This selection is the concluding pages of Cyprian Davis' famous book The History of Black Catholics in the United States. It will give us a brief historical account to ground our discussion of race and the Christian tradition. This section of the course will require some tough thinking... do not expect everything to work out perfectly! I just ask that everyone try to be honest and open with this stuff... we'll go over some ground rules with that on Tuesday.
For this assignment, I just want you to write me a paragraph about what you learned from it regarding the Catholic Church and racial justice in the 20th century. Note that this article does not try to clear up some of the ambiguities surrounding race and Christianity... Davis is happy to simply provide you with some stories and offer his thoughts on their significance. So, your paragraph here should indicate that you recognize that things are rather complicated here! One strand you might want to keep an eye on is the relationship between theory and practice... in other words, how did theoretical teachings about race actually work out in real life?