Since World War II, historians have analysed a phenomenon of "white flight” plaguing the urban areas of the northern US. One of the most interesting cases of "white flight” occurred in the Chicago neighbourhoods of Englewood and Roseland, where seven entire church congregations left the city in the 1960s and 70s. Mark T. Mulder investigates the migration of these Chicago church members, revealing how these churches not only failed to inhibit white flight, but actually facilitated the congregations' departure.

List of Maps

Preface and Acknowledgments
 

1   Introduction: The Irony of Religion and Racial Segregation
 

Part One   The Evolution of an Evangelical Denomination
 

2   Mobility and Insularity

3   Shuttered in Chicago

4   A Case Study of the Closed Community: The Disrupted Integration of Timothy Christian School
 

Part Two   City and Neighborhood Change
 

5   Chicago: A Brief History of African American In-Migration and White Reaction

6   The Black Belt Reaches Englewood and Roseland
 

Part Three   Congregations Respond to Neighborhood Change
 

7   The Insignificance of Place

8   The Significance of Polity

9   Second Roseland (CRC) Leaves the City

10   A Contrast between Sister Denominations

11   Conclusion: The Continuing Resonance of Religion in Race and Urban Patterns
 

Notes

Bibliography

Index

MARK T. MULDER is an associate professor of sociology at Calvin College in Grand Rapids, Michigan.