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In November of 1956 the young pastor Joseph Metz Rollins delivered a sermon called "Faithful to Christ's Command." The Southern church (the PCUS denomination) that paid most of his salary had moved to rescind support, calling his congregation "nothing but a headquarters for integration." Metz, already working nights as a hospital orderly, was threatened with poverty. He asked his church to take up the cross with him.

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"The Negroes and the Puerto Ricans have had it."

So wrote Graydon McClellan, executive presbyter of the Presbytery of New York, in a 1965 pastoral letter supporting the activism of one of its minister members, Milton Arthur Galamison, who had just led a march of students through Harlem in protest of the continued segregation of New York's public schools, and the subordinate treatment of Black and Puerto Rican children. 

"Mr. Galamison dramatically represents that fact. The people he leads are not out to win our favor or approbationbut to win educational rights for their...