A Cry for Justice: Daniel Rudd and His Life in Black Catholicism, Journalism, and Activism, 1854-1933

2. A New Civilization Based on the Fatherhood of God and the Bro
therhood of Man

CHAPTER 2 A New Civilization Based on the Fatherhood of God and the Brotherhood of Man ‫ﱱ‬‫ﱠ‬‫ﱱ‬ The Whole Christian Religion is based on the unity of the Human race. Destroy this and fundamental laws are swept from existence. The Catholic Church has always taught this truth and by that teaching has made present civilization possible. D. RUDD  MAY  Justice as Full Social Equality Beginning in  with the establishment of this country’s first African American newspaper, Freedom’s Journal, black journalists and editors have been on the front lines of the campaign for racial justice. Prior to emancipation , these pioneers opposed the institution of slavery. Following the Civil War, African American contributors to newspapers and journals courageously labored to protect the civil rights won during Reconstruction. This they did by challenging perceived injustices and combating commonly held racial stereotypes. The ACT was but one of hundreds of black newspapers promoting  ‫ﱱ‬ ‫ﱠ‬ ‫ﱱ‬ racial equality in the United States from  to . Taking up many of the concerns of his journalistic peers, Rudd waged a campaign to defend African Americans against negative stereotypes and to bolster race pride within the black community. He also declaimed the evils of race segregation both in the nation’s schools as well as in public accommodations . In the pages of the ACT Rudd called on businesses to hire African Americans routinely denied jobs because of their skin color. Black newspaper men and women also found both the southern prison system and the crop mortgage system of agriculture to be unjust.1 Rudd’s campaign for racial justice led him to speak out on the question of African American emigration. He further demonstrated a concern for the plight of people of color living beyond the borders of the United States. But the single most critical justice concern addressed by African American journalists during this period seems to have been the escalation of mob violence perpetrated against blacks.This particular category of racial crime often took the form of lynching. In the ACT Rudd vociferously condemned the lynching of blacks. Despite his concern over the violence being suffered by African Americans, however, he paid little attention in his newspaper to the injustices being faced by other ethnic groups, including, Native Americans, Mexican Americans, and Chinese Americans. The campaign for justice and racial equality led by African Americans in the nineteenth century elicited a number of different responses. More radical white supremacists opposed any liberalization of race relations out of fear these provisions would prepare the way for social equality. Some members of America’s dominant racial group, however, supported a limited equality for African Americans. These more progressive whites were, for example, willing to recognize the political equality of blacks and to allow them the same privileges enjoyed by whites in America’s court system.2 Fr. John M. Mackey, a white priest who served for a time as the ACT’s coeditor, advocated a limited social equality for blacks. Though this Cincinnatian adamantly opposed “amalgamation,” he nonetheless promoted a circumscribed social equality agenda. For example, he sanctioned the right of blacks to “practice all the trades. . . . side by side with white people.” He also believed “well conducted” blacks should be permitted to “sit at table in the public hostelries.” Further, Mackey supported African American Catholics’ efforts to join parish schools, benevolent societies, and charitable confraternities.3  A NEW CIVILIZATION The Reverend Dr. John M. Mackey served as associate editor of the ACT. As rector of the Cathedral of St. Peter in Chains, he hosted the second Colored Catholic Congress in Cincinnati. (Courtesy of the Athenaeum of Ohio.) In contrast to more restricted versions of racial equality, full social equality of the type Rudd promoted was an unqualified recognition of the unity of the human family and a comprehensive disavowal of any system of racial hierarchy. This sought-after social arrangement called for an acknowledgment of the fundamental equality of the races across all fronts, legal, political, civil, and social. A commitment to this principle meant the elimination of all vestiges of the color line, that tyrannous racial barrier that had effectively served to keep blacks from more intimate forms of social contact with whites. In short, full social equality meant the elimination of race prejudice in a completely integrated and free society. Many whites residing both in the North and in the South refused to acknowledge social equality between blacks and whites. There is little question for...