Religion makes people do wicked things they wouldn't ordinarily do.
From Elite Daily:
My grandfather — we all called him Daddy — was born and raised in a tiny town in Bible thumping, Jim Crow Mississippi. He died 20 years ago but I still remember one of the horror stories he used to tell.
One afternoon, he went into a whites-only store to ask for change when a local white deacon, out of nowhere, punched him in the back of the head and shouted:
“Boy don’t you know n*ggers ain’t allowed in here!”
Our patriarch was so scarred by this and his segregated upbringing that even in his old age, he warned us against looking white people directly in the eyes; he instructed his grandchildren to always step aside when a white person was walking down the street.
Now, 95 years after Daddy’s birth, a new wave of bigotry and segregation is sweeping across the country’s state governments.