Preface

The American Negro in the past decade has become more and more eager for educational advantages. He has seen the possibilities opening out to him in the development of his talents and the cultivation of the qualities of his mind. Each year within the last decade thousands of names have been added to the ever-growing list of Negro men and women with degrees. The results of this educational effort are to be seen in the advances made by Negroes in the fields of literature and art. Outstanding names are included in the latest histories of American literature, and books by Negroes are accepted by the most important publishing firms and reviewed in the best book reviewing periodicals. Negro magazines in the fields of literature, education, and medicine are of the highest type in make-up and content.

The Church, who has ever given her approval to the pursuit of learning and to the cultivation of those gifts of the mind bestowed by God, recognizes the justice of the Negroes' desire for education and grieves that her facilities are still too limited to satisfy this desire completely. "Education with religion is the hope of our people" are words which were addressed to the Fraternal Council of Negro Churches of America. Although not stated by a Catholic, they are words which every Catholic should take deeply to heart. To achieve the objective implied and to make it a reality rather than an ideal, the Church, against the ever-pressing handicap of financial shortages, and the greater handicap of indifference and lack of cooperation among many of its members best qualified to help, has labored steadily to establish churches and schools and to increase its membership among the colored population of the country.

Several northern Catholic colleges and universities have thrown open their doors to admit Negro students; and Xavier University, New Orleans, and the Catholic College for Colored, Guthrie, Oklahoma, are educating Negro students exclusively. St. Augustine's Seminary, Bay St. Louis, Mississippi, is educating Negro students for the priesthood as members of the Society of the Divine Word. One unmistakable indication of the advance that Catholic education has made among the Negroes of the United States is the constantly increasing number of ordained colored priests. 

The ordination of Negroes for the priesthood is not untraditional in the history of the Church. Rather it is the background of prejudice that has developed in this country which, to some, gives it the appearance of the extraordinary. The late Dr. Arthur A. Schomburg, a non-Catholic, in an article in Interracial Review, August, 1937, gives an account of the first native Archbishop in America. This was Archbishop Victoria, a Negro, founder of the noted University of St. Francis Xavier at Panama. He was created Bishop of Panama in August, 1751, and Archbishop of Truxillo in Peru in 1758.

Further indication of the progress of Catholic education among the Negroes of this country is the participation of the Catholic Negro in the literary movement of the present day and in every activity for the betterment of his group by interracial justice and cooperation.

Nevertheless, it is difficult to determine accurately the exact contribution of the Catholic Negro. The appearance of an article by a Negro in a Catholic periodical is no guarantee that the writer is a Catholic, Dr. Schomburg and George Streator have written extensively for Catholic magazines and both are non-Catholic. The presence of a Negro in a Catholic institution is no indication of his religious affiliation, nor is the opposite true, a very large proportion of Catholic high school graduates being forced into state institutions of higher learning because of the discrimination of Catholic colleges.

Personal inquiry and investigation were necessary in every case in compiling' this bibliography, the purpose of which is to offer specific examples of the contribution of Negro Catholics in the field of published writings of whatever nature, to show what interests have stimulated them to write, what form their writings have taken, and by what agencies they were produced.

All entries included have appeared in the United States since 1900; all the writers are colored Catholics. This limitation excludes some interesting items. One of the finest poems in the Spanish language, "La Austriada," by Juan Latino, is omitted on the basis of nationality. It is concerned chiefly with Don John of Austria and the victory of Lepanto. An account of Juan Latino can be found in the Spanish encyclopedia, Enciclopedia Universal Ilustrada, under the entry Latino (El maestro Juan). Also Antonio Mann Octete in 1925 published an account of him in Granada entitled El Negro. He had been a slave but earned his freedom and became a professor at the University of Granada where he taught for sixty years. Under him the famous Jesuit, Francis Suarez, studied rhetoric as a boy. 

Chiefly on the basis of time is excluded the earliest anthology of Negro poetry to be produced in this country, Les Cenelles. Its editor, Arnold Lanusse, was undoubtedly Catholic; and probably most of the contributors were Catholic also, this was the prevailing religion in New Orleans at the time of the publication of the book. The story of this little volume is very interesting and deserves to be better known. A group of seventeen free colored Creoles of New Orleans, educated in France, disgusted at the treatment received from the white population of the city, and excluded from association with other groups of equal cultivation, organized their own literary circle where they discussed congenial topics and criticized one another's poetry. 

The result was Les Cenelles; Choix de Poesies Indigezies published in "Nouvelle Orleans by H. Lauve et Compagnie" in 1845. Arnold Lanusee, the editor of the volume, later became the founder of a Catholic orphanage in New Orleans. 

Victor Sejour, one of the contributors, is better known as a dramatist. He left the United States for France where he made his home and produced many plays. He established a reputation for remarkable energy and for revising each drama at the last minute before the actors appeared on the stage.

Journalists have not been included in the bibliography unless specific data could be located for each individual contribution. This has led to the exclusion of Noah D. Thompson, for several years secretary to Booker T. Washington and member of the Tuskegee faculty.

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updated 7 April 2008