Catholicism and 1960s black power movement?

[PraiseChrist]

Hi,

Did the Catholic Church ever come out with any documents or such, relating to civil rights and black power of the 1960s?

Thank you

 

[Hatikvah]

Hi,

Did the Catholic Church ever come out with any documents or such, relating to civil rights and black power of the 1960s?

Thank you

I’ve never thought about this myself very much. Well, as we know, President JFK was the first Catholic president and he supported the Civil Rights (not black power) movement [source]. From what I’ve looked up, it seems that the Church in itself did not make any motions, but some individual members (and clergy, too) took sides.

In Alabama the Catholic Church’s involvement with the civil rights movement was decidedly mixed. Most of Alabama’s white Catholics shared white southerners’ racism and initially opposed the goals of the movement. They preferred order and stability instead of activism for integration and racial justice.

Catholic teaching clearly opposed racial discrimination, however, and after the mid-1960s there was little official sympathy for segregation. [Source]

When it came to the Civil Rights Movement of the 1950s and 1960s, the Catholic Church played an ambivalent, unclear role… Overall, the Catholic Church… failed to take an active role in the organized mass protests against racial discrimination but did witness some efforts by individual members to aid the cause of civil rights. [Source and more info]

I didn’t find anything objectively on black power, only on black rights.

 

[PraiseChrist]

Thank you very much

 

[edwest2]

“Black Power” was a mixture of things. It was exemplified by Malcolm X and the Black Panthers. The media painted the Panthers as an extremist group, possibly involved in Communist activities, but they were not that. They were a group of black people trying to help black people, with a few extremists in their midst. Yes, there was some violence but ‘police brutality’ was a reality in some places. Only the Reverend Martin Luther King, Jr. held the nonviolent position as fire hoses were turned on his marchers and the police threatened them with dogs, while others threw things at the marchers. There is some evidence Malcolm X was headed toward that position and had met with the Reverend King. In his speeches, Malcolm X pointed out to his black audience that white people had convinced even them about certain things that were not true. Much later, Anglican Bishop Desmond Tutu of Africa realized fear that the pilots flying him to some destination were not competent because they were black and even he was infected, to a degree, with the wrong mindset. He didn’t realize it until then.

But back to the Catholic Church:

cuomeka.wrlc.org/exhibits/show/the-catholic-church–bishops–/background/background2

Ed

 

[Exiled_Child]

“Black Power” was a mixture of things. It was exemplified by Malcolm X and the Black Panthers. The media painted the Panthers as an extremist group, possibly involved in Communist activities, but they were not that. They were a group of black people trying to help black people, with a few extremists in their midst. Yes, there was some violence but ‘police brutality’ was a reality in some places. Only the Reverend Martin Luther King, Jr. held the nonviolent position as fire hoses were turned on his marchers and the police threatened them with dogs, while others threw things at the marchers. There is some evidence Malcolm X was headed toward that position and had met with the Reverend King. In his speeches, Malcolm X pointed out to his black audience that white people had convinced even them about certain things that were not true. Much later, Anglican Bishop Desmond Tutu of Africa realized fear that the pilots flying him to some destination were not competent because they were black and even he was infected, to a degree, with the wrong mindset. He didn’t realize it until then.

But back to the Catholic Church:

cuomeka.wrlc.org/exhibits/show/the-catholic-church–bishops–/background/background2

Ed

Thanks for the link, Ed; that was new information to me.

 

[PraiseChrist]

Thank you. Also very insightful information. Though this time period brought about a number of bad things [like Roe v. Wade] , we can see that these aspects are to be celebrated…

Again, this is helpful. I asked this because I wanted a Catholic perspective on this mvt.