Happy Black Catholic History Month 2024!

With the start of November we enter into that glorious month celebrated as Black Catholic History Month! My apostolate annually celebrates this good month to share even more so the history of Black Catholics in both American history and in world history.

Why is there a National Black Catholic History Month? Why November? How will my apostolate be celebrating it? How does all this tie further into Black history in general?

Here’s a brief history of how this celebration got started from the Office of Multicultural Ministry of the Diocese of St. Petersburg:

“The National Black Catholic Clergy Caucus (NBCCC) of the United States voted on Tuesday, July 24, 1990 while meeting in convention at Fordham University in New York, to establish November as BLACK CATHOLIC HISTORY MONTH. The reason behind the selection of the month of November was the number of important dates to Catholics of African descent that fell within this month.”

Those dates were:

“Nov. 1 All Saints Day: an opportunity to review the lives of the hundreds of Saints of African descent in the first 300 years of the Church.

Nov. 2 All Souls Day: a time to remember all those African lost to cruel treatment in the Middle Passage crossing of the Atlantic Ocean.

Nov. 3 Martin de Porres became the first black American saint. He was canonized by Pope John XXIII on May 16, 1962.

Throughout his life, St. Martin de Porres exemplified God’s love for all people, regardless of their level in society.

Nov. 13 The birth of St. Augustine in 354 A.D., the first Doctor of the Church from North Africa.

Nov. 20 The death of Zumbi of Palmares in Brazil, South American founder of a free state for Blacks.”

It went on to state that various cities began the very first celebration of Black Catholic History Month in November 1990 on the feast day of St. Martin de Porres. The way I celebrate is by tailoring a lot of special content to Black Catholic history and, at times, current Black Catholic history being made in the present time here, on Twitter, and on my website.

I mark this month every year (along with Black History Month in February) as a time for my apostolate to do a little celebration. I do this for two reasons: 1 – it’s “right and just” to do this as a Black Catholic apostolate and 2 – more importantly, to raise awareness of Black Catholic history especially to other African Americans (Catholic and non-Catholic) to let them know we got TWO months to celebrate Black history! Not 28 but 58 days! But of course in reality we got all 365 if you wanna get real, though.

And can’t forget about Juneteenth.

I celebrate by featuring a lot of Black Catholic history stuff on my website and my social media extensions on FB and X (formerly Twitter).

And there goes that. Let the celebration begin!