








m a lowdown dirty deal and whose feelings are all hurt about it. Even in the helter-skelter skirmish that is my life, I have seen that the world is to the strong regardless of a little pigmentation more or less. No, I do not weep at the world I am too busy sharpening my oster knife.
Someone is always at my elbow reminding me that I am a granddaughter of slaves. It fails to register depression with me. Slavery is 60 years in the past. The operation was successful and the patient is doing well, thank you. The terrible struggle that made
me an American out of a potential slave said  On thi Reconstruction said  Get set! ; and the generation  Go!  I am off to a flying start and I must not halt is to look behind and weep. Slavery is the price 1 paid for and the choice was not with me. It is a bully adventui all that have paid through my ancestors for it. No ( ever had a greater chance for glory. The world to bet   ing to be lost. It is thrilling to think to know that f< mine, 1 shall get twice as much praise or twice as mt is quite exciting to hold the center on the national stag tators not knowing whether to laugh or to weep.
 from  How It Feels to Be C
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Article 31
art 1
God and the Civil Rights Movement
Professor James M. Washington addresses Union Day '96 attendees
 Uowing a luncheon in the Refec-ory, Union Day participants and ndees gathered in James Chapel a lecture by Professor of Church tory James M. Washington on and the Civil Rights Movent: A Retrospective, 1941 1968," subject of his current research, put forth a central question to ich panelists would later re-nd: Can one do a religious his-f of the civil rights movement? what was there religious about dvil rights movement?
Uon Theological Seminary is a d place to ask this kind of ques-
C.." Washington said, quoting il Tillich's comment that "religion te substance of culture and culture >rm of religion." Yet, Washington 5< when he hears that assertion, he   ask: "And? And? And?"
Ascribing the way African Ameri-s have written and spoken about lr Pain and its connection to reli-
experience, Washington drew on
Washington identified  an implicit conflict between the philosophy of the Declaration of Independence and that of the Constitution.  
pendence and that of the Constitution." According to Washington, this tension came to a head in 1845, when many denominations in this country split over the issue of slavery.
The debate, Washington noted, was not just over the translation of the Greek word doulas as either slave or servant, but about the nature and destiny of this country and whether or not one could create a society that was truly under God. "By 1861, as the nation was on the brink of warfare," he said, "a Presbyterian minister cried out 'the stench of slaves long-since gone has finally reached the nostrils of God.' "
Albert Jay Raboteau's Slave Religion. The book examines the experience of slaves and their grappling with the problem of evil as reflected in the question, "Could it be possible that the old god of the African continent had failed them?"
"Not only is this a centtai theological question that has been addressed from a Black theological perspective, a Womanist perspective, and several other historical perspectives," Washington said, "It is a question in American society, as well." Washington identified "an implicit conflict between the philosophy of the Declaration of Inde-
tw the Union
. . cemjnary in the City Theological Seminar
 The civil rights movement was not just a movement for social change.... It was a fight for the soul of America.  
of New York. Reprinted by
5. AFRICAN AMERICANS
Washington, who grew up in Knoxville, Tennessee during the civil rights movement, says he has learned a great deal by reflecting on that experience from an historical perspective. "The civil rights movement was not just a movement for social change," he said, "It was a fight for the soul of America; a fight not simply about ideology but about whether or not people of conviction and values, people who had a firm belief that God somehow plays a part in human history, would have their prayers answered. These people uttered prayers, sang songs, engaged in the movement, not simply because they wanted freedom, but because they wanted to know the answer to the question: 'Is there a God?' They asked over and over again, 'Is God on our side?'
"In order for people not just students but indigenous people to do what they did, which was like going into guerrilla warfare in some communities, it had to be based on some strong religious conviction.
"The question is: 'How did we muster the courage to resist this form of oppression?'" Washington asked. "Those who have interpreted the Civil Rights movement are right when they msist that one has to see the move
ment in the context of the history of protest in the United States."
 The feeling that the presence of God must be linked somehow in struggle is one of the great legacies of the civil rights movement.  
Washington pointed to the abolitionist movement and various attempts to defeat and oppose the system. "One of the more common rationales for putting forth the challenge and motivation," he observed, "was Christian idealism or Christian pacifism... which dovetailed with the social gospel movement itself and had its roots in biblical understanding of martyrdom. Indeed, one great misreading of Uncle Tom's Cabin has ignored the fact that what was seen as Tom's 'accommodationism' by those who do not read the text in the context of biblical narrative, was not 'accommodation,' but Tom as the paradigmatic Christian martyr...based on the conviction that without the shedding of blood, there can be no remission of sin.
"The idea that God plays some role in
American history, as well as in of the church, was in crisis 1930s, partially because of the wide Depression, but partly many were beginning to exj the 'death of God'.... What w on the part of protesters and < whether motivated by Christ viction or patriotism, was th; how God plays a role (although) some used differer like transcendence, some p beyond themselves.
"The feeling that the presence must be linked somehow in st one of the great legacies of rights movement," Washing eluded. "What I am trying write and research an interf interdenominational history movement. What is clear to m larger standpoint, is that the ( the 'death of God' movem hung over the heads of peop sixties was not just a forma among theologians but som was an experience on the stree
Washington ended his pres with some words from the k Abemathy:"Lord, we don't h; money. But we have our boc is what we offer on this day."
Part 2 of article continues on next page.
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I
31. Josephites
12
Josephites mark 125 years
  Service: The order of Catholic priests has staffed African-American parishes in Baltimore and other cities for over a century.
rilyn NlcCraven
Staff
Ihen Carl Stokes won a partial Warship to Loyola High School in the 5s, there was no way his family could e up the difference.
lot to fear: His parish priest, a sphite at St. Francis Xavier in East imore, made sure all expenses were sred.
It you had the ability, they would   sure that you got all the tools and educational opportunities to go to the t level," said Stokes, 46, a former timore City councilman and lifetime ^ber of St. Francis.
Pokes  story is one of many that be shared as the Josephites cele-te their 125th anniversary today, 1 Cardinal William H. Keeler presid-,at a 5 p.m. Mass at St. Francis fler Church, 1501 E. Oliver St., the Jntrys oldest African-American Ro-
Catholic parish. A reception and W will follow at the Baltimore ^ention Center.
176 events mark the 1871 founding
Joseph s Society of the Sacred es>  ? ^ond n> which sent white IK... Baltimore that same year to ^an-American Catholic parishes hools. They assumed control of
St. Francis Xavier and in 1892 became a separate American order to concentrate on their work among blacks, many of them freed slaves.
St. Francis Xavier spawned seven other parishes for African-Americans in Baltimore. St. Monica s and Sacred Heart are defunct, but still operating are St. Peter Claver in Sandtown-Winchester; St. Pius V in Harlem Park, which merged with St. Barnabas; and St. Veronica s in Cherry Hill. Christ the King in Dundalk was turned over to the archdiocese.
These were the only parishes blacks attended until the 1950s, when they felt accepted at Baltimore's other Catholic churches, said the Rev. Peter E. Hogan, the Josephite archivist.
Though in decline in recent years, the order has continued to play a significant role in education, housing, the rehabilitation of drug addicts and alcoholics and other pursuits, say local religious and civic leaders.
 Black Catholics have always seen the Josephites as somebody who could go to the pope and the bishops for us,  said Sister Claudina Sanz, superior general of the 168-year-old Oblate Sisters, a group of African-American nuns founded here.
The Rev. Robert M. Kearns, the superior general of the Josephites, led
the effort to raise money to build new and renovated homes under the Nehemiah project. His appeal to a variety of religious groups synagogues and black and white Protestant churches  netted $2.2 million in pledges that leveraged millions more in federal, state and city dollars.
The groups promised to  rise up and build  as the Old Testament prophet Nehemiah had urged in the impoverished neighborhoods of Sandtown-Win-chester and Penn North in West Baltimore. With the Enterprise Foundation as the developer, 300 houses have been built, 150 are to be built and 150 are to be renovated, Kearns said.
 The Josephites are to be commended for the leadership they've shown in their outreach to the oppressed in the city, especially through the Ne-I hemiah project,  said Rev. Douglas Miles I of Baltimoreans United in Leadership
Development, the church-based community group that initially lobbied the religious community for money for the project in 1986.
The Josephites sponsor the largest Head Start program in Maryland, with nearly 300 preschoolers at St. Veronica's.
A Josephite, Bishop John H. Ricard, oversees parishes serving 85,000 Catholics in Baltimore and is head of Baltimore-
Kar 30 IS*, Pp- 1A1
From the Baltimore Sun, Novem
  1996 W 1716
Sun Reprinted by pedion-Baltimore Sun. *
157
5. AFRICAN AMERICANS
based Catholic Relief Services, the world s second-largest nonprofit provider of foreign aid.
Another Josephite, the Rev. Joseph Verrette, runs the state-funded Tuerk House in West Baltimore, a 28-day inpatient drug and alcohol treatment program for people with no health insurance.
But the shortage of priests has caused the order to curtail its projects.  We've pulled out of 26 parishes over the past 20 years  in the United States and the Bahamas, said the Rev. Eugene McManus, former Josephite superior general.
However, there are several new black priests, and they're working closely with an order of priests from Nigeria, which is sending missionaries to this country for long stints. Several Joesphite parishes in Baltimore remain  vibrant,  said McManus.
St. Francis Xavier and St. Peter Claver have 800 registered families each, church officials say. Some St. Francis members travel from Washington and Pennsylvania to attend one of the three Sunday Masses, said the Rev. William Norvel, pastor at St. Francis Xavier.
 When I go there. I m surrounded by people I ve known since I was 5 years old,  said Stokes.
SUN STAFF
7 
State Del. Kenneth C. Montague Jr. also credits the Josephites with helping to open the door to educational opportunities.
In 1960, Montague became the first African-American to attend Loyola High School. As a student at St. Peter Claver Elementary, he said,  One day they just came to me and said  take this test and
if you pass, you ll go to Loyola
 I never asked, but I m s Josephites]  were instrumental ir the opportunity available, sai tague, a Un
