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Stephen J. Ochs chronicles the intersecting lives of the first black military Civil War hero, Captain André Cailloux of the 1st Louisiana Native Guards, and the lone Catholic clerical voice of abolition in New Orleans, the Reverend Claude Paschal Maistre. Their paths converged in July 1863, when Maistre, in defiance of his archbishop, officiated at a large public military funeral for Cailloux, who had perished while courageously leading a doomed charge against the Confederate bastion of Port Hudson. The story of how Cailloux and Maistre arrived at that day and what happened as a consequence provides a prism through which to view the black military experience and the complex interplay of slavery, race, radicalism, and religion during American democracy's most violent upheaval.
Historically, black Americans have affiliated in far greater numbers with certain protestant denominations than with the Roman Catholic church. In analyzing this phenomenon scholars have sometimes alluded to the dearth of black Catholic priest, but non one has adequately explained why the church failed to ordain significant numbers of black clergy until the 1930s. Desegregating the Altar, a broadly based study encompassing Afro-American, Roman catholic, southern, and institutional history, fills that gap by examining the issue through the experience of St. Joseph’s Society of the Sacred Heart, or the Josephites, the only American community of Catholic priests devoted exclusively to evangel...
A privileged, hell-raising youth who had greatly embarrassed his family—and especially his war-hero father—by being dismissed from West Point, Michael J. Daly would go on to display selfless courage and heroic leadership on the battlefields of Europe during World War II. Starting as an enlisted man and rising through the ranks to become a captain and company commander, Daly’s devotion to his men and his determination to live up to the ideals taught to him by his father led him to extraordinary acts of bravery on behalf of others, resulting in three Silver Stars, a Bronze Star with “V” attachment for valor, two Purple Hearts, and finally, the Medal of Honor. Historian Stephen J. Och...
A privileged, hell-raising youth who had greatly embarrassed his family—and especially his war-hero father—by being dismissed from West Point, Michael J. Daly would go on to display selfless courage and heroic leadership on the battlefields of Europe during World War II. Starting as an enlisted man and rising through the ranks to become a captain and company commander, Daly’s devotion to his men and his determination to live up to the ideals taught to him by his father led him to extraordinary acts of bravery on behalf of others, resulting in three Silver Stars, a Bronze Star with “V” attachment for valor, two Purple Hearts, and finally, the Medal of Honor. Historian Stephen J. Och...
This is the first scholarly study of the life of the black Peruvian saint, Martín de Porres (1579-1639).
Religion and the Rise of Jim Crow in New Orleans examines a difficult chapter in American religious history: the story of race prejudice in American Christianity. Focusing on the largest city in the late-nineteenth-century South, it explores the relationship between churches--black and white, Protestant and Catholic--and the emergence of the Jim Crow laws, statutes that created a racial caste system in the American South. The book fills a gap in the scholarship on religion and race in the crucial decades between the end of Reconstruction and the eve of the Civil Rights movement. Drawing on a range of local and personal accounts from the post-Reconstruction period, newspapers, and church reco...
The variety and complexity of its traditions make African American religion one of the most difficult topics in religious studies to teach to undergraduates. The sheer scope of the material to be covered is daunting to instructors, many of whom are not experts in African American religious traditions, but are called upon to include material on African American religion in courses on American Religious History or the History of Christianity. Also, the unfamiliarity of the subject matter to the vast majority of students makes it difficult to achieve any depth in the brief time allotted in the survey courses where it is usually first encountered. The essays in this volume will supply functional, innovative ways to teach African American religious traditions in a variety of settings.
"If I could, I surely would stand on the rock where Moses stood." --from the Spiritual "Elijah Rock" Taking its theme from the pastoral letter of the Black Catholic bishops of the United States, which spoke of the challenge of being "authentically Black and truly Catholic," To Stand on the Rock invites us "to linger awhile in the garden of our imagination and try to see with the eyes of faith and art how the old ones . . . took a twisted version of Christianity and re-twisted it into a culture of liberation, transcendence, creativity and wholeness." Father Brown begins by recalling the religion and identity of those Africans who were brought to these shores in bondage: the original source in the quest for what it means to be "authentically Black." He then explores the style of Christianity they forged through the sufferings of slavery, which found expression in the Spirituals. Brown then reflects on the struggle of Black Catholics to claim their own style of faith and spirituality and to assert their distinctive gifts to the church universal.
The heroics of black Union soldiers in the Civil War have been justly celebrated, but their postwar lives largely neglected. Donald Shaffer's illuminating study shines a bright light on this previously obscure part of African American history, revealing for the first time black veterans' valiant but often frustrating efforts to secure true autonomy and equality as civilians. After the Glory shows how black veterans' experiences as soldiers provided them for the first time with a sense of manliness that shaped not only their own lives but also their contributions to the African American community. Shaffer makes clear, however, that their postwar pursuit of citizenship and a dignified manhood ...