I went to graduate school in North Carolina, and this brings back those days when I was trying to understand the South, even that northern part of the South.

This is from Cary, North Carolina – head west from Raleigh on the way to Chapel Hill (“A Little Bit of Heaven in the South”) – and I really didn’t know the Bible clearly says slavery is a good thing.  I should have read it more carefully.  It seems there is, really, a Biblical justification for slavery.

School defends slavery booklet

Published: Dec 9, 2004 – The Raleigh News Observer  - T. Keung Hui

Students at one of the area's largest Christian schools are reading a controversial booklet that critics say whitewashes Southern slavery with its view that slaves lived "a life of plenty, of simple pleasures."

Leaders at Cary Christian School say they are not condoning slavery by using "Southern Slavery, As It Was," a booklet that attempts to provide a biblical justification for slavery and asserts that slaves weren't treated as badly as people think.

Principal Larry Stephenson said the school is only exposing students to different ideas, such as how the South justified slavery. He said the booklet is used because it is hard to find writings that are both sympathetic to the South and explore what the Bible says about slavery.

"You can have two different sides, a Northern perspective and a Southern perspective," he said.

And the item quotes the book in question –

"Slavery as it existed in the South was not an adversarial relationship with pervasive racial animosity. Because of its dominantly patriarchal character, it was a relationship based upon mutual affection and confidence." (page 24)

"Slave life was to them a life of plenty, of simple pleasures, of food, clothes, and good medical care." (page 25)

"But many Southern blacks supported the South because of long established bonds of affection and trust that had been forged over generations with their white masters and friends." (page 27)

"Nearly every slave in the South enjoyed a higher standard of living than the poor whites of the South -- and had a much easier existence." (page 30)

You learn something new every day.