In 1971, six Black Catholics—representing newly-founded organizations of Black religious sisters and brothers, priests, and laypeople in the US—traveled to Rome to seek an audience with Pope Paul VI. Their purpose was to seek the Pope’s approval for an African American Ordinariate, an ecclesial structure independent from the US Catholic bishops yet in communion with Rome. They believed that the Catholic Church was dying in Black communities and they demanded Black Catholic leadership over the church in those communities. Their demands had resonance with the Black Power movement, but were also consistent with the teachings of the Second Vatican Council (1962–1965). Unsuccessful at gaining an audience with Pope Paul, they secured meetings Vatican officials, including Undersecretary of State Giovanni Benelli. Jet magazine reported the delegation expressed that the American bishops “‘have been lying to the Vatican’ about Blacks in the American church.” The fiery assertion reflected frustration with the marginalization of Black Catholic leadership. The delegation’s presence at the Vatican reflected how Black Catholics understood their standing in the Catholic Church. They were not just a part of white US Catholicism; they were their own local church, part of a worldwide communion. From the 1960s through the 1990s, in the face of divestment of predominantly Black parishes and schools, Black Catholics fought in creative ways to keep Black-serving Catholic institutions alive. And they also kept alive the dream of the Ordinariate.

The proposed project, “The Black Catholic Movement and the Fight for the Local Church,” traces the struggle of Black Catholics to create and maintain their own institutions, with special attention to Black Catholic efforts to create ecclesial governance structures under Black control. At a current moment of closures and mergers, Black Catholic self-determination remains at the heart of the struggle for the future of Black Catholicism.