Black Catholic History Month

Black Catholic History Month 2021: Celebrating Contemporary Black Catholic Leaders

In 1990, the National Black Catholic Clergy Caucus of the United States met at Fordham University in New York and voted to designate November as Black Catholic History Month. This celebration enriches the season when the Church prays for all saints and souls in loving remembrance. Two commemorative dates fall within this month: the birthday of Saint Augustine is November 13th and Saint Martin de Porres’ Feast Day is November 3rd. Since its inception, Black Catholic History Month has been celebrated throughout the country and is recognized by the United States Council of Catholic Bishops. At College Church, portraits of Black Catholic saints and other holy men and women will be on display in the church during weekend liturgies.

This year, in addition to honoring the black ancestors of our faith, College Church will recognize some of the black Catholic leaders of our present day in a couple of ways:

• A special series of “Parish and Community” video interviews will highlight the contributions of Black Catholic leaders in the St. Louis area. New interviews will be posted through YouTube and Facebook each Wednesday, beginning November 3rd. Click here for the YouTube playlist.

• A weekly bulletin and website highlight of a nationally prominent Black Catholic, which you can find below.

Week Three: Toni Morrison

Despite the current furor surrounding some of her works, Toni Morrison is one of the most well-known, well-loved, and highly acclaimed authors in the world. A less well-known fact about her is that she was Roman Catholic.

Morrison was born Chloe Ardella Wofford on February 18, 1931, in Lorraine, Ohio, the second of four children in a working class black family. She was an avid reader, whose family also shared with her the oral tradition of African folktales. She excelled on her school’s debate team, helped to produce her high school’s yearbook and, while still a young person, secured a secretarial position in her town’s public library.

Morrison’s family, through her mother, had an affiliation with the African Methodist Episcopal (A.M.E) church. But there was, according to Morrison, a wing of her family whose members all were Catholic. A cousin with whom Morrison was particularly close was Catholic, and it was she who served as the catalyst for Morrison’s conversion at the age of twelve. The name “Toni” is actually taken from Morrison’s baptismal name—Anthony—for St. Anthony of Padua.

Following graduation from high school, Morrison attended Howard University, from which she obtained a bachelor’s degree In English. While at Howard, she joined and toured with the university’s theatrical company. Morrison obtained a master’s in English from Cornell University, after which she taught at several universities before going to work as an editor at a major publishing house.

Morrison was thirty-nine when she published her first book, The Bluest Eye. Three years later, her second novel, Sula, was nominated for a National Book Award. By the time her third book, Song of Solomon, published and won the National Book Critics Circle Award, she was a recognized star in the nation’s literary firmament. Many accolades followed. In 1988, Morrison won a Pulitzer Prize for fiction for her novel, Beloved, about a former slave looking back on her life after the Civil War. In 1993, she became the first African-American woman to win the Nobel Prize for literature. President Obama awarded Morrison, in 2012, the nation’s highest civilian honor, the Presidential Medal of Freedom.

“Love is divine only and difficult always. If you think it is easy you are a fool. If you think it is natural you are blind. It is a learned application without reason or motive except that it is God.” — Toni Morrison, from Paradise

Recently, attention has turned to consider the inclusion of her work within the pantheon of Catholic writers such as Graham Greene, Walker Percy, and Flannery O’Connor. Morrison’s writing is infused with scriptural references and spirituality, about which Mark Bosco, S.J., a scholar of Catholic writers says, “I think that without a doubt she is mining Christianity and the Christian story in America . . . . In some ways, it’s the Christian narrative kind of reworked and investigated and interrogated in the black bodies of her characters.” Bosco described Morrison’s Beloved as “the greatest American novel post-1950.” Nick Ripatrazone—a poet, novelist, and cultural critic—considers Beloved Morrison’s most Catholic book because it offers a kind of theological exploration of the body.

After years of practicing Catholicism, Morrison said, in a 2015 interview with Terry Gross of NPR, that she was no longer a regular church attendee, but was shaping her own spirituality. She did, however, acknowledge a fascination with Pope Francis. “I might be easily seduced to go back to church because I like the controversy as well as the beauty of this particular Pope Francis,” Morrison said. “He’s very interesting to me.” Morrison died on August 5, 2019, at the age of eighty-eight. A memorial for her was held at the Cathedral Church of St. John the Divine in New York.

Resource: Toni Morrison’s Spiritual Vision: Faith, Folktales, and Feminism in Her Life and Literature

Week Two: Amanda Gorman

When day comes we step out of the shade,

  aflame and unafraid

  the new dawn blooms as we free it

For there is always light,

  If only we’re brave enough to see it

  If only we’re brave enough to be it.

Did you realize that Poet Amanda Gorman, who delivered her poem “The Hill We Climb” at President Biden’s inauguration, is a black Catholic and a member of St. Brigid Parish in Los Angeles?  True.

She was born in 1998, and raised by a single mother who was an English teacher in Watts.  Young Amanda attended private elementary and high schools.  At age 16 she was selected to be a youth delegate to the United Nations.  She graduated cum laude from Harvard University in 2020 where she majored in sociology.  

Surprisingly, Miss Gorman has a hearing disorder making her overly sensitive to sounds and noises.  Also, as a child she suffered with a speech impediment.  Yet she sees both of these disabilities as strengths that forced her to become “really good at reading and writing.” (The Harvard Gazette, 2018)  

She started writing as a very young child.  In 2017 she became the first ever National Youth Poet Laureate – a program promoting young poets all over the country.  She founded and serves as executive director of One Pen One Page, an organization offering free creative writing classes for underserved youth.  She also serves on the board of 826 National, a youth writers’ network in the U.S.  

Miss Gorman is the youngest person ever to be invited to read a poem of her own at a presidential inauguration ceremony.  In February 2021, she was included in the “100 Next” list by Time magazine.  She has become very popular as a speaker at events throughout the country, as well as on television.  Her writings speak primarily about racial oppression, marginalization, and the African diaspora, as well as women’s issues.  

She is truly paving the way for all young writers!

Week One: Cardinal Wilton Gregory

Wilton Gregory was born in Chicago in 1947. Although his family was Protestant, he attended St. Carthage Catholic School and eventually converted to Catholicism. He studied for the priesthood at St. Mary of the Lake Seminary in Mundelein, IL, and was ordained for the Archdiocese of Chicago in 1973. He soon began graduate studies at the Pontifical Liturgical Institute (Sant’ Anselmo) in Rome, where he earned a doctorate in sacred liturgy.

Father Gregory served as associate pastor at a parish in Glenview, IL; taught at St. Mary of the Lake Seminary; and acted as master of ceremonies for both Cardinal Cody and Cardinal Bernardin. In 1983, he was ordained an auxiliary bishop of Chicago.

In 1994, he was installed as bishop of the Diocese of Belleville, IL, where he served for nearly eleven years. During that time he was elected the first Black president of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops. His leadership among the American bishops helped implement the “Charter for the Protection of Children and Young People.”

Soon after, he was appointed archbishop of Atlanta, GA, and he was installed there in January 2005. While there Morehouse College inducted him into the “Martin Luther King, Jr. Board of Preachers,” which includes religious leaders committed to peace, tolerance, interfaith understanding, healing, reconciliation, nonviolence, social progress, justice, and care for the earth.

Pope Francis appointed him to lead the Archdiocese of Washington, DC, in 2019. The following year he became the first African-American Cardinal in the U.S. As archbishop of Washington he serves as Chancellor of The Catholic University of America, and Chairman of the Board of Trustees for The Basilica of the National Shrine of the Immaculate Conception.

All Cardinals have Vatican responsibilities assigned by the Pope, as well. Thus, Cardinal Gregory serves on the Vatican Dicastery for the Laity, Family and Life, and on the Board of Trustees for the Papal Foundation.

Cardinal Gregory has published numerous articles on the subject of liturgy, particularly in the African-American community. He has also written on end-of-life issues, and social justice.

Cardinal Gregory has been awarded nine honorary degrees, including a Doctorate of Humanities from Fontbonne University in St. Louis, and a Doctorate of Humane Letters from McKendree College in Lebanon, IL. He also received the Great Preacher Award from Aquinas Institute of Theology in 2002.

Source: The Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Washington, DC website

Authentically Black and Truly Catholic:

Black Catholic History Month at College Church 2020

Matilda and Charles H. Tyler

by Kelly Schmidt

Matilda Tyler and her youngest son Charles H. Tyler were influential in shaping Black Catholic life and African American politics and society in St. Louis. Both had been enslaved to Saint Louis University, until Matilda Tyler negotiated with the Jesuits to be able to purchase her freedom in 1847. Over the course of a year, she paid installments amounting to $300 to Saint Francis Xavier College Church. Matilda and four-year-old Charley became free in 1848. One year later, Matilda Tyler entered College Church, where she had given the money for her self-purchase, and received the sacrament of Confirmation there with her son, Thomas.

Over the next ten years, Matilda Tyler worked hard to buy the freedom of her four oldest sons, while continuing to worship in the segregated space within College Church assigned to Black Catholics. With her earnings, after she had secured her sons’ freedom, Matilda Tyler funded the “colored chapel,” within College Church, and helped fundraise for the establishment of St. Elizabeth, the first Black Catholic parish in St. Louis, which was founded in 1873.

Matilda Tyler and her family remained active members of St. Elizabeth Parish until it closed in 1951, and many of its members joined St. Malachy parish. At St. Elizabeth, the Tylers stood as godparents and marriage witnesses to many members of their parish community.

Charles Tyler came of age working on steamboats and as a porter. In 1871, Charles was a porter for Sigemund Archenhold, owner of S. Archenhold & Co. By the following year, he became a partner with Archenhold, selling wine and liquor. They worked together until 1879. By 1880, Charles had established his own saloon with his colleague and friend Henry Bridgewater. As business partners Tyler and Bridgewater ran saloons at locations across St. Louis through the 1880s, and together managed the St. Louis Black Stockings baseball team, the country’s first professional Black baseball team. Sylvester Chauvin, Charles’s first-cousin-once-removed, was a star player on the team.

Charles Tyler and Henry Bridgewater were part of an elite group of Black members of the Republican Party in St. Louis known as the “Colored Silk Stockings.” Art historian James E. Brunson III says that these men “created civic projects, hosted gala events, and plotted elections.” Alongside a select group of Black St. Louisans, Charles helped prepare for the funeral procession of President Ulysses Grant. He was an aide to the Grand Marshall in the division of Black men who laid a wreath on President Grant’s tomb. With another group of African American leaders, Charles Tyler founded the “Colored Immigration Aid Society,” an organization dedicated to raising funds for Black Americans to emigrate from the Southern United States to different parts of the country where it would be safer for people of color. Charles H. Tyler moved his family into the Ville’s emerging middle-class Black neighborhood as his career in local business and politics grew more successful, and the family eventually began attending St. Matthew parish.

In 1885, Charles ran for City Marshal. One group of African American political leaders described him as “a brave, honest, and competent candidate” with an “unsullied character for integrity and capacity and in private and social life a character of unquestioned purity.” Charles’ run for office was unsuccessful, but he continued his involvement in local politics, including hosting political meetings of African American St. Louisans at his saloon. In July 1890, Black St. Louis residents attended a debate there on the role of the federal government. At another meeting in August 1890, attendees discussed Internal-Revenue Collector Charles F. Wenneker. Charles Tyler may have moderated the discussion, which centered around the claim that Wenneker had ignored the demands of people of color within his district and the Republican Party.

Matilda Tyler was anguished when Charles Tyler died on October 20, 1899. The St. Louis Post-Dispatch reported that “grief over the death of her son has unbalanced her mind” and she was placed in the City Asylum. Matilda Tyler died there on January 20, 1901. Her funeral was held in her family home at 4148 Lucky Street, and processed to St. Matthew’s Parish. She was buried near her son in the family plot Charles had purchased in Calvary Cemetery. Her grave is unmarked.

Matilda Tyler, a woman of courage, strength, and perseverance, sought her family’s freedom from her Catholic enslavers, and went on shape and support Black Catholic spaces of worship for her fellow parishioners. Her son, Charles, carried on her legacy, advocating for African Americans’ role in the civic, social, and entertainment life of St. Louis. For more about their lives, visit https://shmr.jesuits.org.

Kelly Schmidt is historian and research coordinator for the Jesuits’ Slavery, History, Memory, and Reconciliation Project

The archbishops praised Franklin for his loyalty to Catholic leadership and to the church, calling him a “devoted and dutiful helper.” Archbishop Glennon once claimed, “If I had told him to go out and stop the sun from running so fast he would certainly have gone out to try and do something about it.”

Franklin lived with the archbishops at their residence in the shadow of the Cathedral and joined Glennon when he moved into the Walsh home on Lindell Boulevard in 1924. When he retired in 1934, he moved into a home on Bell Avenue with his daughters, Mrs. Joseph Brown and Mrs. Georgia Cosby.

When Thomas Franklin, over 90 years old, died in 1938, he had served the Archdiocese of St. Louis for as many as 72 years. He was survived by his two daughters, and a son, Thomas Franklin, Jr., who lived in St. Paul, Minnesota.

Despite his allegiance to the archdiocese, Thomas Franklin was denied his final request for his funeral to be held at the Cathedral Basilica of St. Louis solely because he was Black. Jesuit priest Fr. William Markoe described in his memoir how Franklin “still had the canonical right granted him by Church law to name the church of his choice from which he wished to be buried. But this right was denied him because of his race.” Instead, the archbishop directed his funeral to be held at St. Elizabeth, a Jesuit-run parish that was the first church in St. Louis designated specifically for Black Catholics. The church outfitted a makeshift chapel to accommodate the 150 African Americans (Catholic and non-Catholic) and 25 white attendees who filled the space to pay their respects.

Archbishop Glennon initially did not plan to come to Thomas Franklin’s funeral, but appeared unannounced in the sacristy when the funeral was about to begin, having walked up the back steps from the rectory kitchen. Glennon explained to Markoe, pastor of St. Elizabeth Parish, that he ultimately felt obliged to attend because “he felt he owed it to old Tom to come to his funeral.” Before the final ablutions, Glennon rose from the stool that had been placed in the sanctuary for him to say a few words.

Markoe remarked in his memoir that, “All I can remember from his eulogy is that he told the congregation of mourners that he hoped when he himself died and passed on into eternity he would find old Tom waiting to greet him as of yore and ready to serve him throughout eternity as he had done so faithfully through life in this world. I dare not put down the thoughts that went through my mind as I listened to this panegyric. We do know that for months afterwards we heard what went through the minds of the listening church full of mourners, both Catholic and non-Catholic.” A newspaper account recorded a few excerpts from the eulogy:

“…he served intimately those who were chosen by God to serve the people. The highest name that can be given to a man is that he was faithful and true.”

At the foot of the great cross in Calvary Cemetery lies Archbishop Kenrick. There, at his feet, the ever-faithful servant ‘Tom’ will be laid to rest, to serve him in Heaven.

He is going out of this life to be with the man he served so long and faithfully. In death they will be reunited.”

Sister Antona experienced several periods of illness during her childhood and adolescence. She contracted tuberculosis, and developed an infection in her left thumb, requiring its amputation. Over the course of a lengthy hospitalization, she noticed a priest visiting some of the other patients and requested that he visit her too, as a result of which she began the process of Catholic instruction. She knew that Bish had not been allowed to practice his faith at the children's home—funded, in part, by several Protestant denominations—and she knew that her conversion would place her continued residence there at risk. With the assistance of a public health nurse, she found a home with a family friend and was enrolled in the local Catholic high school—from which she would become its first African American graduate. The Dominican nuns who operated the high school nurtured Sister Antona, ensuring that she had enough to eat each day, and the priest in whose parish the high school was located saw to her formal reception into the Church through the sacraments of baptism and confirmation.

Following high school graduation, Sister Antona was determined to become a nurse, and she wanted to attend a Catholic nursing school. She decided to apply to the school run by the nuns who had cared for her when she was hospitalized, but that application was a source of heartache. She was told that the school “had never taken a colored girl before,” and that there was concern about how the other students would react, even though some of the girls had been her high school classmates. A family friend told her about St. Mary's Infirmary for the Colored in St. Louis and its affiliated nursing school for African American women. She applied to St. Mary's and, with the help of funding from the U.S. Cadet Nurse Corps, which was created to alleviate the nursing shortage during the World War II, she sought to realize her dream of becoming a nurse.

Sister Antona was in her final year of training as a nurse when she heard some startling news—the Sisters of St. Mary (now the Franciscan Sisters of Mary) would begin accepting black women into their religious congregation—this during a time when few orders allowed the entry of black women. Over the years, Sister Antona had increasingly felt a call to the religious life, and in July of 1946, she and two other young black women entered the Sisters of St. Mary, in a segregated novitiate that would remain so until 1950. Another bout of illness redirected Sister Antona from completion of her training as a nurse to the field of medical records administration. In that capacity, she would advance to oversee the medical records department at the infirmary and would become the director of the medical records department at St. Mary's Hospital in St. Louis, the first black person to hold such a position.

It was after a long day of work at the infirmary that she was called to make a decision that would affect the rest of her life.  With a growing awareness of the violent response to the voting rights campaign in Selma, she had said to her staff, “if I wasn't in this habit, I would be down there.” Shortly thereafter, she would be asked to join a contingent of clergy, religious, and laity from St. Louis bound for what was intended to be a march from Selma to Montgomery, Alabama, in support of African Americans seeking to exercise the right to vote. Sister Antona had seen the television images of marchers being assaulted on the Edmund Pettus Bridge in what came to be known as Bloody Sunday, and she knew that, if she were to be arrested, she would be incarcerated in a segregated jail. But the following morning, she and more than fifty St. Louisans boarded a plane and flew to Selma. Though they and the other marchers were halted by a phalanx of police after having walking only a short distance, the words that Sister Antona uttered that day were heard around the world, “I am a Negro, a nun, a Catholic...and I'm here to support your right to vote.”

After Selma, Sister Antona would continue to attain many “firsts.” Notably, with her appointment as the administrator of St. Clare Hospital in Baraboo, Wisconsin, she would become the first African American woman to head a Catholic hospital in the United States. She would earn two master's degrees and be recognized with six honorary doctorates. She would meet presidents and be blessed by the pope, serve as a parish chaplain and advocate for social justice before countless groups around the country. She would assume a leadership role in her religious congregation and as a member of the National Black Sisters' Conference. Her voice can be heard at the Library of Congress, and her image seen in the National Voting Rights Museum. Despite advancing age and illness, Sister Antona spoke out during the Ferguson uprising, “You want to really, actually learn about peace?” she told a crowd. “Get busy doing something for justice.” Sister Antona was called to her eternal reward three years ago, during Black Catholic History Month. But in death, as in life, she continues to challenge us all.

Winnie Sullivan serves on the Pastoral Council at St. Francis Xavier (College) Church and co-chairs its Antiracism Team.