Nation IN BRIEF : GEORGIA : Mixed-Race Baby’s Body Will Remain

Deacons of an all-white Baptist church reversed themselves and agreed not to remove the body of a mixed-race baby from their church cemetery in Thomasville, Ga. “For the record, we are not going to exhume the baby,” said the Rev. Leon VanLandingham, part-time pastor at Barnetts Creek Baptist Church in rural southern Georgia. No blacks are buried in the cemetery. On Friday, Whitney Elaine Johnson was buried at the cemetery next to her great-grandfather. The deacons voted unanimously to remove the infant’s body after learning that her father is black. The baby’s grandmother said deacon Logan Lewis told her that church policy since the 1800s has barred minorities from the cemetery.