Baton Rouge Area Native Sees Struggles of African American Community During Pilgrimage

A Baton Rouge area native participated in a Glenmary Home Missioners’ pilgrimage through Alabama, Mississippi, and Tennessee that presented the realities of the struggles the African American community have historically faced. The pilgrims prayed at sites significant to the slavery era and the Civil Rights Movement of the 1950s and '60s and met with contemporary community workers. 

 

The group visited Montgomery, Alabama, the site of the Montgomery Bus Boycott, 1955-56, a prominent moment in civil rights history. The boycott began when civil rights activist Rosa Parks was arrested for not giving up her bus seat to a white man. This moved Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr. to enter a leadership position in the Civil Rights Movement. 

 

Parks met with St. John Paul II during his 1999 pastoral visit to St. Louis.  

 

The pilgrims also visited Birmingham's 16th Street Baptist Church, where a 1963 Ku Klux Klan bombing caused the death of four child congregants. The bombing led to protests at Kelly Ingram Park, where months later, people watched on national television as police attacked youth protesters with police dogs, fire hoses, and water cannons. Today, sculptures and a civil rights museum commemorate those events.  

 

From there the pilgrims walked across the Edmund Pettis Bridge in Selma, Alabama, where in 1965 the nation again witnessed law enforcement attacking the protestors.

    

In Mississippi, the group prayed at the Canton home of Servant of God Sister Thea Bowman, the first African American to become a member of the Franciscan Sisters of Perpetual Adoration. She was a prominent leader in the Black Catholic movement and worked for intercultural understanding in churches across the nation. A cause for Sister Thea’s canonization is underway. 

Top right photo: Father Dan Dorsey, right, and Brother Joe Steen look at sculptures of police dogs used to attack Civil Rights Movement protestors at Kelly Ingram Park in Birmingham, Alabama. Photos by John Feister  
Above Photo: Pilgrims walk across the Edmund Pettis Bridge in Selma, Alabama. 
While in Mississippi, pilgrims also visited the Jackson home of slain civil rights activist Medgar Evers, who was killed in his driveway by an assassin while his wife and young children were nearby. The home is a National Historic Landmark.  

 

In Greenwood, Mississippi, the group visited Bryant's Grocery and Meat Market. There Emmett Till, 14, who was Black, was falsely accused of flirting with and touching a White woman. In 1955 the woman’s relatives kidnapped, tortured, and murdered Till. 

 

The goal of the pilgrimage, according to Baton Rouge area native Brother Jude Smith, was to clarify the nature of Glenmary Missioners’ work as they serve in the United States and several territories and encounter a diversity of people, including African Americans, people who live in Appalachia, immigrants, the Latino speaking population, etc. 

 

“What I appreciated (about the pilgrimage) is that I am currently doing my clinical (rotation) in pastoral education, and when I finish in Mid-August I will be moving into a longer term-assignment in Blakley, Georgia, which is predominately African American,” said Brother Jude. 

 

He grew up in Independence and attended Mater Dolorosa School and was a member of the first graduating class at St. Thomas Aquinas High School in Hammond and an alum of Southeastern University in Hammond. -He later studied at The Institute for Black Catholic Studies at Xavier University in New Orleans before going to Xavier University in Cincinnati to pursue a degree in theology. 

 

Brother Jude grew up in a non-racist family, yet it did not talk about the trials the African American population faced.  

 

“We grew up just treating everybody equally and fairly,” Brother Jude said. 

He added, “I grew up in a very multicultural (environment), so on the pilgrimage it was shocking to see the inhumane way people treated other individuals.” 

 

Thirteen of the 31 pilgrimage members were Kenyan and Ugandan students in Glenmary formation. This was their first time to see the troubled history in the south, but it was eye-opening for all, according to Brother Jude. 

“From Birmingham to Montgomery, even in recent times racism and bigotry has not really died out. It’s definitely come a long way, but just to see that and know that people deserve better.” 

Father Dan Dorsey, president of Glenmary Missioners, said some people on the pilgrimage had their own memories of the Civil Rights Movement. Father Dorsey has ties with the Diocese of Baton Rouge and Archdiocese of New Orleans through visits to the state to give retreats and attend other events, during which he has made friends, particularly in the religious communities. 

 

Father Dorsey spoke about his experiences with racism when he attended Christian Brothers College in Memphis, Tennessee, and walked on to the basketball team. 

“It was 1969 … and the racial tension was boiling. Dr. (Martin Luther) King had just been assassinated the year before. I would go on these basketball trips down to Mississippi. It was eye opening because we got a lot of grief (due to the Black basketball team members).” 

 

A couple of years ago Father Dorsey read the book (and saw the movie) “Just Mercy” by Brian Stevenson, founder of the Equal Justice Initiative, a legal practice dedicated to defending “those trapped in the farthest reaches of our criminal justice system.” This inspired him to do the Pilgrimage. 

 

Father Dorsey said, “I wanted to do something that is founded in prayer and reflection about the dignity of every human being.” 

 

He coordinated the trip with Polly Duncan Collum, Glenmary's director of justice, peace, and integrity of creation. 

 

The trip exceeded Father Dorsey’s expectations by fostering conversion of hearts. 

“Sometimes it’s best to be in a position of being uncomfortable. That’s the only way you change,” Father Dorsey said.