Sixty years to the day after the original March on Washington, panelists at a Georgetown University forum on the march’s effects and legacy said the Catholic Church and its leaders have muted their voices on racial justice.
“The Catholic faith that I adhere to honors and respects social justice, racial justice and economic justice as a primary tenet of our faith,” said panelist Marc Morial, president and CEO of the National Urban League, a sponsor of the 1963 march, but since the original march, he said he’s seen “a fundamental diminution of that.”
“I have concern today because we’re not hearing the voices of our faith leaders, especially our Catholic faith leaders,” agreed Sister Anita Baird, a Daughter of the Heart of Mary who is the founding director of the Archdiocese of Chicago’s Office for Racial Justice. “It has to be faith, it has to be love, it has to be the Gospel that frees us from this hate.”
Sister Baird said, “Today we have become very silent and have sold out to a system that does not have what is right for all people.” She charged, “We have sold out for life in the womb, but we could care less for them after.”
“It’s difficult for me to sometimes go to a Mass and listen to a sermon or homily that never mentions racial justice or economic justice, that waxes in the abstract,” Morial admitted. “In some cases, the leadership of the Church is missing this moment, missing their responsibility today, and I want them to hear it.”
The speakers made their remarks during an Aug. 28 forum, “The Sixtieth Anniversary of the March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom: Keeping the Dream Alive,” sponsored by Georgetown’s Initiative on Catholic Social Thought and Public Life.
Morial gave credit to Georgetown President John DeGioia, who “did something courageous several years ago when he talked about the role this university has played” in slavery, as one Jesuit priest arranged for the sale of 272 enslaved men, women and children to pay for the debts incurred in running Georgetown.
He also lauded former Archbishop Joseph Rummel of New Orleans. In 1956, Archbishop Rummel “issued an encyclical and sought to desegregate the Catholic schools in New Orleans. He faced a vicious backlash, including an effort to boycott, pickets in his home, full-page ads,” Morial said. “He backed off a bit” – Catholic schools there didn’t desegregate until 1963 – but “he excommunicated three segregationist politicians. He had the courage and conviction to excommunicate these people for their actions.”
Asked during the question-and-answer session following the forum why the Catholic bishops “aren’t saying anything,” Sister Baird replied, “What does it come down to? The pocketbook. Money. ... because pastors are afraid that people will stop giving their checks. But if you stand on the side of the Gospel, you have to be able to speak truth to power. We have to challenge our bishops. I hate to say it this way, but we have to be careful about who we go to bed with, and who we owe. Because it compromises us, and we’re seeing that.”
At another point in the program, Sister Baird said, “We march every January in D.C. for the right to life. What would it look like if it marched for the dignity of all people?” as many people in the audience applauded. “What would that say?”
Andrew Prevot, a Georgetown theology professor and co-editor of the 2017 book “Anti-Blackness and Christian Ethics,” said the 1963 march, even though it didn’t use the specific wording, was all about the preferential option for the poor. “That’s what I want you all to remember and burn on your hearts.”
Prevot added, “God, obviously, loves everyone in a personal way, but the preferential option for the poor is a preferential care and concern for those who have been depressed, mistreated, misunderstood. Those are the people with whom God works and stands and lives.” For A. Philip Randolph, a Black labor leader who conceived of the march earlier in the summer of ‘63, it “was a march ‘for jobs and freedom,’” he said.
“The real dream was material, concrete improvements in improving the lives of Black people – jobs, schools, things we still need in those communities today,” Prevot said.
Lauren Reliford, political director at Sojourners, a Christian social justice organization, who has degrees from Boston College and The Catholic University of America, said her uncle’s parents forbade him from going to the original march.
“Every night you would have dinner at six, and we would be watching the news,” Reliford said. “It seemed all they were doing was seeing violence. ... anti-Blackness, Black hatred. It sounds a lot like where we’re living now.” It was also a non-starter, she noted, “to come into a city where our safety was not guaranteed.”
Reliford said those who write legislation and policy “don’t talk about what it’s like to use these programs” since they have no first-hand experience. “There’s no middle class, of what we knew as a middle class. ‘Working poor’ is what we say as middle class. We have the 2017 Trump tax cuts make it easier for those who have the most, while lumping everyone else as ‘good luck.’”
She added, “Until you are actually OK with Black people existing, our policies are never going to work. ... If you want to be values-based, look at what your values are espousing. We need be real about the fact that these people are looking at this data. They take your hand, punch you in the face with it, and then ask you, ‘Why are you hitting yourself?’”
Even though she gets burned out from her work, Reliford said she keeps on pushing because “my sole assignment is bigger. I can’t let God down.”
At Sister Baird’s parish, St. Sabina in Chicago, there is a large mural of the Last Supper. “Around this table are men and women and children of every nationality. At the center the image of Christ is very faint; you can barely see it,” she said. “I asked, and the pastor gave me this answer: ‘Until there is a place for everyone at this table, Jesus cannot come into the fullness of His glory.’ So, every time I come in I ask, ‘What have I done to bring Jesus into the fullness of his glory?’”
