The Federated Colored Catholics (FCC), originally the Committee against the Extension of Race Prejudice in the Church, then the Committee for the Advancement of Colored Catholics, was a Black Catholic organization founded in 1925 by

Thomas Wyatt Turner Thomas Wyatt Turner (March 16, 1877 – April 21, 1978) was an American civil rights activist, biologist and educator. He was the first Black American to receive a PhD in Botany, and helped found both the NAACP and the Federated Colored Catho ...

. It was a kind of

spiritual successor A spiritual successor (sometimes called a spiritual sequel) is a product or fictional work that is similar to, or directly inspired by, another previous work, but (unlike a traditional prequel or sequel) does not explicitly continue the product lin ...

Daniel Rudd Daniel Arthur Rudd (August 7, 1854December 3, 1933) was a Black Catholic journalist and early Civil Rights leader. He is known for starting in 1885 what has been called "the first newspaper printed by and for Black Americans", the ''Ohio Tribun ...

Colored Catholic Congress The Colored Catholic Congress movement was a series of meetings organized by Daniel Rudd in the late 19th and early 20th centuries for African-American Catholics to discuss issues affecting their communities, churches, and other institutions. Pa ...

movement (1889-1904), providing an organized voice in an era of nearly unchecked

anti-Blackness Negrophobia (also termed anti-Blackness) is characterized by a fear, hatred or extreme aversion to Black people and Black culture worldwide. Caused amongst other factors by racism and traumatic events and circumstances, symptoms of this phobia i ...

and

systemic racism Institutional racism, also known as systemic racism, is a form of racism that is embedded in the laws and regulations of a society or an organization. It manifests as discrimination in areas such as criminal justice, employment, housing, healt ...

History

The FCC was originally founded as a small group advocating for Black uplift, and later expanded within the local area before becoming a federated group of chapters in various other cities. They engaged in a number of social justice efforts, including a concerted push for more Black priests, who at the time were extremely few. (US seminaries had been entirely closed to Blacks until the late 19th century, and to a continuing extent thereafter.) The FCC's main target in this regard was the Society of St Joseph of the Sacred Heart, a mostly

White White is the lightest color and is achromatic (having no hue). It is the color of objects such as snow, chalk, and milk, and is the opposite of black. White objects fully reflect and scatter all the visible wavelengths of light. White on ...

order that ministered specifically to African-Americans. At the FCC's meeting in 1928 in

Cincinnati Cincinnati ( ) is a city in the U.S. state of Ohio and the county seat of Hamilton County. Settled in 1788, the city is located at the northern side of the confluence of the Licking and Ohio rivers, the latter of which marks the state line wit ...

, several of the first openly Black Catholic priests were mentioned in the program, including Frs

Augustus Tolton John Augustus Tolton (April 1, 1854 – July 9, 1897), baptized Augustine Tolton, was the first Catholic priest in the United States publicly known to be Black. (The Healy brothers, who preceded him, all passed for White.) Tolton was ordaine ...

John Henry Dorsey John is a common English name and surname: * John (given name) * John (surname) John may also refer to: New Testament Works * Gospel of John, a title often shortened to John * First Epistle of John, often shortened to 1 John * Second E ...

, SSJ;

Charles Uncles Charles Randolph Uncles, Josephite Fathers, SSJ (November 8, 1859 — July 20, 1933) was an Black Catholicism, African-American Catholic Priesthood in the Catholic Church, priest. In 1891, he became the first such priest ordained on US soil. Two y ...

, SSJ;

Stephen Theobald Stephen or Steven is a common English first name. It is particularly significant to Christians, as it belonged to Saint Stephen ( grc-gre, Στέφανος ), an early disciple and deacon who, according to the Book of Acts, was stoned to death; h ...

Norman Dukette Norman or Normans may refer to: Ethnic and cultural identity * The Normans, a people partly descended from Norse Vikings who settled in the territory of Normandy in France in the 10th and 11th centuries ** People or things connected with the Norm ...

; Joseph A. John, SMA; and Augustine Derricks, OSST. The clashes between the FCC and the Josephites would eventually lead to the expulsion of FCC firebrand Marcellus Dorsey (brother of Josephite priest John Dorsey) from the

Knights of Peter Claver The Knights of Peter Claver and Ladies Auxiliary is an international Catholic fraternal service order. Founded in 1909 by the Josephites and parishioners from Most Pure Heart of Mary Catholic Church in Mobile, Alabama, it is the largest and o ...

, a Black Catholic fraternal organization the Josephites helped found in 1909. Two White Jesuit priests,

John LaFarge Jr. John LaFarge Jr. (February 13, 1880 – November 24, 1963) was an American Jesuit Catholic priest known for his activism against racism and anti-semitism. Involved in the heyday (and eventual breakup) of Thomas Wyatt Turner's Federated Color ...

and William Markoe, later became major backers of and leaders in the FCC, eventually pushing the organization into a more interracial direction—against Turner's will. The group would eventually splinter over this conflict, with LaFarge establishing the short-lived Catholic Interracial Council of New York, which spawned several other chapters. The FCC would itself die off in 1952, eventually succeeded by other national Black Catholic organizations such as the

National Black Catholic Congress The National Black Catholic Congress (NBCC) is a Black Catholic advocacy group and quinquennial conference in the United States. It is a spiritual successor to Daniel Rudd's Colored Catholic Congress movement of the late 19th and early 20th centur ...

References

{{Catholic laity African-American Roman Catholicism Christian organizations established in 1925 Catholic lay organisations History of Catholicism in the United States