Matthew J. Cressler, Ph.D., ’06, is the author of “Authentically Black and Truly Catholic: The Rise of Black Catholicism in the Great Migrations.” The book explores the contentious debates among black Catholics about the proper relationship between religious practice and racial identity.
Chicago has been known as the black Metropolis. But before the Great Migration, Chicago could have been called the Catholic Metropolis, with its skyline defined by parish spires as well as by industrial smoke stacks and skyscrapers. This book uncovers the intersection of the two. “Authentically Black and Truly Catholic” traces the developments within the church in Chicago to show how black Catholic activists in the 1960s and 1970s made Black Catholicism as we know it today.
In the late 1960s, a growing group of black Catholic activists sparked a revolution in U.S. Catholicism. Inspired by Black Power and Vatican II, they fought for the self-determination of black parishes and the right to identify as both black and Catholic. Faced with strong opposition from fellow black Catholics, activists became missionaries of a sort as they sought to convert their coreligionists to a distinctively black Catholicism. This book brings to light the complexities of these debates.
Cressler is assistant professor of religious studies at the College of Charleston.
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