Black History Month … Being Black and Catholic
Take a Look … Black History Month Bulletin Board
As you enter or leave Mass, stop a minute to take a look at the Black History Month bulletin board in the main hallway. The bulletin board highlights four Black History makers: Fannie Lou Hamer, Ida B. Wells, John Lewis and Frederick Douglass. Short biographies of each person are available if you wish to learn more. Take a look and be inspired!
February 15, 2026
As you enter or leave Mass, stop a minute to take a look at the Black History Month bulletin board in the main hallway. The bulletin board highlights four Black History makers: Fannie Lou Hamer, Ida B. Wells, John Lewis and Frederick Douglass. Short biographies of each person are displayed with their words and portraits. Take a look and be inspired!
In 1989, Sister Thea Bowman addressed the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops, becoming the first Black American woman to do so. At one point, in her address to the bishops, she answered this question …
What does it mean to be Black and Catholic?
It means that I come to my Church fully functioning. … I bring myself; my black self, all that I am, all that I have, all that I am, all that I hope to become. I bring my whole history, my traditions, my experience, my culture my African American song and dance and gesture and movement and teaching and preaching and healing and responsibility — as gifts to the Church. I bring a spirituality that … is contemplative and biblical and holistic, bringing to religion a totality of mind and imagination, of memory, of feeling and passion, and emotion and intensity. A faith that is embodied incarnate praise — a spirituality that knows how to find joy even in the time of sorrow — that steps out on faith that leans on the Lord.
