(OSV News) — This year marks the 160th anniversary of the emancipation of enslaved African Americans in the last Confederate state that continued to uphold the practice of slavery two years after it was abolished in the country — an event marked by Juneteenth, a federal holiday since 2021.
While Catholics have noted this significant achievement in U.S. history, they have also said the day is a reminder to continue to work to end racism and injustice. They also looked to the contributions of Black Catholics in making progress toward achieving these goals.
The emancipation took place on June 19, 1865, two-and-a-half years after President Abraham Lincoln issued the Emancipation Proclamation, and two months after the Civil War ended. U.S. Maj. Gen. Gordon Granger arrived in Galveston, Texas, with 2,000 Union soldiers to announce the end of slavery and more than 250,000 slaves were freed.
“We were able to finally move beyond just being slaves to being human beings who have aspirations,” said Father Reginald Samuels, pastor of St. Laurence Catholic Church in Sugar Land, Texas, in the Archdiocese of Galveston-Houston. And, while he said African American religious orders were starting to take root in society before the end of the war, “some of us (African Americans) were having aspirations of being priests and sisters.”
Father Samuels, 59, is vicar of the archdiocese’s Ministry to Catholics of African Descent. The ministry’s Unity Explosion conference June 18-20 included a screening of a documentary about Juneteenth and, to mark the 160th anniversary, a June 19 bus tour of significant sites in Galveston related to the emancipation, concluding with a Mass celebrated by Galveston-Houston’s retired archbishop, Cardinal Daniel N. DiNardo.
Father Samuels told OSV News that the bus tour would include a stop at Holy Rosary Church, which started out in 1886 as an elementary school that educated African Americans, as well as prayer at Reedy Chapel, an African Methodist Episcopal church that was one of the sites where Maj. Gen. Granger read the emancipation.
Ansel Augustine, assistant director of African American Affairs at the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, was among those attending the Unity conference.
“We all deserve respect. If God took time to make us, then we are all good. And what this Juneteenth reminds us is through the Catholic lens, we are all called to fight injustices and fight for justice so that everyone is treated with dignity in the world, especially when we look at what’s going on in the world today,” he said.
Augustine, who lives in New Orleans, said people are still being exploited around the world and at home. He said the U.S. bishops have emphasized that “racism is America’s original sin.”
“We, as people of faith of all backgrounds, should address this sin and look at it,” he said. “How we are either participating in it by not saying anything or benefiting from it or looking at our decision-making from diocesan levels and parish levels, and to see how we can be better brothers and sisters to address this original sin in our own communities as well.”
Juneteenth commemorations are also taking place in Hannibal, Missouri, near the village where Venerable Augustus Tolton, the country’s first African American priest, was born into slavery in 1854 and baptized.
Hannibal’s commemorations include the “Jim’s Journey” tour, which looks at Mark Twain’s 1885 novel “The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn” from the perspective of the runaway enslaved character Jim, who is Huckleberry’s friend.
The Huck Finn Freedom Center museum invited to the commemoration Michael Maher, president of Saint Christopher Journeys, which runs educational tours on Catholic justice and social teaching. Maher’s own tours highlight the life of Father Tolton and another former enslaved Catholic who was born in the same area, Servant of God Julia Greeley, a laywoman who helped the deeply impoverished with the little she earned as a free woman.
He said the Saint Christopher tours delve into the “difficult history” of some Catholics and Catholic institutions that owned enslaved people, such as the Jesuits, Vincentians and Sisters of the Sacred Heart. The tours also take a deep look at the forming of one’s conscience, especially in light of slave ownership, and how this “fits with the message of the Gospels.”
Maher said freed enslaved people helped to rebuild the country “in terms of living up to the ideals we hold” and the Catholics among them contributed to the spiritual building of society.
“For what they represent or what they did with their lives, what these people did was they built a community,” Maher told OSV News. “And rooted in faith, their faith compelled them to … serve others around them and proclaim the Gospel, either from the pulpit, from the heart or from the hands.”
According to Adrienne Curry, director of the Archdiocese of Baltimore’s Office of Black Catholic Ministries commemorating Juneteenth “is a justice issue” because she said the “big injustice” of slavery was made worse by the “injustice that the people of Texas did not know” about the Emancipation Proclamation until more than two years after it had been issued.
The date is also a reminder, she said, to pick one of the “Saintly Seven” and pray regularly for his or her intercession, especially for a miracle, toward his or her sainthood cause.
These seven African Americans include Venerables Father Tolton; Holy Family Sisters founder Mother Henriette Delille; Pierre Toussaint, a freed enslaved person who generously served the needy and the church; and Mother Mary Lange, who founded the Oblate Sisters of Providence in Baltimore.
Servants of God include Greeley; Franciscan Sister Thea Bowman, a 20th-century promoter of African American culture; and Father Martin de Porres Maria Ward, a Conventual Franciscan and Boston native who served the poor and the sick on mission in Brazil well into the late 1990s.
The New Orleans-based genealogist and historian Jari Honora said beyond the “Saintly Seven,” a number of Black Catholics throughout U.S. history contributed to the country’s unity and freedom.
“If we were to do some of the study and the research to uncover the names of those Black Catholics who have been active in the fight for civil and human rights, that would be very important,” he told OSV News. “Very often we default to the best known figures in African American history and many times those better known names are not Catholics. We have so many examples within our local faith communities, but they’re not as well known.”
Honora named Homer Plessy, the plaintiff in the Plessy v. Ferguson case, in which the U.S. Supreme Court ruled against Plessy on the side of the “separate but equal” law in Louisiana; two Harlem Renaissance poets, Claude McKay and Arna Bontemps; and A.P. Tureaud, who created the NAACP legal fund, as well as several others. He said they were deeply rooted in the faith and some were converts.
Honora, whose family built the historic St. Augustine Church in Klotzville, Louisiana, said in the 160 years since Juneteenth, generations of Black Catholics have “tried to navigate as free people.”
“But in many instances, they’re still relegated to a second-tier status, sometimes even within the church,” he said. “I just point to their faith, their enduring faith as what’s sustained them, and what continues to sustain us, even now.”
A number of dioceses and parishes around the country, including Boston, Cincinnati and Oakland, are remembering Juneteenth with Masses and other events and pastoral statements.
Bishop Timothy C. Senior of Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, said in a Juneteenth message that when slavery ended 160 years ago, “sadly, it did not eliminate the evil of racism.”
“As we observe Juneteenth, may we carry forward the spirit of love and liberation in our hearts,” he wrote. “May we all be united in our commitment to end all forms of racism and hatred. Together, we can create a world where every person is honored, valued, and free.”
At the Basilica of St. Mary of the Immaculate Conception in Norfolk, Virginia, the only predominantly African American basilica in the country, Juneteenth “is a pretty big celebration,” according to its rector, Father James Curran.
“For the African American community, it (freedom) didn’t begin on July 4th, when the country celebrates liberation from England; they were all still enslaved. So this really is their Fourth of July,” he said. “Just like the signing of the Declaration of Independence didn’t make America free of Britain — we still had to fight for that.
“It’s the same thing with liberation for Black people in the country — that the proclamation didn’t do it. It needed to be fought (for),” Father Curran continued. “And, you know, we’re still still fighting it. And it’s just a baton that gets passed down. And, you know, you move the needle and pass the baton to the next generation.”
By Simone Orendain | OSV News
News & Commentary
Juneteenth seen as day to reflect on freedom, ending racism and Black Catholics’ contributions
(OSV News) — This year marks the 160th anniversary of the emancipation of enslaved African Americans in the last Confederate state that continued to uphold the practice of slavery two years after it was abolished in the country — an event marked by Juneteenth, a federal holiday since 2021.
While Catholics have noted this significant achievement in U.S. history, they have also said the day is a reminder to continue to work to end racism and injustice. They also looked to the contributions of Black Catholics in making progress toward achieving these goals.
The emancipation took place on June 19, 1865, two-and-a-half years after President Abraham Lincoln issued the Emancipation Proclamation, and two months after the Civil War ended. U.S. Maj. Gen. Gordon Granger arrived in Galveston, Texas, with 2,000 Union soldiers to announce the end of slavery and more than 250,000 slaves were freed.
“We were able to finally move beyond just being slaves to being human beings who have aspirations,” said Father Reginald Samuels, pastor of St. Laurence Catholic Church in Sugar Land, Texas, in the Archdiocese of Galveston-Houston. And, while he said African American religious orders were starting to take root in society before the end of the war, “some of us (African Americans) were having aspirations of being priests and sisters.”
Father Samuels, 59, is vicar of the archdiocese’s Ministry to Catholics of African Descent. The ministry’s Unity Explosion conference June 18-20 included a screening of a documentary about Juneteenth and, to mark the 160th anniversary, a June 19 bus tour of significant sites in Galveston related to the emancipation, concluding with a Mass celebrated by Galveston-Houston’s retired archbishop, Cardinal Daniel N. DiNardo.
Father Samuels told OSV News that the bus tour would include a stop at Holy Rosary Church, which started out in 1886 as an elementary school that educated African Americans, as well as prayer at Reedy Chapel, an African Methodist Episcopal church that was one of the sites where Maj. Gen. Granger read the emancipation.
Ansel Augustine, assistant director of African American Affairs at the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, was among those attending the Unity conference.
“We all deserve respect. If God took time to make us, then we are all good. And what this Juneteenth reminds us is through the Catholic lens, we are all called to fight injustices and fight for justice so that everyone is treated with dignity in the world, especially when we look at what’s going on in the world today,” he said.
Augustine, who lives in New Orleans, said people are still being exploited around the world and at home. He said the U.S. bishops have emphasized that “racism is America’s original sin.”
“We, as people of faith of all backgrounds, should address this sin and look at it,” he said. “How we are either participating in it by not saying anything or benefiting from it or looking at our decision-making from diocesan levels and parish levels, and to see how we can be better brothers and sisters to address this original sin in our own communities as well.”
Juneteenth commemorations are also taking place in Hannibal, Missouri, near the village where Venerable Augustus Tolton, the country’s first African American priest, was born into slavery in 1854 and baptized.
Hannibal’s commemorations include the “Jim’s Journey” tour, which looks at Mark Twain’s 1885 novel “The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn” from the perspective of the runaway enslaved character Jim, who is Huckleberry’s friend.
The Huck Finn Freedom Center museum invited to the commemoration Michael Maher, president of Saint Christopher Journeys, which runs educational tours on Catholic justice and social teaching. Maher’s own tours highlight the life of Father Tolton and another former enslaved Catholic who was born in the same area, Servant of God Julia Greeley, a laywoman who helped the deeply impoverished with the little she earned as a free woman.
He said the Saint Christopher tours delve into the “difficult history” of some Catholics and Catholic institutions that owned enslaved people, such as the Jesuits, Vincentians and Sisters of the Sacred Heart. The tours also take a deep look at the forming of one’s conscience, especially in light of slave ownership, and how this “fits with the message of the Gospels.”
Maher said freed enslaved people helped to rebuild the country “in terms of living up to the ideals we hold” and the Catholics among them contributed to the spiritual building of society.
“For what they represent or what they did with their lives, what these people did was they built a community,” Maher told OSV News. “And rooted in faith, their faith compelled them to … serve others around them and proclaim the Gospel, either from the pulpit, from the heart or from the hands.”
According to Adrienne Curry, director of the Archdiocese of Baltimore’s Office of Black Catholic Ministries commemorating Juneteenth “is a justice issue” because she said the “big injustice” of slavery was made worse by the “injustice that the people of Texas did not know” about the Emancipation Proclamation until more than two years after it had been issued.
The date is also a reminder, she said, to pick one of the “Saintly Seven” and pray regularly for his or her intercession, especially for a miracle, toward his or her sainthood cause.
These seven African Americans include Venerables Father Tolton; Holy Family Sisters founder Mother Henriette Delille; Pierre Toussaint, a freed enslaved person who generously served the needy and the church; and Mother Mary Lange, who founded the Oblate Sisters of Providence in Baltimore.
Servants of God include Greeley; Franciscan Sister Thea Bowman, a 20th-century promoter of African American culture; and Father Martin de Porres Maria Ward, a Conventual Franciscan and Boston native who served the poor and the sick on mission in Brazil well into the late 1990s.
The New Orleans-based genealogist and historian Jari Honora said beyond the “Saintly Seven,” a number of Black Catholics throughout U.S. history contributed to the country’s unity and freedom.
“If we were to do some of the study and the research to uncover the names of those Black Catholics who have been active in the fight for civil and human rights, that would be very important,” he told OSV News. “Very often we default to the best known figures in African American history and many times those better known names are not Catholics. We have so many examples within our local faith communities, but they’re not as well known.”
Honora named Homer Plessy, the plaintiff in the Plessy v. Ferguson case, in which the U.S. Supreme Court ruled against Plessy on the side of the “separate but equal” law in Louisiana; two Harlem Renaissance poets, Claude McKay and Arna Bontemps; and A.P. Tureaud, who created the NAACP legal fund, as well as several others. He said they were deeply rooted in the faith and some were converts.
Honora, whose family built the historic St. Augustine Church in Klotzville, Louisiana, said in the 160 years since Juneteenth, generations of Black Catholics have “tried to navigate as free people.”
“But in many instances, they’re still relegated to a second-tier status, sometimes even within the church,” he said. “I just point to their faith, their enduring faith as what’s sustained them, and what continues to sustain us, even now.”
A number of dioceses and parishes around the country, including Boston, Cincinnati and Oakland, are remembering Juneteenth with Masses and other events and pastoral statements.
Bishop Timothy C. Senior of Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, said in a Juneteenth message that when slavery ended 160 years ago, “sadly, it did not eliminate the evil of racism.”
“As we observe Juneteenth, may we carry forward the spirit of love and liberation in our hearts,” he wrote. “May we all be united in our commitment to end all forms of racism and hatred. Together, we can create a world where every person is honored, valued, and free.”
At the Basilica of St. Mary of the Immaculate Conception in Norfolk, Virginia, the only predominantly African American basilica in the country, Juneteenth “is a pretty big celebration,” according to its rector, Father James Curran.
“For the African American community, it (freedom) didn’t begin on July 4th, when the country celebrates liberation from England; they were all still enslaved. So this really is their Fourth of July,” he said. “Just like the signing of the Declaration of Independence didn’t make America free of Britain — we still had to fight for that.
“It’s the same thing with liberation for Black people in the country — that the proclamation didn’t do it. It needed to be fought (for),” Father Curran continued. “And, you know, we’re still still fighting it. And it’s just a baton that gets passed down. And, you know, you move the needle and pass the baton to the next generation.”
By Simone Orendain | OSV News