REVEREND JAMES PHILLIPS NOBLE (1922-2022) grew up in Learned, Mississippi. After graduating from King College in Bristol, Tennessee and Columbia Theological Seminary in Decatur, Georgia, he was ordained a Presbyterian minister. He completed graduate work in Edinburgh, Scotland, and Cambridge University in England. From 1956-1971, Noble was pastor of the First Presbyterian Church in Anniston, Alabama, where the events described in this book took place. Over his career, he also served pastorates in Georgia and South Carolina, the last of which was Charleston’s historic First (Scots) Presbyterian Church. Noble was also Co-President of the Board of Pensions of the Presbyterian Church, USA. He has traveled extensively on six continents. Noble was married to Betty Pope Scott. They had three children (Betty, Phil, Jr., and Scott) and two grandchildren. He was retired and living in Decatur, Georgia at the time of his death. He was also the author of Getting Beyond Tragedy (2006).
The story Rev. Phil Noble tells in Beyond the Burning Bus is
engaging, in part because he was in the middle of the struggle. But
he is also a truth-teller. In a time now of continued unrest in
Ferguson, Mo., and elsewhere over matters of racial justice and
social systems that keep people down, Noble's book is a good
reminder that although the U.S. has made progress since the 1950s
and '60s, there is still much to do.
*Bill's "Faith Matters" Blog*
A compelling read.
*National Federation of Priests' Councils Newsletter*
In the early 60s, when black and white ministers reached out to
each other, their voyage was anxiety-ridden—as if they had been
astronauts. But they did, and Phil Noble was one of them. He tells
a story of violent clashes between good and evil in ‘the town that
burned the bus.’ His book is a page-turning rarity among civil
rights histories – a success story.
*The Anniston Star*
Beyond the Burning Bus is a welcome addition to American history
with a focus on the civil rights era, and highly recommended.
*The Midwest Book Review*
Phil Noble offers a moving, behind-the-scenes account of a
tempestuous, often terrible time in the South. I was a teenager
growing up in Mississippi when the Freedom Riders crossed the
Alabama state line. The shouts, slurs, and sheer meanness of many
people in our town that day remain seared in my memory. Beyond the
Burning Bus reminds me that there was more to the story than
prejudice, injustice, and violence. There were also great acts of
compassion, strong voices for change, and an unbending commitment
on the part of many Southerners, blacks and whites, to move to
higher ground. What was it Gandhi said? ‘We must be the change we
wish to see in the world.’ God bless Noble, McClain, and all the
rest who revolutionized Anniston and showed so many others what had
to be done.
*Fourth Presbyterian Church, Chicago*
In this book Beyond the Burning Bus, Phil Noble has given us the
benefit of a view of struggle in places like Anniston that are
rarely seen and yet are invaluable to understanding the depth and
scope of the struggle to apply the moral imperatives of our faith
to social, economic, and political challenges. There is only one
Birmingham in Alabama, and only one Atlanta in Georgia, but I have
known the sacrifices and heroic and faithful witness of saints in
Decatur and Carrolton in Alabama and Wrightsville in Georgia and
now the world can know of the significant aspect of the revolution
that transpired in Anniston, Alabama ... thanks to the pen of Phil
Noble.
*Dr. Joseph E. Lowery, co-founder, President Emeritus, SCLC
Convenor, Georgia Coalition for the Peoples Agenda*
Phil Noble gives us both an insider's perspective on a critically
important period and place in our history, and very relevant
insights for our current struggles with race relations. For those
of us who remember the Anniston bus burning and who lived through
the 60s in places other than the South, Beyond the Burning Bus
gives us an intimate understanding of people and places that have
shaped our lives. I thank God for Phil's impact in Anniston of the
1960s and on us today.
*Executive Director of the General Council of the Presbyterian
Church, USA*
Phil Noble, Presbyterian minister extraordinaire, belongs to that
odd company of folk—all the way back to Moses—who found their life
taken up in a struggle for the things of God. Like Moses and his
ilk, Noble was going about his business (in his case ministry) when
his immediate context, infused with God’s purpose, put him front
and center in the struggle for racial justice, a struggle he
pursued with grace, wisdom, and passion. Noble is a quintessential
Southern storyteller, keeping things specific and concrete. In our
contemporary world of amnesia, remembering the detail of the risk,
the wonder, and the newness through risk is an urgent task. Phil
remembers and tells well; implicit in his telling is a summons to
contemporary readers to enlist and reenlist yet again in the
struggle not yet completed.
*Columbia Theological Seminary*
This book is more than a lesson in history. It is, indeed, a
historical insight that will be new for many regarding the role of
the church during the days of the civil rights revolution. But this
book is also a lesson for the present in our current struggles to
be faithful to what it is God calls us to be and do in the midst of
issues that tear at our communities today. The dreams for trust and
understanding that this community in Alabama had in 1956-65 are
very much our dreams for our communities in this time. May the
courage of those who made history Beyond the Burning Bus instruct
us as we make history today.
*President, Columbia Theological Seminary, Decatur, Georgia*
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