Published online by Cambridge University Press: 24 February 2017
No introductions were necessary. By the time of this meeting on May 2, 1972, all of the educators around the table had worked together in the tightly knit community of Protestant fundamentalist education for decades. Those close relationships, however, only made the meeting's confrontational agenda all the more awkward and tense. Beka Horton read the charges. Horton, with her husband Arlin, had founded a thriving fundamentalist school in Pensacola, Florida. The Hortons had invited Dayton Hobbs for support. Hobbs was, like the Hortons, a graduate of fundamentalist Bob Jones University (BJU) and founder of a fundamentalist school in Florida. The Hortons accused Walter Fremont and Phil Smith, leaders of the education faculty at BJU, of one of the most devastating charges in the world of fundamentalist education. They had called this meeting with Bob Jones III, current leader of BJU and grandson of the founder, in order to apprise him of their suspicions that Fremont and Smith had become progressive educators.
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