(Dena Grant, a lifelong member of St. Augustine Parish in Washington, D.C., was interviewed for the Black Catholic Voices series on Jan. 12, 2021 by Mark Zimmermann, the Catholic Standard’s editor. Grant, a native of Washington, works for the Library of Congress. Over the years, she has been a religious education teacher at St. Augustine Parish, served on its parish council and its Black History Committee, as a member and leader of the Sodality and as a Girl Scout leader there. She also volunteers with the “Read 2 Lead” Book Club at St. Augustine Catholic School. St. Augustine Parish, regarded as the mother church for African American Catholics in the nation’s capital, was founded first as a Catholic school in 1858 by free men and women of color, including some people emancipated from slavery. This interview took place at St. Augustine Church.)
How would you summarize your faith journey as a Catholic who is African American?
Dena Grant – “My faith journey as a Catholic and an African American is by God’s grace and mercy. Through trials and tribulations, we know God is with us, and we are still here to do His work.”
What have you learned from the witness of faith of other Black Catholics, how has that shaped your life?
Dena Grant – “What I’ve learned from is the witness of other Black Catholics and how that has shaped my life is through their faith and perseverance and, particularly a Church like St. Augustine, it is still here after 100 and almost 63 years.
“You know other people say, ‘Why are you Catholic?’ Well, why aren’t we Catholic? We could have been any denomination, but we chose to be Catholic. St. Augustine was never a mission church, we were a church of movement for our own faith, for our own people.
“So faith and determination is what I’ve learned from people in my family as well as the people, the founding members of St. Augustine, the members that I have learned about, and the members I was blessed to deal with growing up and the members we have today.
“(I learned from the example of) my grandmother Mary Carter, Mrs. Pauline Jones, the blessed Oblate Sisters of Providence who taught me from kindergarten through 8th grade, through our oldest parishioner when I was growing up, Carrie Bester, who used to baby-sit the kids coming from St. Augustine School in her apartment... People who just worked hard, and they kept the faith.”
In January, we celebrated Catholic Schools Week, and I wanted to ask you about your experience in Catholic education, how that shaped you, and about the importance of St. Augustine Catholic School – the founders started St. Augustine as a school first – and this legacy of Catholic education that it continues?
Dena Grant – “St. Augustine School and Catholic education teaches you faith. It teaches you service, and particularly before the phrase ‘social justice’ was coined, we were taught social justice. When I got to high school at the Academy of Notre Dame, the Sisters of Notre Dame de Namur, we had a semester where we had to go out and do something in the field of social justice. And those principles of faith and service, and social justice, volunteerism, it sticks with you throughout life.
“I kind of grew up in the era where somebody would call up and ask my grandmother, ‘I need the girls – my sister and I – to do something,’ and you just did it, but you didn’t ask any questions. But you knew instinctively that you had to give back. You had to help the seniors in the parish. You had to help when it came time for Christmas or Easter or anytime they needed to decorate the church, and then you kind of find your own niche, what you like to do.
“I’ve been active in so many things in the church, and one of the things I do now is I have a book club in the school, and I have to give Sister Gabriel Walker, OSP, (Oblate Sister of Providence) credit, because when I went to the seventh grade and eighth grade (at St. Augustine School), she was our seventh grade English teacher. She said if you want to get an ‘A’ out of my class, you have to read X amount of books each month. So she opened up the world of literature even more to me, who loved reading.
“So those are just many of the things I do around here. I’ve been a CCD teacher. I’ve been on the Black History Committee, I’ve been on the Parish Council, I’m a member of the Sodality, I’m a past prefect of the Sodality, I’m a current Girl Scout leader, I have the book club with the children. Whatever everybody asks, I help.
“What does the history (of St. Augustine Parish and School) mean to me? Perseverance and faith, and building for the next generation. Those Black Catholics (who founded the parish) had been meeting in the basement of what was St. Matthew’s Church, in the 1830s, 1840s… And then we came to the year that we went back to the Post (in downtown Washington, the Washington Post building built on the site of the original St. Augustine Church) in 1984 to celebrate and to put the plaque there.
“At the time, the parish council and other leadership juggled with, ‘what is the founding date?’ (for the parish), because we have been there for decades, and so they chose 1858, because that was the year that the school was founded by parishioners and the staff. The principal was a member of the girls’ department, and the principal of the boys’ department was a parishioner.”
Dena Grant, shown at St. Augustine Church before a recent Sunday Mass, said the witness of her family and parishioners there has shaped her life. (CS photo/Andrew Biraj)
What does it mean to you, that the school is continuing that legacy?
Dena Grant – “It’s unbelievable at times when I think about. It is unbelievable. And you see that, when you see the historic black colleges and other schools that have continued, that people had the foresight then to plant those seeds, that we could keep them going today.”
In January, we also celebrated the life of Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King and his legacy of working for racial justice and fighting racism, and I wanted to ask you if there are instances of racism that you have experienced in society or the Catholic Church that remain as painful memories?
Dena Grant – “Not that I can pinpoint, but you knew it was there. I grew up in a segregated city. I grew up around the corner. I have lived in the neighborhood all my life. I remember April 4, 1968 (the day Dr. King was assassinated). I was at ground zero when the riots broke out, though I was just 5 years old. I could still smell in my in my head the smell of the burning buildings. In fact, I have a grenade that I found in our backyard that I keep from those days. We knew it was a challenge. In those days, the Catholic schools, the high schools, were not open like they are now, but we knew we were prepared, and we were best or better than the kids that we later met on through life. Yes, we were very much prepared thanks to the Oblate sisters and our parents...”
What is your reaction to the nationwide demonstrations for racial justice that have happened since this spring in the wake of unarmed men and women of color being killed by police?
Dena Grant – “It’s very sad, but it’s something that had to happen. It (nationwide protests for racial justice) will probably continue happening until we kind of get it right. My reaction and feelings about the unrest that we’ve had (since) this summer due to the unarmed killings of black men in particular was that, it was a time to come, that was coming, because we never addressed it. We keep putting the Band-Aid on it, or we’re sweeping it under the rug or we’re saying this is not us, but truthfully it is us until we accept it and move beyond it.
“I’ve been down to Black Lives Matter Plaza. Since I live right here in the neighborhood, weekly there are protests going down the street, and I’m renewed because when you go down there, it is everybody coming together to see how can we deal with this and move on, and I’m really inspired by so many young people who have taken an active role in protesting, getting out the vote in this last election and trying to heal and move the country and the world forward.”
People of color – African Americans, Latinos, and Native Americans – have been hardest hit by the health and economic impacts of the coronavirus pandemic. What does it say about our country, and what should our country do about this?
Dena Grant – “People of color are being hard hit by the coronavirus, and we’re not looking after the least of these. I take a daily walk around the neighborhood because I telework, I’m working from home, and I’ve seen businesses close up. I’ve seen businesses are struggling to stay on.
“I’ve known people who have lost their jobs throughout this pandemic, but typically (it’s) the workers in the service industry, and those are the least paid. Then we are seeing the rollout of the vaccine, and we just pray and hope that we can get everybody vaccinated. We can get past this current crisis so we can get the country back together again and get people working, get people feeling safe and secure again.”
Dena Grant, shown at St. Augustine Church, has volunteered there in many roles over the years, guided by lessons she learned at home and at Catholic school to serve others and her church however she can. (CS photo/Andrew Biraj)
Cardinal Gregory has noted that while the nation confronts the coronavirus pandemic, it must also address the virus of racism. What do you think the Catholic Church should do as an institution to combat racism, and what do you think individual Catholics should do?
Dena Grant – “…I think it’s time for people to accept the fact that it happens, and once you accept that it’s there, let’s talk so we can begin to teach each other, to learn from each other, to heal, so we can move on. A lot of times we think, ‘Oh, it’s not that serious’ until it blows up, or ‘Oh, how are you all feeling this way after all these years?’ but it’s never really fully been addressed, and we’ve never gone through that birthing process to get it out there so we can heal.”
What do you think Catholics should do, what should the Church do (to address racism)?
Dena Grant – “To admit (it). Like very slowly, some of them are. Like the whole Georgetown, the GU-272 Project (addressing how Maryland’s Jesuit order sold 272 enslaved men, women and children in 1838, raising funds that helped keep Georgetown University operating), to admit their role in it so we can dialogue and so we can begin to move on and to begin to build people so we can continue the good work that we’ve been called to do.”
How have you kept the faith, both your Catholic faith and your faith for our country, over the years, despite this “virus” of racism that has infected both, and what gives you hope for a better future for our Church and our country?
Dena Grant – “Faith, faith that I learned from my mother and my grandmother. Faith I’ve learned through growing up, and I just was thinking recently about something Sister Gabriel Walker, OSP, told us. Something happened in the classroom, and she said, ‘Don’t confuse God’s actions and man’s actions.’ So you have to separate the two, and she reminded us that the Church was built on St. Peter, who we know, St. Peter denied Christ.
“So you have to keep focused on the Lord and what you are called to do. And don’t let other people’s actions dissuade you from living out your faith, increasing your faith, and treating each other as you like yourself to be treated.”
What is your reaction to Pope Francis elevating Washington Cardinal Wilton Gregory to the College of Cardinals, making him the first African American cardinal in the history of the Catholic Church in the United States – what does that mean to you, and what do you think it means to the nation’s Black Catholics?
Dena Grant – “Cardinal Gregory becoming the first black cardinal, what took so long?... Because in the American Church, we’ve had African American bishops… since the late Bishop Perry… (New Orleans Auxiliary Bishop Harold Perry, who served there from 1965 until his death in 1991).
“…I remember the late Mrs. Pauline Jones (a noted St. Augustine’s parishioner who helped preserve and share its history) had a tradition for each Trinity Sunday, which we designate as the founding of our parish, that we would invite back all of the Black bishops. When Bishop Gregory came many years ago in the ‘90s, he told St. Augustine to ‘keep the bread fresh,’ meaning we’ve done so much with music and social justice and education, to keep the bread fresh. So we’re happy that he’s here with us to keep the bread fresh at St. Augustine and throughout the Archdiocese of Washington.”
