Be it resolved by the Southern Baptist Convention in annual session assembled:
1. That we reaffirm our deep and abiding interest in the welfare of all races of mankind, and particularly our deep and abiding interest in the welfare and advancement of the Negro race, which lives in our midst to the number of some ten or eleven millions.
2. That this Convention would urge the pastors and churches affiliated with the Convention, and all our Baptist people, to cultivate and maintain the finest Christian spirit and attitude toward the Negro race, and to do everything possible for the welfare of the race, both economic and religious and for the defense and protection of all the civil rights of the race.
3. That we rejoice that the number of lynchings for 1940 was so small, being only five, but we regret that even this number of lives, two more than the year before, should have been sacrificed to mob violence, and we express our abiding determination to put forth every possible effort for the creation and maintenance of law and order and for the suppression of all mob violence throughout our land.
Birmingham, Alabama
