The Flame that Must Not Die

On September 6, 2018, 26-year-old Botham Jean was murdered in his apartment by Amber Guyger, an off-duty police officer who walked into what she mistakenly assumed was her home, in Dallas, TX. Botham, a young Black man who had immigrated to the United States from St. Lucia for college just a few years prior, was a graduate of Harding University. Harding is located in Searcy, AR and is affiliated with the churches of Christ, a fundamentalist heritage known for its acapella singing, congregationalism, and literal interpretations of scripture. As Jean’s story became known across news outlets, the campus, administration, and students of Harding University were forced to deal with the death of a beloved member of campus, as well as the reality of police brutality. Recognized as a conservative stronghold in the state, Jean’s death was met with deep sorrow on Harding’s campus, but little attention was given to the fact that he, as a Black man, was a victim of structural racism.

It was not until the summer of 2020, after the murders of George Floyd, Ahmaud Arbery, and Breonna Taylor, and the widespread protests in cities across America, that renewed attention was brought to the murder of Botham Jean. On June 2, 2020, Jackson House, a graduate of Harding, began a petition to rename the George S. Benson auditorium in honor of Botham Jean. However, changing the name involved the removal of former president George S. Benson’s name from the building, an ask that ultimately proved far too radical for the institution. 

George Benson’s legacy looms large on campus. Students are required to attend a daily chapel in an auditorium named for him, and his legacy is seen in his statues, paintings, and programs that exist around campus. As the second president of Harding College, Benson was deeply admired for his fundraising skills that saved an indebted Harding college from failing, his time as a missionary in China, and his commitment to fighting communism. 

However, in 2020, the Arkansas Times published an article depicting Benson’s commitment to maintaining segregation of the college, including quotes from his chapel addresses in the 1950s. These speeches, particularly his warnings that integration would bring “increased destruction to property…increased gonorrhea and syphilis…increased pregnancies…increased crime… decreased academic progress” (Benson, George.
“Harding College and the Negro Question (continued)” Chapel Transcript.) incensed many of those who read his words in 2020. His belief that integration of the campus would lead to an increase in “mixed marriages” and “broken homes” shocked many, and replacing his name with that of Jean seemed an easy choice. The petition had 10,000 signatures in less than 24 hours of its publication (Scott, Madison. “George Benson’s Name Remains on Auditorium despite Petition.” The Bison RSS. Last modified September 10, 2020.).

On June 24, 2020, president Bruce McClarty released a statement saying Benson’s name would remain on the auditorium, arguing, “‘It is important, as we wrestle with the difficult issues of our time, that we not forget ‘weightier matters’ like justice, mercy and faithfulness...’” (Woodson, Jordan. “Harding Responds to Petition to Change Name of Benson Auditorium.” The Daily Citizen. Last modified June 24, 2020).  Citing the integration of Harding College in September of 1963 (under Benson’s presidency) as evidence of “‘the larger, complicated, multifaceted story of this national icon’" (Woodson), the Benson name remains on Harding’s campus auditorium to this day. 

Understanding this moment in Harding’s history requires engaging with the development of Harding University and the presidency of George Benson himself. This paper will use primary documents from the Ann Cowan Dixon Archives & Special Collections at Harding University’s Brackett Library in Searcy, AR, and historical sources on the rise of conservatism and “new evangelicalism” after the second World War to argue that the conservative social and political values that characterize Harding today are the direct result of Benson’s careful positioning of the University as a defender of the faith—a faith that was deeply influenced by a white, free enterprise, Christian nationalist supremacy. George Benson’s innovative use of mass media, student engagement, and eschatological framing made Benson’s understanding of “American principles” in the 1950s and 60s precursors to and representative of the values of today’s modern Religious Right, making him a historical subject worth investigating, questioning, and placing in the larger narrative of religion and politics. 

Studying the president of a small fundamentalist college in rural Arkansas might seem a strange choice, but it is precisely because of Benson’s anonymity that he should be studied. How does someone who has had (as this paper argues) such a large sociopolitical impact have such a small presence in the retelling of modern conservatism? Was this an intentional obscuring, or a strategic positioning? Perhaps a more generous analysis would argue Benson never wanted to be remembered in this way, but his public testimonies, radio and television appearances, and outsized reputation argue that, in fact, he angled to place himself and the college he ran in the center of right leaning politics of the day. By arguing that political and economic issues should be understood primarily as issues of spiritual concern, Benson pushed forward a radically theocratic agenda, an agenda that we now see as characteristic of the Republican party. His National Education Program “consistently advocated a philosophy of government which denied that bigger was better or that fundamental change was inevitable” (“Subject: America,”George S. Benson Papers, B-033-04 C, Ann Cowan Dixon Archives and Special Collections, Brackett Library, Harding University, xxiii.).Benson’s “brilliance,” then, is seen not in his views, but in how he utilized his office and university as a tool of dissemination, a practice that shifted Christian political discourse toward its current positioning. By recognizing this, one is forced to reckon not with the inevitability of white Christian nationalist supremacy in conservative discourse, but rather the strategic development and organizing of such a movement.