Black Catholic Movement

The Black Catholic Movement was a movement of African-American Catholics in the United States that developed and shaped modern Black Catholicism.
From roughly 1968 to the mid-1990s, Black Catholicism would transform from pre–Vatican II roots into a full member of the Black Church. It developed its own structure, identity, music, liturgy, thought, theology, and appearance within the larger Catholic Church. As a result, in the 21st century, Black Catholic Church traditions are seen in most Black parishes, institutions, schools, and organizations across the country.

Background

Vatican II

In 1962, Pope John XXIII convened the most recent Catholic ecumenical council, Vatican II. It eliminated Latin as the required liturgical language of the Western portion of the Church.
This change opened the door for inculturation in both new and historic areas of practice. As early as the 1950s, under the creative eye of Black Catholics such as Fr Clarence Rivers, the fusion of Protestant-originated Black Gospel music with Catholic liturgy had been experimented with on a basic level. Rivers's music was used at the first official English-language Mass in the United States in 1964, including his watershed work, "God Is Love".

Membership boom

Alongside this nascent inculturation came a second boom in Black Catholic numbers, as they increased by 220,000 during the 1960s, and more than half were converts. In 1966, Fr Harold R. Perry became the first known Black bishop to serve in the US when he was named auxiliary bishop of New Orleans.
Following the assassination of Martin Luther King and associated riots, Black Catholics inaugurated a number of powerful new organizations in early 1968. These included the National Black Catholic Clergy Caucus, organized by Fr Herman Porter, and its sister organization, the National Black Sisters' Conference, organized by Sr Martin de Porres Grey.
The larger movement broke out thereafter as Black Catholics increasingly latched onto Black Power and Black Consciousness as appropriate means of expressing their right to be "authentically Black" in their expression of the Catholic faith.

History

NBCC statement (1968)

At the inaugural NBCCC meeting in Detroit, caucus members declared in the opening line of their statement that "the Catholic Church in the United States is primarily a White, racist institution."
The statement made waves throughout the Church. It provided perspective on the riots that were so intensely discomforting White American sensibilities, and was part of the demands for change in the Catholic Church—including an active commitment to Black self-oversight, freedom, and vocations. More specifically, they demanded a Black vicariate, an episcopal vicar, a Black-led office for Black Catholics, Black diaconate, Black liturgical inculturation, inclusion of Black history and culture in seminary education, and diocesan programs for training those who intended to shepherd Black Catholics. Without such changes, the caucus claimed, the Catholic Church would soon become irrelevant to the Black community.
At least two of these requests were answered rather quickly. With the support of a White Josephite superior general, who advocated for it as early as 1967, the permanent diaconate was restored in the United States in October 1968, and the National Office for Black Catholics was established in 1970.

Growth (1969–1971)

The movement/revolution centered in Chicago, where numerous Black Catholics resided in the late 1960s, forming sizable Black parishes. But these were always under the leadership of White priests. Fr George Clements, one of the more radical members of the inaugural NBCCC meeting, entered into an extended row with Archbishop John Cody over this lack of Black pastors in Chicago and Black Catholic inculturation.
Unconventional alliances with local Black Protestant leaders and Black radical activists resulted in innovative liturgical celebrations known as the Black Unity Mass, trans-parochial events where Black priests donned Afrocentric vestments, decorated the altar similarly, and celebrated the Mass with a decidedly "Black" liturgical flair. One such Mass in 1969 included New York activist-priest Lawrence Lucas, an 80-voice gospel choir provided by the Rev. Jesse Jackson, and security provided by the Black Panthers.
One of the first parishes to engage in Black liturgical inculturation and establish a gospel choir was St. Francis de Sales Catholic Church in New Orleans, in 1969.. One of the first musicians to experiment similarly was Grayson Warren Brown, a Presbyterian convert who set the entire Mass to gospel-style music. Fr William Norvel, a Josephite, helped introduce gospel choirs to Black Catholic parishes nationwide. This "Gospel Mass" trend quickly spread across the nation.
Even as these new changes swept through the emerging "Black Catholic Church", so too did the backlash and general unease with which many Black Catholics held their faith. As they embraced a more robust Black nationalism, it often clashed with all they knew Catholicism to represent. This sentiment was not limited to laypeople nor did was it contradicted by White reactions to the movement/revolution, as many dioceses, religious orders, parishes, and lay groups reacted negatively to both the Civil Rights and Black Power movements on the whole.
In 1970, the National Black Catholic Lay Caucus was founded. It partnered with the NBCCC, NBSC, NBCSA, and NOBC in combating the marginalization of Blacks. At their first meeting in August of that year, they drafted a resolution echoing the demands of the inaugural NBCCC meeting two years prior. In addition, they added new demands, such as four Black bishops, greater lay and youth decision-making power, and "hierarchical support in developing an African-American liturgy".
In summer 1971, the NBCLC staged a sit-in at the Josephites' headquarters, demanding similar changes.

Education reform, Black offices and exodus (1971–1975)

After the NOBC was allotted only 30% of their requested funding for 1970 by the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops and after Cardinal O'Boyle announced his retirement, a delegation of Black Catholics led by the NBCLC president brought their grievances to the Vatican in 1971. They informed Deputy Secretary of State Abp Giovanni Benelli that the American bishops had been "lying" to Rome about the state of Black Catholicism. They demanded that a Black man be appointed as the next Archbishop of Washington, D.C., an African-American rite be created, and an African-American cardinal be named.
That same year, the NBSC, NOBC, and various Black Catholic laypeople spearheaded a national campaign to stop the mass closings of Catholic schools in urban and predominantly Black communities. In many cases, neglected and/or to-be-shuttered Black Catholic schools were adapted as community-led institutions. Much like the period some 125 years prior, Black nuns led a movement to educate Black children in a time when the American and Catholic White hierarchy did not seem to care to.
During this same period, Black Catholic ministries began to pop up in dioceses around the country, often in response to hostile conditions and with pushback from many Black Catholics themselves.
The unrest extended into seminaries as well. At the Josephites', tensions between the more race-conscious Black students/members and their White peers, as well as with teachers/elders boiled over into open hostility. Many students left the seminary and a number of Josephite priests resigned. By 1971, the seminary had closed for studies. To this day, Josephite seminarians study at nearby universities, and their vocations from Black Americans has never recovered.
A wave of resignations by priests occurred across Black Catholicism in the 1970s and coincided with a general nadir of American Catholicism overall. Catholics of all races began lapsing in droves. Between 1970 and 1975, hundreds of Black Catholic seminarians, dozens of Black Catholic priests, and 125 Black nuns left their posts, including NBCS foundress Sr. Martin de Porres Grey in 1974. Up to 20% of Black Catholics stopped practicing.

New organizations, major thinkers and USCCB letter (late 1970s)

Even with the decline in vocations and lay practice during the 1970s, various new national Black Catholic organizations emerged by the end of the decade.
During the early to mid-1970s, the various Black Catholic diocesan offices/ministries began to gain official recognition and approval. In 1976 their leaders formed a consortium known as the National Association of Black Catholic Administrators. The next year, the NOBC became a member, and eventually the NABCA subsumed the NOBC altogether.
The Black Catholic Theological Symposium, a yearly gathering dedicated to the promotion of Black Catholic theology, emerged in 1978 in Baltimore. From it has come some of the leading voices not only in Black Catholic theology, but in Womanist and Black theology as well: a founder of one of the watershed organizations of the latter movement was the aforementioned Fr Lucas. Writers such as Dr Diana L. Hayes, Dr M. Shawn Copeland, Sr Jamie T. Phelps, Fr Cyprian Davis, and Servant of God Thea Bowman have had an immeasurable influence in advancing the cause of Black Catholic history, theology, theory, and liturgy.
The next year in 1979, the Institute for Black Catholic Studies was founded at Xavier University of Louisiana. Every summer since, it has hosted a variety of accredited courses on Black Catholic theology, ministry, ethics, and history, offering a Continuing Education and Enrichment program, as well as a Master of Theology degree. It is "the only graduate theology program in the western hemisphere taught from a Black Catholic perspective".
That same year, the USCCB issued a pastoral letter dissecting and condemning racism, entitled "Brothers and Sisters to Us", for the first time addressing the issue in a group publication.