Fr. Davis and Dr. Franklin
For the past few years have I been available in the Cathedral rectory each Wednesday morning to hear confessions and talk with people. One Wednesday a parishioner came carrying a book entitled The History of Black Catholics in the United States by Fr. Cyprian Davis, O.S.B. He is a monk of St. Meinrad Archabbey in Indiana. Fr. Cyprian and I entered the seminary at St. Meinrad the same year.
This gentleman was dumbfounded by what he read. He had majored in History in a Catholic college and never heard or read what Fr. Cyprian revealed in his book. He was amazed to find that the true history of Black people in the United States was not written until our era.
This gentleman was shocked to find out that priests and religious orders had slaves.
This included the first Bishop of our nation, Bishop John Carroll. It is also good to note that it was the Popes of that era who constantly called for an end to slavery. Likewise they called for evangelization among the American Black people.
The first writer to write the history of the South that was inclusive of African Americans was Dr. John Hope Franklin in Up From Slavery. This book was the opening of an organized presentation of the history of the South that included Black people. Dr. Franklin was very similar in thought to Dr. King. Both had similar visions of what the future should be. Dr. Franklin was Dean of the History Department at Duke University: he passed away in March.
Much of the leadership of the Civil Rights Movement came from men educated in the black educational institutions that were clustered in the same neighborhood in Atlanta, Georgia. Dr. King and others were educated at Morehouse College for Men in that complex. It was here that the leaders were imbued with the vision that Dr. Franklin articulated.
The works of these two stalwart gentlemen of faith – Fr. Davis and Dr. Franklin -- are and should be foremost in our minds as we still strive to bring African Ancestry Americans into an ever more prominent and active role in our Church and our society.
Msgr. Thomas P. Hadden