue its reputation and relationship with the local people.” (92) However, despite being a common object of ridicule by society, which also posed financial challenges, Koinonia continued to survive well into the 1970s. Thus, the outside world did threaten the commune, but it did not defeat it.

3. Clarence Jordan established the Koinonia community based on his interpretation of the New Testament; the Kingdom of God reaches across the barriers of class and more importantly, race. Koinonia became a floating island of hope for interacialism in the turbulent sea of southern intolerance. When looking for a place to establish the farm, Jordan intentionally stirred the hornets’ nest by settling in the black-belt region of Georgia. Before the community became a target of white southerners’ violence and boycotts in 1956-58, it had internal issues that rattled its core and left it more vulnerable to the attacks that ensued.

   The Koinonia Farm experienced early difficulties in the 1940s, when its members and outsiders began to question its core values. K’Meyer pointed out on page 61 that the Koinonians initially wanted to increase race relations by improving African American lives. Their pursuit of the blacks living outside of the community led their focus astray from what the true characteristics of their community actually were. If we look at what Rosabeth Kanter had to say about successful communal characteristics in her book Commitment and Community, we can identify several areas where Jordan and the Koinonians failed to meet her expectations.

   One of Kanter’s key characteristics of a successful community is the commitment of members to the community’s values. The first one she mentions on page 76 is sacrifice; a member must give up something as a price of membership. One of the key reasons Koinonians failed to gain a strong ‘we-feeling’ is because there was a high attrition rate among members. K’Meyer recalled on page 52 that “students, seminarians, minsters, and lay people came to Koinonia to work the fields, enjoy the fellowship, and then depart”. These workers were paid above the standard wages in that region and enjoyed good food and resources that came out of Koinonia’s community purse. These people were considered a part of the community by Koinonia’s standards, but if we look at them through Kanter’s eyes, we can see that these people took wages from the community rather than working to help it succeed.

   Another problem the Koinonia Farm experienced early on was the members had different ideas of what the community’s purpose was. They struggled between outreach and community; the decision to make a communal effort in increasing race relations, or focus on the community and help it grow in unison gradually turned members against each other, damaging cohesion. They eventually decided in April 1951 to focus on what Kanter deemed Mortification. According to Kanter, mortification provides a person with an identity that is based on their strength of membership within the group (103). The Koinonians who disagreed with the decision eventually left the community, leaving only those who were committed to strengthening the internal workings and values of the Farm.

   The Koinonian Farm gradually gained its identity and success after the internal struggles during the 1940s. It’s initial struggles were attributed to the lack of commitment by its members on several fronts which made it vulnerable to the surrounding southern opposition.

4. Within Tracy K’Meyer’s book Interracialism and Christian Community in the Postwar South, I am most interested in evaluating the period that she deems “The Crisis.” This two year period is rife with challenges that the Koinonia Farm faced and it is those challenges and the attention they drew that I wish to study.

   Last week we examined the idea that “underlying Kanter’s work is the assumption that internal dynamics affect a community more than external ones (from blog questions last week).” However, the Koinonian Crisis seems to directly contradict this claim. On page 81 K’Meyer examines the fact that as civil rights became more of a focus in the U.S., the Koinonia Farm “became the target of violence, legal harassment, intimidation, and economic boycott” and that these challenges in turn “disrupted the internal fellowship.” K’Meyer seems to suggest that these external challenges to Koinonia are the stimulus for internal strife- strife that “sapped the energy of the community (pg. 92).” When contrasted with Kanter, K’Meyer clearly expresses the idea that the external dynamics are what most impacted Koinonia; this is not to say that K’Meyer disputes Kanter on the importance of internal dynamics (indeed several parts of her book stress the importance of such dynamics) however it is meant to show that she indicates external dynamics are more important. K’Meyer stresses that external dynamics affected several facets of the community and that internal dynamics are merely one of these facets. Therefore it was the external factors which prompted the host of problems (of which internal dynamics were one of many) that K’Meyer said inevitably “threatened its [Koinonia Farm] existence (81).”

   In evaluating the idea of the Koinonia Farm’s Crisis it is important to re-evaluate the ways communities influenced or tried to influence society that were discussed on Sept. 10th. The method I would argue is most apt for examining the Koinonia Farm is the “city-on-a-hill” influence. It is important to once again note that the Koinonian Crisis was brought on in no small part by the civil rights movement and the Koinonia Farm’s patented style of Interracialism. K’Meyer notes that “the attacks made the farm one of the foci of civil rights activity in the mid-1950s (98)” and argues that people around the country examined the Farm as an “ideal of racial brotherhood (123).” This notion of an “ideal” is important because it implies that the Koinonia farm’s function was to be a city-on-a-hill that was capable of showing society that its ideas, beliefs, and practices were feasible for the nation at large. I can argue this method of influence so assuredly not merely because of the role it played in the nation but because it was this idea that the Koinonians themselves espoused. “Koinonians stayed because they recognized their significance in the racial struggles of…the South (122).” Whether or not the Koinonia Farm was an effective city-on-a-hill I leave to others, but the clear implication is that the Farm and its people strove to be and were also seen precisely as this type of city-on-a-hill.

5. For many in the 21st century, it is easy to categorize those involved in the American civil rights movement as good or bad. Martin Luther King, consistently viewed as the ideal, peaceful civil-rights leader, firmly falls on the good side of the movement. However, in Tracy K’Meyer’s book ‘Interracialism and Christian Community in the Postwar South: the Story of Koinonia Farm’, the reader finds the Koinonia farm – a oasis of equality in a segregated south – could also be considered by many as good. It is therefore difficult for a modern audience to reconcile criticism of one on the other. Clarence Jordan, one of the Koinonia community’s founders, was critical of the later actions of Martin Luther King: “the “nonviolent” civil rights movement and its leaders depended on collaboration with the extremely violent United States government for success”. (p.156) By studying Koinonia, on the extreme end of the civil rights movement, we are able to understand contemporary criticisms which may have existed of the mainstream movement.

   The Koinonia community did not oppose the goals of the civil rights movement, nor did they initially disagree with the tactics employed. (p. 155) However, the focus of the community was to create an “interracial fellowship” (p.23) rather than necessarily evoke change in the community. This reflects other criticisms of the civil rights movement, for they believed “interracial fellowship in community [was] a way to bring about improved race relations” (p.163). The belief of the Koinonians was that the way to bring about racial equality was to live it, rather than fight for it. This inherent difference indicates that even without the argument over the definition of non-violence, the mainstream movement and Koinonia Farm would have supported but differed from one another.

   Studying communities that are so far removed from the society they originated from can often be difficult to justify. Sometimes, these communities tell us about the problems in a society, others the type of people who were outcast. However, in the case of Koinonia, told through K’Meyer’s book, I believe that this community helps us understand the American civil rights movement in more depth. By differing in it’s ideology from Martin Luther King’s civil rights activism, we may better understand opinions of the movement by radicals. Suddenly, the movement is placed in the mainstream, and we understand more radical pacifism existed. This raises the questions: Why were the farm’s ideas not adopted by the wider civil rights movement? Did the farm contribute or hinder the struggle for equal rights? How did the mainstream movement react to the Koinonian’s rejection of aspect of it – did they even know about it?

6. Tracy E. K’Meyer brings up an interesting commune, not only in its formatting, but also in its goals in relation to the environment. The title of the book says it all, “Interracialism and Christian Community in the Postwar South. History is a challenge because it has been subject to many changes; it’s difficult to evaluate without knowing or understanding the environmental context. For example, we had explored The Farm earlier this semester and discussed whether it was successful at breaking gender norms. Although it seemed women were still restricted to domestic tasks, we had to understand that many of the women who went into the community came from tailoring jobs or house care. However the ideals and possibilities of The Farm could make it “successful” for its time. Therefore, I thought it was an excellent move and planning for K’Meyer to talk about Southern Baptism. It seems Jordan and England were not radicals of their time: personal morality of the Southern Baptist church meant “adherence to the Ten Commandments and the Golden Rule, abstinence from alcohol and tobacco, and kindness to the less fortunate” (16). From this fundamental, we see where the Koinonians may have gotten their paternalistic attitude towards blacks.

   Reading about the Koinonians had me questioning whether this community ever became what we’ve described as a commune. First, let’s examine the ideals. The “Koinonians developed their Christien beliefs,” rooted in Southern Baptism, “into a unique alternate method for solving the race problem. They rejected the southern white liberals’ reliance on gradual reform through legislative and court action” (5). In this facet, Koinonia does qualify as a commune according to Kanter because it is working against a more popular culture and is working to fix it. That being said, the goals of the founders were “to teach better agricultural techniques to African-American farmers, to minister to the spiritual needs of their black neighbors, and to live in community” (46). To me, these goals seem to be centered around helping African Americans. Did the Koinonians really believe in the second goal? Blacks already had their own congregations. Or did they use the second goal as a method to make their interactions with black more acceptable to the outside community? Koinonians extended help to education (51), which started to anger the local whites because it could mean loss of cheap labor. In all of these instances, Koinonia seemed to be a group of volunteers focusing on the outside more than inside, which is what made this community different from the others we have discussed. Most communes are focused on their own membership and how to strengthen themselves; Kanter devotes sections of her book to what makes a strong commune. Therefore, are these people just humanitarian proponents of helping blacks (which in itself is progressive enough for the time), or actually a commune? The regularity of contact with the outside community also has one questioning if it is a commune, or just a group within the larger town? Kanter states that communes tend to ostracize themselves from the greater society. In a previous post, I had found that close to being selfish: if one wanted to change something in society, why become a hermit with like-minded people and not share. Therefore, in my opinion, Koinonia’s approach is more feasible for bringing public attention to a perceived problem and bringing change. However, it seemed a lot depended on if the local whites were acceptable towards them or not, which may limit their doings and makes it seem like they are integrated into Sumter versus their own commune.

   Koinonia’s failure to retain long-standing members could also be seen as a detriment towards qualifying as a commune. “The meaning of ‘belonging to Koinonia’ was rather loose” (65). Kanter would say Koinonia had negative restrictions and loose boundaries, makings of an unsuccessful commune. Contrastingly, Koinonian member, Browne, thought people left because “we treated them as members from the minute they arrived” (66). He explains saying that it could have meant too much pressure.

   Overall, the ideas proposed by Koinonia can be seen as commune-like, but their actual doings are less so, based on Kanter. However, I hadn’t agreed with Kanter in this aspect in the first place, so I feel that there’s no question that Koimonia was effective in bringing forth ideas, slight changes, and planting seeds. Whether Koimonia was a commune or a humanitarian group within Sumter is another question.

7. In Interracialism and Christian Community in the Postwar South: The Story of Koinonia Farm, Tracey K’Meyer illustrates the difficulty the Koinonia Farm had with trying to fulfill all of its goals as a community. The founders three main goals for the community were “to teach better agricultural techniques to African American farmers, to minister to the spiritual needs of their black neighbors, and to live in a community.” (46) All three of these goals were implemented in different effectiveness throughout the history of the community; thus, their was a constant struggle to identify which one of the three should be focused on and whether or not focusing on one goal would take away from the other two goals.

   One clear example of this battle was in 1951 when the community wanted to start focusing more on the inner workings of itself rather then the charitable aspects to the outside community as their primary goal was “to live together as a community”. (70) By making this a priority, the group added more stages to becoming a member and took power away from nonmembers alongside taking away focus from the community outreach projects of the last decade. This effectively alienated the African American members and caused some families to leave to focus on service. (76) The struggle to find a balance between the inner community and outside society plagued Koinonia in the fact that two of their goals became and “either/or” rather then an “and”.

   Despite the inability to fully find their focus, there were some successes on the farm. The African Americans never fully integrated into the community like their white member, but there was a lot more interaction between the two races then in the surrounding areas at the time. (72) This social interaction in itself can be seen as a success as it was not present at the time. The community paid their workers more than the going rate and taught local farmers better practices to partake in their first goal. (50) So overall the community did achieve some of their goals but conflict did prevent these goals from being fully developed.

8. Tracy Elaine K’Meyer’s book, Interracialism and Christian Community in the Postwar South, told the story of Koinonia Farm, in which whites and blacks built a cooperative community together “at the intersection of race, religion, and community” (6). Koinonia Farm seems to be a rare example of a utopian community that actually might match both Kanter and Brundage’s ideas of success. As it has been in operation since the 1950s and is still running, Kanter’s longevity criterion is satisfied. Koinonia Farm and its housing program, in which the land was leased, modest homes were built, and the new owners would pay back in small amounts over the years, directly led to the creation of Habitat for Humanity when several members extended their efforts, which is in line with Brundage’s idea of impact as success (187).

   However, there is another way in which Koinonia seems a success to me. The ideals of Southern Protestantism and especially those of the Southern Baptists, do seem to be in line with what was created at Koinonia, as a personal relationship with God would ostensibly lead to “no superior or inferior classes.” However, this is little more than fantasy for most of Southern Protestantism. Religion does not exist in a vacuum from society and therefore the same divisions that existed in the outside world would exist in a church as well. K’Meyer concurs, stating that “while white Southern Baptists continued to evangelize blacks, particularly those in foreign lands, they showed no intention of inviting the newly won souls into their own congregations” (14). Furthermore, they justified this divide by claiming that “God had created the color line and ordered men to stay with the ‘bounds of their habitations’” (15). K’Meyer does mention that there was some discomfort with the idea of neglecting Christ’s message, but this was mostly ignored and there were no real attempts to reconcile this contradiction. As a central tenet of Koinonia was righting this wrong, I believe that they were successful in this way and continued to adapt when needed to maintain the vision on which Koinonia was founded, to “practice what they preached” and implement a community in which whites and blacks could live and work together.

9. Throughout our studies of communal utopias, one question comes back frequently: “Was this community successful?” In answering this question for the Koinonia farm, it is important to work around our own personal opinions, and look at Koinonia in the context of its most basic goals: “improved race-relations, determination to live a Christian life based on the New Testament, and commitment to community,” with the further goal of lifting the African American community out of its “virtual servitude” (37).

   If the success of a community were based on their never-failing adherence to their founding ideologies, the Koinonia Farm would undoubtedly be a failure. Throughout the decades of its history, Koinonia suffered from “continued uncertainty about their priorities” (136). To the founder, community was the first priority, with their social activism being “by-products” (137). However, given that it was the group’s radical social agenda and interracial element that sparked so much hatred toward them, it’s understandable that the hateful actions of society “sapped the energy of the community” (92) and in turn caused them to “reconsider…the place of their racial beliefs in their overall philosophy” (98). Though understandable in the face of violence and boycotts, it is clear that the community significantly waivered in their founding ideologies.

   However, Koinonia showed impressive strength in its ability to adapt. By recognizing the importance of their ideals and being adaptable in their method, Koinonia avoided true failure. Koinonia engaged in frequent reevaluation, such as their changes in the 50’s to strengthen the communal aspect of the community. Later, recognizing that their revisions to membership and communal sharing alienated African Americans, they further revised. Naturally, within these processes, members became unhappy, and some left. Still, the community as an idea exists to this day as an interracial faith organization.

   Overall, by Kanter’s standards, the community was likely not a success. Furthermore, by their own standards put forth at their founding, the community failed in executing their ideology at times. However, their adaptability and perseverance has allowed this community to continue, finding the best ways to live by their ideals, making it a successful endeavor.

10. Throughout reading Interracialism and the Christian Community in the Postwar South: The Story of Koinonia Farm, I was struck by how Kanter would analyze the project. Last week, we read Kanter’s criteria for a successful community and found that she believes three elements – commitment, centralization, and control – are crucial for a commune’s success. However, her argument is founded in a notion that what occurs within the community is more influential than external factors, which we see is not the case for Koinonia. Thus, regardless of how Koinonia meets her other criteria, Kanter’s complete analysis cannot fully measure the success of this group in Georgia.

    First, let us consider whether, outside factors aside, Kanter would have considered Koinonia a success. To do so, we must look at the three elements Kanter establishes as well as the longevity of the commune. Koinonia certainly fits Kanter’s expectations for a commune’s commitment; after a certain point, new members were required to sign a pledge committing to the will of the collective, the project of living in a community, and building fellowship with local African Americans (K’Meyer 74). While Koinonia suffered from shifting priorities as new members joined to escape the racial caste system of the American South or further their civil rights activism capabilities, the community was for many years able to stay true to its priorities and retain its focus on Christian community and fellowship. While Koinonia did not explicitly have the centralized control Kanter requires for success, a core group of permanent members directed the overall framework, which seemed to be an effective structure. Further, by K’Meyer’s account, there was no significant issue or discomfort with uneven workloads at the farm. Indeed, the balance between involvement and autonomy Kanter sees as critical to the community’s centralization did not seem to be a problem at Koinonia (Kanter 132).

    Longevity is a tricky question for Koinonia: while the community was founded in 1942 and a form of the community still exists eighty years later, the group that followed the original intent disbanded in 1969. Being in existence in its purest form for 27 years however, is no small feat. Yet Kanter does not explain how a group that exists for a mere 27 years versus the acceptable 33 years might qualify as a success.

    By Kanter’s standards, Koinonia has largely held its own, having demonstrated effective cohesion, commitment and centralization, as well as a long-term existence. Yet the original project broke down after 27 years – something Kanter would find significant. K’Meyer’s narrative offers a clear reason: the harassment, pressure, and boycotts Koinonia suffered as the Civil Rights movement took off irrevocably challenged and damaged the farm. Due to outside forces, Koinonia was forced to pick a priority: whether the farm wanted to create a peaceful Christian fellowship (which would entail leaving Georgia and relocating elsewhere) or whether they wanted to stay and fight for the right to live and work with African Americans. According to K’Meyer, it was this pressure that confused and wore out Koinonia to the extent that they eventually had no choice but to change their common purpose and model and become Koinonia Partners (K’Meyer 172). What this narrative illustrates is that external pressures can be of tremendous significance to a community. Kanter’s perspective does not acknowledge this accordingly, and therefore, while her model of success has some value, there is room for debate.

11. It’s funny how ideas from readings about different communities in different time periods can come together in new ways when you’re reading about another community in another time period. T.J. has already mentioned how Clarence Jordan believed “Christian community” to be the first priority of Koinonia Farm, their “social witness” only being a “by-produc[t]” of that community” (137). Jordan was therefore reluctant for Koinonia Farm to get too involved in “political” issues—i.e., racial segregation and the civil-disobedience movement to end it. We found a similar formulation in Foster’s essay on John Humphrey Noyes, for whom sexual equality was not the first priority of Oneida but rather a byproduct of the members’ equality before God in a millennial community. Historians are often tempted to focus upon the issues they consider of the utmost importance—especially secular issues of race, gender, and class—when their historical subjects were ultimately focused upon a right relationship with God. Then again it isn’t clear that religious utopias have always withdrawn from the outside world while secular utopias have engaged with the outside world. The Farm, for instance, was far more engaged with the outside world than the Black Bear Ranch, and the Farm was far more religious than the latitudinarian Ranch.

    I’m curious as to how or whether the histories of Koinonia Farm and Jimmy Carter intersected. After all, Carter is from Plains, Georgia, less than ten miles northwest of Koinonia Farm. Carter comes from the same liberal Baptist stock (social justice, interracial community, equality before God) as Clarence Jordan did. Carter even grew peanuts, just as Koinonia Farm did. Moreover, Carter is known for having been, from his early post-presidential years, publicly active in Habitat for Humanity. It seems hard to believe that Carter wasn’t somehow influenced by the ideas of Koinonia Farm. It’s possible that Randall Balmer’s recent book “Redeemer: The Life of Jimmy Carter” (New York, 2014) might answer my questions. If anything, it would be interesting to compare and contrast Carter and Koinonia Farm as expressions of a liberal strand in southern religion that has usually been overshadowed by the Moral Majority and other right-wing movements.