The Long Defeat Alan Paton’s Quest to Become an Instrument of God’s Peace By Bryan
Jarrell
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n December of 1960, after three weeks of business in Europe, Alan Paton stepped off the plane in his homeland of South Africa. The famed author had gained global notoriety in 1948 with the publication of his novel Cry, the Beloved Country, and had used the proceeds from his book to fund his own anti-Apartheid activism. He was a key founder of the Liberal Party of South Africa, one of the only mixedrace political parties in a deeply segregated nation. Paton was also a well-known Anglican Christian, a faithful churchman, and a guiding voice for global Christians waking up to the racial implications of the gospel. Hopes were high that he could rally national and international voices against the
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THE MOCKINGBIRD
Photograph by Norman Mauskopf from A Time Not Here: The Mississippi Delta, published by Twin Palms. Image courtesy Obscura Gallery.
