“My children feel rejected by their Church”: “Managed Integration” at St. Philip Neri Parish, Chicago

Some white Catholics in the mid-twentieth century saw “managed integration” as a potential solution to both white flight and segregation. While appearing in a variety of forms, a managed integration strategy accepted, and even promoted, gradual integration by reaching out to, retaining, and appeasing white residents. This approach to race relations was employed in the middle of the 1960s at St. Philip Neri, a parish located in the South Shore neighborhood of Chicago’s South Side. In an effort to help South Shore become a stable, integrated community, church personnel implemented a racial quota in order to limit the number of black Catholic students at the parish school, forbidding enrollment beyond the third grade. While parish personnel hoped to facilitate the gradual integration of their neighborhood, St. Philip Neri’s use of managed integration revealed the potential dangers of an integration strategy that focused primarily on white residents’ concerns. The school’s quota created additional burdens for African American families and undermined the relationship between these Catholics and their Church. Not until February of 1965, after pressure from African American families, the Catholic Interracial Council of Chicago, and the local hierarchy, would a small group of black Catholic students enter the upper grade levels of the parish’s school.