April 16, 1999

Race relations and Catholicism in the 1940s and 1950s topic of lecture

In a lecture titled “Black, White, Catholic: Joseph Fichter, S.J., and Collegiate Interracialism, 1948 ­ 1956,” Bentley Anderson, S.J., outlined events in the late 1940s and early 1950s when groups in New Orleans were breaking new and dangerous ground by “race mixing.” A free and open discussion with Anderson was held Wednesday, April 14, in the Audubon Room.

Encouraged by the late Jesuit priest Joseph Fichter, Catholic collegians engaged in interracial activities. The students–black, white, male, and female–joined together for religious, academic, and social engagements in an ambitious attempt to improve race relations through a shared religious heritage. Together, they challenged and undermined racism and Jim Crow law in Louisiana.

Anderson, who was invited by the Jesuit Center, is a U.S. history doctoral candidate at Boston College. His dissertation and research focus on collegiate interracial activities in New Orleans.