Fr. Joseph Brown, S.J., a professor in the Africana Studies Department at Southern Illinois University, Carbondale, recently presented "The Welcome Table: Black Liberation Theology, Then and Now," to Mount Saint Mary College students, faculty, staff, and alumni.
The talk was rooted in his decades of research and the rich tradition of Black spirituals, as well as his book, To Stand on the Rock: Meditations on Black Catholic Identity, which focuses on the centrality of the Black Catholic community in U.S. history and Catholic history.
The song "Kum Ba Yah" ("Come by Here") has a reputation as an overplayed folk song, but it started as a meaningful African American spiritual, Fr. Brown explained.
"The appropriation of the first great text of liberation theology in this county needs to be paid attention to for it being liberation theology," he said.
According to Exodus 2:23, noted Fr. Brown, "The Israelites groaned in their slavery and cried out, and their cry for help because of their slavery went up to God."
"Black theology...was shaped by and has endured since transatlantic racial enslavement," explained Fr. Brown. When enslaved African Americans became aware of the Bible, they began to ponder: If the Israelites "in slavery in a foreign land could cry out and groan in their bondage, and God heard them and knew, then we are those people. We are going to do the same thing, and God is going to hear us. God, hear us. Come by here, someone is groaning, someone is crying, someone is moaning, someone is dying. Come by here."
Such a response was "completely theological and scripturally-based," he said. "And we don't pay attention to it because somebody took the statement [of "Kum Ba Yah"] itself and so watered it down, that we don't want to hear it."
One can draw parallels between this sentiment and Black Catholics in the Catholic Church, said Fr. Brown. He pointed to a speech by African American Catholic Sr. Thea Bowman. One of Sr. Bowman's messages to U.S. Catholic Bishops in her 1989 address "Being a Black Catholic" was to quote the opening line from the spiritual "Sometimes I feel like a Motherless Child" in reference to what it was like being African American and Catholic.
According to Fr. Brown, at the time when Sr. Bowman spoke, there were 11 living Black bishops in the Catholic Church. Now, there are about a dozen, with six of them still currently active. It's not a massive jump, said Fr. Brown: "We haven't made much progress."
He added that it is not until Catholics face the racism of the past – and the present – that they will be able to move on as a truly inclusive and unified faith.
Fr. Brown, a native of East St. Louis, Ill., is a Catholic priest and member of the Society of Jesus (Jesuits). He graduated from St. Louis University with a B.A. in Philosophy and Letters in 1968. Fr. Brown has graduate degrees from Johns Hopkins University (The Writing Seminars, 1969) and Yale University (1983, Afro-American Studies; 1984, American Studies). He has held a number of academic appointments including Creighton University, The University of Virginia, Xavier University (where he was the Director of the Institute for Black Catholic Studies, 1991-94), and at Southern Illinois University Carbondale – where he is presently a professor in the Africana Studies Department (having served as director/chair from 1997-2013). He was the holder of the MacLean Chair of Jesuit Studies at St. Joseph's University in Philadelphia, during the fall of 2009. In addition to being National Black Catholic Congress Liturgist in 1992 (New Orleans) and 2002 (Chicago), he has published many articles in African American literary criticism and cultural studies.
Fr. Brown is the author of: Accidental Grace (Callaloo Poetry Series; 1986); A Retreat with Thea Bowman and Bede Abram: Leaning on the Lord (1997); Sweet, Sweet Spirit: Prayer Services in the Black Catholic Tradition (with the assistance of Bishop Fernand Cheri, OFM/2006); and The Sun Whispers, Wait: New and Collected Poems (Brown Turtle Press; 2009).
The talk was presented by the Mount's Catholic and Dominican Institute (CDI). CDI promotes the Mount's heritage of St. Dominic, advances the Dominican charism of study and service, provides a forum for discussion of contemporary ethical issues, and enhances Catholic and Jewish dialogue. The Institute welcomes persons of varied faiths and acknowledges different religious traditions as essential to the college's intellectual and spiritual life.