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Koinonia Farms, in Americus, Georgia, is today better known for the organization it spawned, Habitat for Humanity. But long before Millard Fuller and his wife stepped onto the farm, Koinonia had been practicing racial reconciliation on a community farm. Clarence Jordan founded the farm in 1942, after graduating from Southern Theological Seminary, as a place where blacks and whites would work together, live together, and eat at the same table. In the Deep South, where many churches were strong supporters of segregation, it was considered a radical attempt to live out the Christian life.

Still, the farm was simply an oddity until the civil-rights movement began. When Southerners committed to segregation saw that the Southern way of life was about to end, they attempted to stop anything that challenged the status quo. In the '50s, Koinonia became the target of bombings, drive-by shootings, and, most damaging, an economic boycott.

In February, almost 50 years after the attacks began, PBS stations across the country airedBriars in the Cottonpatch: The Story of Koinonia Farms, a documentary about the community. CT online assistant editor Rob Moll talked to Jim Jordan, Clarence Jordan's son, about growing up at Koinonia.

Koinonia was trying to tear down racial barriers long before it was an issue most people thought about.

Clarence Jordan didn't look at it from the standpoint of trying to break down barriers. He made a point of saying "I'm not trying to change the laws, or change anything other than to live the way I believe Christians should live. If that causes conflict, then so be it."

It came down to the same thing [as what civil-rights workers were doing], but it's the perspective that one is coming from that is important. My dad would not go to the Woolworth's counter in Americus with a black person for the purpose of testing segregation. But if he and a black friend were in Americus at lunchtime and he wanted to eat, the two of them might go there. That was the message of Koinonia, to live the life regardless of consequences.

Living in the South, I guess we knew about segregation, but it was never an issue, except when that came in to a collision course with the activity that was taking place in the South.

So, although it might have been the only integrated community in the South, Koinonia was about living out a Christian life, not a statement about segregation?

We were not trying to prove a point. Well, anyone trying to live a Christian life is trying to prove a point. But it was not to score points.

Long before the Klu Klux Klan and the Citizens Council came into being, the first conflict that Koinonia had was with the churches. The first incident was when a young man from India, who had converted to Christianity, visited Koinonia. And on Sunday, when everyone was going to church, my parents took him. The whole thing blew up unexpectedly. He was a person of another color. My parents were only attempting to share their Christian experience with a friend who happened to be of another color.

When it became clear in the South that the old ways were not going to last forever, and the strong resistance started, Koinonia became a symbol for the change and the lightning rod for the opposition. That's the environment in which we grew up.

What was that like growing up when Koinonia was the object of so much hatred?

For the first 10 to 12 years, the surrounding community may have thought we were weird, but there was no open antagonism. Until about 1954, from '42 to '54, there was no real opposition. We were on good terms with our neighbors.

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March (Web-only) 2005, Vol. 49