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Making History at the Altar of God
The death of Pope Francis stirs memories of growing up Black and Catholic in the Deep South during segregation — and an old-school bar joke
When Pope Francis died, I remembered what it felt like to grow up Catholic in the Deep South before we African Americans were freed from separate-but-equal. I remembered wearing a white suit for First Holy Communion at Our Lady of Lourdes, the first and only parish for Atlanta’s Black Catholics at the time.
I also remembered the bishop gently slapping my face during Confirmation two years later to symbolize that defending and witnessing my faith might sometimes lead to conflict and adversity.
But mostly I remembered the day four schoolmates and I became the first Black Catholics to receive the Ad Altare Dei Award, the highest honor bestowed on a Catholic Boy Scout, at the Cathedral of Christ the King in Atlanta, Georgia.
That day was significant to me because we were making history. But also because of what it felt like to walk down the cathedral’s long white nave for the first time.
The year was 1962, and Black folks who found themselves in a white Catholic Church for one reason or another were required to sit in the back. Not because Atlanta’s bishop…
