In her book Images for Change, Rosemary Haughton uses the analogy of a house to look critically at the structuring of society. In doing so, she challenges her readers to look under the floorboards being mindful of who and what have been hidden beneath.
When it comes to recorded history, we know that many people and groups have been relegated to living below the floorboards. The Church is no exception to this process, and Black Catholics are one group whose history has remained largely unseen and untold.
Black Catholic history, however, is our collective history, and it is a history that has been hidden from all of us. Yet it has so much to teach us about struggle and celebration, perseverance and empowerment.
Please join us on Wednesday, February 16 as parishioner and student of Black Catholic history, Courtney Davis, offers us an introduction to Black Catholic history so that we might more fully receive what Pope Paul VI recognized as the “gifts of Blackness.”
You can register for the event here or click here for the zoom link.
To see a video of Sr. Thea Bowman speaking to the US Catholic Bishops about Black Catholic history, click here.
Written by Courtney Davis and Mike Boucher