Podcast explores Detroit's history of Black Catholic activism
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Sacred Heart Church, described as the "mother church" of Black Catholics, in Detroit near Eastern Market. Photo: Annalise Frank/Axios
A local journalist's new longform podcast examines Detroit's history as a proving ground for the influential Black Catholic movement.
Why it matters: This little-known civil rights story details the Black Catholic community's fight to preserve its churches and identity, while involving broader Detroit trends of white flight and deindustrialization.
Driving the news: Commonweal Magazine is publishing Detroit native Aaron Robertson's three-part series, "The City and the Cross." The final episode releases Wednesday.
Flashback: Black Catholics built vibrant communities in Detroit through much of the 20th century, incorporating cultural traditions like gospel and jazz music, Robertson reports.
- Activists fought for the Catholic Church to recognize Black leadership.
- In 1968, the National Black Catholic Clergy Caucus declared at a meeting in Detroit that the Catholic Church was "primarily a white racist institution," per Commonweal. The timing was soon after Martin Luther King Jr.'s assassination.
The podcast delves into the Church's modernization efforts. In one historical turning point, a coalition protested late-1980s Archdiocese of Detroit closures that hit Black Catholic churches the hardest.
- The third episode will catch listeners up to the present day, as the Archdiocese undergoes another overhaul.
By the numbers: There are currently around 20 churches in the metro under the Archdiocese of Detroit with a significant Black Catholic population.
- As of 1981, the Archdiocese of Detroit's region covered 1.6 million Catholics, about 33,000 of them Black, per Catholic University of America Press data cited by Robertson.
What he did: Robertson dug into archives and interviewed dozens of people to bring a detail-rich story to life — including parishioners, organizers, church leaders and musicians.
Zoom in: Robertson tells Axios his fascination with the topic stems partly from his experience growing up Protestant and curiosity about what drew African Americans to Catholicism.
- He came across a Black priest's memoir in 2019 that he calls a "searing indictment of the Catholic Church."
- Reading archives, he became interested in the lonely experiences Black priests described. He also found letters from local parishioners pleading for their churches to stay open.
What they're saying: "It's a sort of quintessential Detroit story, because you're learning about demographic change, you're learning about white flight and declining religious affiliation," Robertson says.
- "All of that was related to previous work I had done about the relationship between Black Americans and sacred life, generally."
What's next: Robertson, on a year-long fellowship with Commonweal, is also working on a fictional novel set during the 1980s parish closures.