RELIGION
Patrick Saint-Jean, S.J
We say Black Lives Matter because “All” didn’t include Black when they said “Liberty and Justice for All.” Did you know? In 1492, Christopher Columbus “discovered” the “New World” with the support of the church. When he arrived in this new land, he enslaved and killed the natives—the tainos. The rise of the slave trade saw people forcefully brought from Africa and sold, mistreated, and killed, often in the name of the Christian faith. (Source: Patrick Saint-Jean, S.J, Article excerpt from US Catholic, September 4, 2020) We are still struggling with the definition of “All.”
We say Black Lives Matter because “All” didn’t include Black when they said “Liberty and Justice for All.” Did you know? The Catholic Church and Pope Leo XIII denounced slavery in 1890, yet Black people had to wait until 1965 to see this condemnation in an official Church document, Gaudium et Spes (“The Pastoral Constitution on the Church in the Modern World” promulgated in 1965). (Source: Patrick Saint-Jean, S.J, Article excerpt from US Catholic, September 4, 2020) We are still struggling with the definition of “All.”
We say Black Lives Matter because “All” didn’t include Black when they said “Liberty and Justice for All.” Did you know? In 1839 Pope Gregory issued an apostolic letter which denounced slavery. A South Carolina Bishop defended the American domestic slave trade, arguing that the pope’s letter referred only to slaves imported by the Spanish and Portuguese. (Source: Cyprian Davis, “Timeline of Black Catholic History,” Peace & Justice, July 24, 2008)
We are still struggling with the definition of “All.”
We say Black Lives Matter because “All” didn’t include Black when they said “Liberty and Justice for All.” Did you know? The fraternity of the Knights of Peter Claver was established in 1909 by Josephite priests as a parallel organization to the Knights of Columbus because Blacks were not accepted in the Knights of Columbus. (Source: Cyprian Davis, “Timeline of Black Catholic History,” Peace & Justice, July 24, 2008) We are still struggling with the definition of “All.”
We say Black Lives Matter because “All” didn’t include Black when they said “All men are created equal.” Did you know? The Committee for the Advancement of Colored Catholics was formed during World War I to care for black Catholic servicemen neglected by the Knights of Columbus. The Committee was led by a Black American biologist and educator, Thomas Wyatt Turner. (Source: Cyprian Davis, “Timeline of Black Catholic History,” Peace & Justice, July 24, 2008) We are still struggling with the definition of “All.”
We say Black Lives Matter because “All” didn’t include Black when they said “Liberty and Justice for All.” Did you know? The U.S. bishops, despite requests from Rome to act on behalf of blacks during the race riots and lynchings of 1919, avoided the topic at their national meeting. (Source: Cyprian Davis, “Timeline of Black Catholic History,” Peace & Justice, July 24, 2008) We are still struggling with the definition of “All.”
We say Black Lives Matter because “All” didn’t include Black when they said “Liberty and Justice for All.” Did you know? After world War I, the Committee for the Advancement of Colored Catholics unsuccessfully urged the bishops to denounce discrimination and consult with Black Catholics saying, "At present we are neither a part of the colored world (Protestant), nor are we generally treated as full-fledged Catholics." (Source: Cyprian Davis, “Timeline of Black Catholic History,” Peace & Justice, July 24, 2008) We are still struggling with the definition of “All.”
We say Black Lives Matter because “All” didn’t include Black when they said “Liberty and Justice for All.” Did you know? In 1920, a Catholic missionary organization in Greenville, Mississippi, with the blessing of Pope Benedict XV, opened St. Augustine's, the first seminary for Blacks training to be priests. It was not until 1958 that the American bishops denounced racial prejudice as immoral. (Source: Cyprian Davis, “Timeline of Black Catholic History,” US Catholic, July 24, 2008) We are still struggling with the definition of “All.”
SCIENCE
We say Black Lives Matter because “All” didn’t include Black when they said “All men are created equal.” Did you know? In 1932, Researchers launched the “Tuskegee Study of Untreated Syphilis in the Negro Male.” Black men with syphilis took part in this study because they were promised free healthcare. The researchers failed to offer the cure, penicillin treatment, to the Tuskegee test subjects or their families. (Source: Nadra Kareem Nittle, “The U.S. Government’s Role in Sterilizing Women of Color,” February 4, 2021) We are still struggling with the definition of “All.”
We say Black Lives Matter because “All” didn’t include Black when they said “Liberty and Justice for All.” Did you know? In Guatemala in 1946, the U.S. government paid for research to be conducted on vulnerable people such as mental patients and prison inmates. Many were injected with syphilis. No treatment or compensation was given to the victims of the Guatemala Syphilis Study. (Source: Nadra Kareem Nittle, “The U.S. Government’s Role in Sterilizing Women of Color,” February 4, 2021) We are still struggling with the definition of “All”
We say Black Lives Matter because “All” didn’t include Black when they said “Liberty and Justice for All.” Did you know? In 1932 government agencies were targeting women of color for sterilization. The state of North Carolina had a eugenics program that aimed to stop poor people and the mentally ill from reproducing. A disproportionate number of the women ultimately targeted were black women. (Source: Nadra Kareem Nittle, “The U.S. Government’s Role in Sterilizing Women of Color,” February 4, 2021) We are still struggling with the definition of “All”
We say Black Lives Matter because “All” didn’t include Black when they said “Liberty and Justice for All.” Did you know? In the 1970s, Native American women reported being sterilized at Indian Health Service hospitals after going in for routine medical services. Minority women were heavily singled out for sterilizations because the largely white male medical establishment believed that lowering the birth rate in minority communities was in society’s best interest. (Source: Nadra Kareem Nittle, “The U.S. Government’s Role in Sterilizing Women of Color,” February 4, 2021)
We say Black Lives Matter because “All” didn’t include Black when they said “Liberty and Justice for All.” Did you know? A 1965 survey of Puerto Rican residents found that about one-third of all Puerto Rican mothers, ages 20-49, were sterilized. Women of childbearing age in Puerto Rico in the 1960s were at least 10 times more likely to be sterilized than women from the United States. (Source, Katheyn Krase in Our Bodies, Ourselves, Oct. 1, 2014) We are still struggling with the definition of “All”
HISTORY
We say Black Lives Matter because “All” didn’t include Black when they said “All men are created equal.” Did you know? In 1787 at the Constitutional Convention there was a compromise to count slaves (Black people) as 3/5th person. (Source: Eric Brunn, American Experience, 2012) We are still struggling with the definition of “All.”
We say Black Lives Matter because “All” didn’t include Black when they said “Liberty and Justice for All.” Did you know? The federal laws such as the 1793 and 1850 Fugitive Slave Acts helped to ensure the recapture of slaves by fining officials who did not arrest the runaways, and imprisoning anyone who aided them. The captured runaways could be tortured, mutilated or killed without legal repercussions. (Source: Eric Brunn, American Experience, 2012) We are still struggling with the definition of “All.”
We say Black Lives Matter because “All” didn’t include Black when they said “Liberty and Justice for All.” Did you know? African American men could not vote till 1867, but there were many obstacles put in front of them so they could not vote. Literacy tests, poll taxes, voter ID requirements, intimidation, threats and acts of violence were all barriers. (Source: Eric Brunn, American Experience, 2012) We are still struggling with the definition of “All.”
We say Black Lives Matter because “All” didn’t include Black when they said “Liberty and Justice for All.” Did you know? In 1920, after a lengthy battle the passage of the 19th Amendment gave white women the right to vote. Because of state laws, Native American, Asian American, Latina and African American suffragists had to fight for their own enfranchisement long after the 19th Amendment was ratified. Only over successive years did each of those groups gain access to the ballot. (Source: Eric Brunn, American Experience, 2012) We are still struggling with the definition of “All.”
We say Black Lives Matter because “All” didn’t include Black when they said “Liberty and Justice for All.” Did you know? The GI Bill was racially discriminatory as it was intended to accommodate Jim Crow laws. Due to the discrimination by local and state governments was well as private actors in housing and education, the GI bill failed to benefit African Americans as it did with white Americans. (Source: Eric Brunn, American Experience, 2012) We are still struggling with the definition of “All.”
We say Black Lives Matter because “All” didn’t include Black when they said “Liberty and Justice for All.” Did you know? The Wagner Act in 1935 expanded collective bargaining rights nationwide. Union membership afforded workers higher wages, improved benefits and job security. However, the Wagner Act excluded domestic and agricultural workers and permitted labor unions to discriminate against workers of color in other industries, such as manufacturing. (Source: Eric Brunn, American Experience, 2012) We are still struggling with the definition of “All.”
We say Black Lives Matter because “All” didn’t include Black when they said “Liberty and Justice for All.” Did you know? In 1920, the 19th Amendment gave ALL women the right to vote but literacy tests, poll taxes, voter ID requirements, intimidation, and threats and acts of violence were still obstacles for women of color. The struggle for suffrage, which began for Black women in the early 1800s, continued until activists such as Fannie Lou Hamer and Diane Nash won the passage of the Voting Rights Act of 1965, 200 years later. (Source: Eric Brunn, American Experience, 2012) We are still struggling with the definition of “All.”