Leroy and Johnetta Jordan share a lighter moment of fellowship with Sister Beth Wrenn, OP, after a meeting of the Springfield Dominican Anti-Racism team. Students at Catholic high schools throughout the diocese will have an opportunity to learn about local Catholic history of national significance during the month of November. Leroy Jordan, coordinator for Black Catholic Ministry in the diocesan Office for Social Concerns, plans to visit each of the six Catholic high schools sometime during November to give a presentation on Father Augustine Tolton, the first African-American priest in the United States.
The National Black Catholic Clergy Caucus (NBCCC) of the United States, at its convention at Fordham University in New York this past summer, voted to establish November as Black Catholic History month. "We chose November because a number of important dates to Catholics of African descent fall within this month," said Jordan.
As early as 1990, some cities throughout the United States began to celebrate November as Black Catholic History Month.
"Every student in our diocese should know about Father Tolton and his faith journey, especially that he came from our diocese and he is the first black person from the United States to be ordained a priest," said Jordan, who credits Father Roy Bauer of Quincy for putting together the information on Father Tolton.
Jordan estimates there are roughly 350 black Catholics in the diocese today. "The majority of those are centered in Springfield, Quincy, the Alton area and Decatur - the larger population areas," said Jordan.
Jordan was not a Catholic when he was growing up in Murphysboro. His mother and his father came from towns in Mississippi. "One was Baptist, and the other Methodist, so we grew up with some familiarity with both," he said. Jordan's wife, Johnetta, grew up in East St. Louis. The two met as students at Southern Illinois University in Carbondale and married in 1962.
After graduating from SIU in 1964, Jordan accepted his first teaching job at Hopkins Park, a predominately black community located northeast of Kankakee.
"Our landlords were from New Orleans. They went to a Catholic mission church in Hopkins Park and encouraged us to come with them to church. We became familiar with the Catholic faith through them. We converted, and the next year, when I was offered a teaching position in Springfield, where we had originally hoped to get a teaching job, we moved here and joined St. Patrick Parish.
"The Protestant faith communities we grew up in aren't really all that different from Catholics," he said. There are not a lot of black Catholics. But their numbers are growing.
"There are 200 million people of African descent in the Catholic Church throughout the world," said Jordan. "There have been black Catholics in the Springfield diocese since the very earliest days of the state."
Upcoming November dates of important significance to Catholics of African descent include, Nov. 13, the birth in 354 A.D. of St. Augustine, the first doctor of the church, who was from North Africa, and Nov. 20, the death of Zumbi of Palmarea in Brazil, founder of a free state for blacks.
All Saints Day, Nov. 1, was 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, was a time to remember all those Africans lost to cruel treatment in the Middle Passage crossing of the Atlantic Ocean. Nov. 3, the feast of St. Martin de Porres, recognized the only saint of African descent in this hemisphere.