Negroes In My Parish?
New York: The America Press, 1958. 16 pp pamphlet measuring 3 ½ x 6 inches, in paper wraps. Wraps with wear to edges and some wrinkling to bottom right corner; very good plus. Contents with fold at bottom right corner; very good plus. Overall very good plus. Item #List3836 A booklet about segregation in the Catholic Church, written in 1958 by William Hopp, a reverend born and raised in the South. Though Hopp opens by stating that “Most of the Negroes here are a very low class of people, morally, socially and intellectually” (1), the pamphlet’s message is ultimately anti-segregation. It centers around an incident in which an African American man attending Midnight Mass was asked by a white parishioner, against Hopp’s wishes, to move to the back row of pews. The man instead left and refused to return to services at Hopp’s church. Hopp describes this as a “test case” that the Black parishioner created to “involve the pastor in trouble” along racial lines—”just when [the pastor] thinks he is making progress in inculcating the teachings that will in time give the Negro his rights” (7)—which he says are commonly created by “arrogan[t] [...] educated Southern Negroes” (5). He describes discussing the incident with his conversion class, and how he felt a sense of disgust the first time he shook hands with a Black man, but emphasizes that the Catholic Church is for all people and that segregation contravenes its teachings. OCLC locates one copy of Hopp’s booklet, housed at Columbia University.
Price: $375.00