The African-American preacher E. V. Hill told the following story about a positive encounter with a white Christian leader. Hill writes:

As a freshman at Prairie View College, a part of the Texas A&M system, I was actively involved in the Baptist Student Union. [Our denomination's annual convention] for blacks, held in Nashville, Tennessee, was a highlight of the year. Much to my pleasure, I was one of two students selected to go. White students had raised the money. That was okay with me, as I viewed it as an act of pity on their part … or at best a chance to ease their guilty conscience. But then real trouble began!

The trip through the South was by car—three whites and two [blacks] traveling together. I had no idea how we'd eat or how we'd sleep. So great was my anxiety and hatred over how the trip might turn out that I almost backed out entirely …. In all my experience I had never seen a white man stand up for a black man and never felt I would.

But then Dr. Howard, the director of our trip and a white man spoke up. "We'll be traveling together," he said. "If there isn't a place where all of us can eat—none of us will eat. If there's not a place all of us can sleep—none of us will sleep."

That was all he said, but it was enough! For the first time in my life I had met a white man who was Christian enough to take a stand with a Christian black man.