Daniel Rudd
Representative in the United States
of Charles Lavigerie's Work for the African Slaves
Retrieved from the book:
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| Cyprian Davis, OSB |
CHAPTER
7 (starting p. 163, quoted till p. 170)
"A HUMBLE EXPERIMENT... AN ENTERING WEDGE"
THE EMERGENCE OF THE BLACK CATHOLIC LAITY
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| President Robert Cleveland (1837-1908) |
On a
winter afternoon in January 1889, a group of almost a hundred men, all African Americans,
made their way through the streets
of Washington, D.C., to the White
House to be ushered into the presence of
President Grover Cleveland. It was a unique occasion. Cleveland was in the last days of his first terra as
president, and blacks were not frequent guests in the White House. What was
more significant, however, was that this body of men were both blacks
and Catholics from all parts of the nation
and that this was the first time in the Catholic church's history in the United States that blacks had come together as a body, consciously aware of
themselves as a group. President
Cleveland told them that good religious people were a powerful help to the
government and administration of a nation. This comment was in response to the opening address of the
delegates, who thanked the president for what he had done for the black
race.
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| The White House (1889) |
The
date was January 4, 1889, and the occasion was the last day of the
four-day meeting of what was the first black Catholic lay congress in
the nation's history. This visit to the White House and reception by the president was the climax of what had been
a triumphant meeting of black Catholics, where as a body they
deliberated, voiced their opinions,
and made decisions regarding their church and their place within it. The visit to the White House was
surpassed only by the cablegram from Pope Leo XIII's secretary of state,
Cardinal Rampolla, which made known to
the delegates of the congress that the pope had sent them his apostolic blessing. Less than a quarter of a century after
the end of slavery, a Roman pontiff had given his approbation and blessing to a nationwide assembly of black Catholic
men. Thus a new age for the black Catholic community had emerged.1
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| Daniel Rudd |
The
one individual responsible for this new development among black Catholics was Daniel Rudd, a figure that for a long
time was not well known in American church history.2 And yet at the end of the nineteenth
century, Rudd - newspaperman, lecturer, publisher, publicist, and "leading Catholic
representative of the Negro race" -
had made himself very well known to
members of the hierarchy and to
Catholic laymen, as well as to one French cardinal.
Daniel Rudd was born on
August 7, 1854, in Bardstown, Kentucky. His parents were Robert and Elizabeth Rudd. His father was a slave on the Rudd estate near Bardstown, and his
mother a slave of the Hayden family in
Bardstown.3 Both parents were Catholics.4 Daniel was one
of twelve children.
After the Civil War, Daniel Rudd moved to Springfield,
Ohio (where his elder brother, Robert Rudd, was living),
in order to get a secondary-school education. There in 1886 he began a black
newspaper that was called the Ohio State Tribune.5 That same year Rudd changed the focus of this weekly newspaper and gave it a new name, American Catholic Tribune. He announced the
change with the words: "We will do
what no other paper published by colored men has dared to do - give the great Catholic Church a hearing and show
that it is worthy of at least a fair consideration at the hands of our race,
being as it is the only place on this
Continent where rich and poor, white and
black, must drop prejudice at the threshold and go hand in hand to the altar."6 The newspaper proudly stated on the editorial page, "The only
Catholic Journal owned and published by Colored Men." The masthead indicated that the weekly newspaper was
published with the approval of "Cardinal Gibbons,
archbishop of Baltimore, Md., the most Reverend
Archbishops of Cincinnati and Philadelphia, and the Right Reverend Bishops of Covington, Ky, Columbus, O, Richmond, Va, Vincennes, Ind, and Wilmington, Del."7
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| Daniel Rudd (1854-1933) |
Most of the issues of the newspaper were four pages,
although for a short time it ran to eight
pages. On occasion certain articles were repeated, suggesting that Rudd ran out of material for a given week. Other articles were copied from other newspapers, both
secular and Catholic, a frequent practice
for small newspapers at the time. By 1887 the newspaper was
being published in Cincinnati. Rudd, moreover, had the services of correspondents who also doubled as agents for the newspaper's distribution. Isaac Moten, a native of
Fort Wayne and Indianapolis, was a correspondent for the Midwest. Lincoln
Vallé, originally from St. Louis and originally a
journalist for another black newspaper, the St. Louis Advance, reported from various parts of the country. Robert L.
Ruffin for a time was correspondent for New England. Rudd also had a Rome correspondent for a while, a black seminarian at the Urban College.8
Many
news stories dealt with matters of particular interest to African Americans
- for example, the article by
Frederick Douglass in which the former minister to Haiti explained the
circumstances of his resignation.9 News of the black community in
Cincinnati appeared under the byline of John
R. Rudd, Daniel Rudd's nephew, who had
the title of city editor. At other times local news of the black community in Chicago, Baltimore, and
Louisville/Bardstown as well as other
cities appeared. There were also the usual space fillers, such as anecdotes, jokes, and always a serialized
version of a novel or short story.
The feature unique to the newspaper was Rudd's
thoroughgoing commitment
to Catholicism as a church and as a cause. This partisanship in an African American setting was
unprecedented. It was expressed
especially in Rudd's editorial comments and in the feature articles. It could be reduced to one simple
thesis: the Catholic Church
is the great hope for black people in the United States. Or as he wrote: "There is an
awakening among some people to the fact that the Catholic Church is not only a warm and true friend to the Colored people but is absolutely impartial in
recognizing them as the equals of all
and any of the other nations and races of men before her altars. Whether priest or laymen they are
equals, all within the fold."10 In a more forceful way the same idea was repeated
a few years later:
"The Negro of this country ostracized [sic], abused,
downtrodden and contemned, needs
all the forces which may be brought to bear in his behalf to elevate
him to that plane of equality which
would give him the status
he needs as "a man among men."
... We need assistance and should obtain help whenever and wherever it can be given. The Holy Roman Catholic
Church offers to the oppressed Negro a material as well as
spiritual refuge, superior to all the inducements of other
organizations combined ... We need the church, the church wants us. Investigate, brethren! See, comprehend for
yourselves and
we are satisfied as
to what will be the answer."
Rudd could put the same message more succinctly, as he
did when he wrote, "The Catholic Church alone can break the color line. Our people should help her to do it."12
Or as lie wrote a few months later, "We believe there is no leadership quite so capable as that of the Catholic
Church, because she has up to this time, been the only successful leader of men of all the other
races."'13 The message of Rudd was simple and easily understood. It was written in the triumphalist spirit of American Catholicism of the nineteenth
century. The only difference was its perspective - a black person's point of view.
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| Pope Leo XIII |
However,
Rudd's loyalty was not uncritical. In his editorial columns lie took issue
with the comments and opinions of other Catholic newspapers regarding
questions of race and racial segregation. Also as a consequence of
his racial background, Rudd was interested in the church's social
teaching. In 1891 his newspaper published the translation of Pope Leo
XIII's encyclical on labor, Rerum Novarum, in six installments.
We have
noticed in many of the papers published by Colored men, statements that
the Catholic Church
is not and has not been the Negro's friend. Of course, anyone with a
grain of sense either knows better
or is unwilling to learn better, but for the information of both
these classes we call attention to the encyclical
letter
of our Holy Father, Pope Leo XIII, which for some weeks has had
the run of the columns of the
AMERICAN
CATHOLIC TRIBUNE. In its treatment of the rights of rich and poor it has
not been equaled
by any writer upon this subject, besides it comes with the authority of
the teaching Church.
Then he adds, "In this day of strikes and the
oppression that causes them,
of the injustice of man to man, of prejudice, of murder and of violence, this great paper...
is as refreshing as a summer shower and as strong as everlasting truth."14
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| President A. Lincoln (1809-1865) |
Rudd
was most outspoken regarding the situation of blacks within the
United States. The last decade of the nineteenth century, sometimes
referred to as "the Gay Nineties," was in fact, the nadir of African
American history. Violence against blacks increased with impunity throughout the
South; lynchings doubled tragically each year. The volume of segregation laws swelled as the decade progressed. (Zudd publicized the growth of lynching.16 He
published articles and editorials regarding the spread of racial
segregation.
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| T. Thomas Fortune (1856-1928) |
If
Rudd was outspoken in regard to civil rights for African Americans, he
was particularly anxious to promote what was called at the time "race pride." In some respects,
this was one of the purposes of the
newspaper. Rudd published the portraits of important black leaders and featured
them in the news. In 1887 lie ran an illustration of Father Augustus Tolton with the caption
"The most conspicuous man in America."19 A Republican in politics, Rudd featured black political
leaders as well, such as George H. Jackson, a member of the Ohio State legislature.20 Another portrait was that of John Mitchell, Jr., editor of the Planet of Richmond, Virginia.
Mitchell was president of the Negro Press Association, in which Rudd was an active participant.
Through his efforts, the organization met in Cincinnati in 1891. He believed that the black press was a source of potential power for black people in this country. In
commenting on the success of the Negro
Press Convention and the good it would do for black people, he added, "One hundred and sixty
newspapers is not a very large showing
for seven or eight millions of people, yet taking into consideration the length of time these papers have
had to develop, they are marvels of beauty, information and
strength."21 Rudd not only
played a part in the Afro-American press association, he also maintained
a connection with the Catholic Press Association. 22
Rudd
was also a lecturer of some renown. His newspaper reported on his
lectures, which in fact served to augment the readership of the American Catholic Tribune. Traveling over much of the Midwest, the
South, and parts of the East Coast, he addressed white and black audiences
on the topic "The Catholic Church and the Negro." For example,
Rudd published in the Tribune the report that appeared in the Louisville
Courier Journal on May 29, 1887, about his lecture at Jack, son
Hall in Lexington, Kentucky, entitled "The New Civilization." He was
quoted as saying:
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| American Catholic Tribune, February 1887 |
Rudd had delivered this same lecture in Fort Wayne, Indiana,
earlier in the year at the Catholic Library Hall. He continued to speak in other areas around the
country, places as widely separated as Lewiston, Maine, and Natchez, Mississippi.
Rudd spoke German, and
he even lectured on this subject in German in the areas around Cincinnati.24
From all indications, Rudd's lectures were optimistic and
hopeful, stressing the improvement of the race in a
clear and simple message. Early in his career, in June 1888, when he
was about thirty-three years old, Rudd addressed
the Catholic Young Men's National Union in Cincinnati. Later his talk was summarized in the Catholic
World.25
I hardly expected when a little boy, in the
State of Kentucky, that
at this early day of my life - and I am a young
man yet - I would be standing before a Catholic convention of the Union, to lift
my voice in the interest
of my race and of my church; but such
is the case.
This
is the third time that it has been my pleasure to meet Catholics of this
country in national convention assembled; the first time was in Toledo, in 1886; the second, in
1887, at Chicago; and now, in this
year of our Lord,
1888.
He proceeded to acquaint his listeners with the relevant
facts concerning black Catholics. Rudd claimed that
black Catholics numbered 200,000 out of a black population of 7
million. He chided his audience with the assertion that "this race
[African Americans] is increasing more rapidly than yours ... by the
middle of the next century (it) will outnumber your race." He described the purpose
of his journalism. "We have been led to believe that the church was
inimical to the Negro race ... I owe it to myself, my God,
and my country to refute the slander."
He then unveiled for the first time his great project. "We are publishing
a weekly newspaper; whatever it is, it is the best we can do in this work. A
meeting of our people will be held somewhere; the time and place has not yet been fixed, but I am here, gentlemen, to ask your assistance, to ask your kindness, and
you have shown it to me to-day."
The talk concluded with characteristic optimism: "I believe that within ten years, if the work goes on
as it has been going on, there will be
awakened a latent force in this country."
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| Cardinal Charles Lavigerie |
In the summer of 1889 Rudd was sent to Europe, where he
met Cardinal Lavigerie.26 The cardinal had organized an antislavery conference
that was to be held that summer in Lucerne. The exact circumstances regarding
the origin and the funding of Rudd's trip are not completely clear. Some
indication is given, however, by a news-paper
column that originally appeared in a Philadelphia newspaper. In the July 6 issue of the American Catholic Tribune for that
year, a column appeared entitled "Catholics in Boston" under the
byline of a certain J. Gordon Street.
Street
informed the readers that Cardinal Lavigerie
was arranging a conference against slavery to be held in Lucerne and
that he had appealed to "prominent colored men in the United States asking
them to take an interest in the matter." Black Catholics in Boston had responded to the appeal, and Robert L. Ruffin, a
prominent black Catholic and a collaborator with Rudd on the Tribune, had been chosen to represent Boston at the conference
in Lucerne. Street's article went on to say that John Boyle O'Reilly,
the editor of Boston's Catholic paper, the Pilot, had begun a campaign to raise
funds for Ruffin's passage." In the same article, Street wrote, "There is another black man ... that
the colored Catholics must sec that
he goes to Lucerne - I mean Daniel A. Rudd of Cincinnati."
Ruffin
wrote an obituary notice of Cardinal Lavigerie at the time of his
death in 1892, which appeared in the AME Church Review. Ruffin
noted that he had met the cardinal "through the kindness of His Grace,
Archbishop Williams of Boston, and the late John Boyle O’Reilly."
He indicated in the same article that he was "accompanied by Mr.
Daniel A. Rudd, who was sent by His Grace, Archbishop Eider of Cincinnati,
to represent the younger and growing section of America."28 It
seems very likely, then, that Rudd's expenses were paid at least in part by
Archbishop Elder. Rudd
remarked in an editorial that appeared a week after the publication
of J. Gordon Street's article that "the Catholics of the United States seem to be the only class of... citizens
... taking proper interest in
the great International Anti-Slavery Congress."29 Rudd complained in the same editorial that
American blacks did not seem to be interested in
this project to end the slave trade.
Rudd set sail for Hamburg from New York, according to the Tribune article, with "his French Secretary, Mr. Henry L. Jones, of New Orleans and Mr. Robert L. Ruffin - and probably Father Tolton."30 In actual fact, there is no indication from subsequent reports that either Tolton or Jones made the trip. Rudd wrote reports of his travels for publication in the newspaper.31 It was not until his arrival in Hamburg that Rudd learned that the international congress was postponed. In fact, it would be held the next year in 1890 in Brussels. Rudd described his visit with Lavigerie in a letter to Archbishop Elder. "The reception extended us was royal, for His Eminence kissed us like a father. So overjoyed was Africa's great Apostle when he read our letters and credentials that he said our very presence there would give him new life and new zeal for a race that was so full of gratitude." 32
Rudd set sail for Hamburg from New York, according to the Tribune article, with "his French Secretary, Mr. Henry L. Jones, of New Orleans and Mr. Robert L. Ruffin - and probably Father Tolton."30 In actual fact, there is no indication from subsequent reports that either Tolton or Jones made the trip. Rudd wrote reports of his travels for publication in the newspaper.31 It was not until his arrival in Hamburg that Rudd learned that the international congress was postponed. In fact, it would be held the next year in 1890 in Brussels. Rudd described his visit with Lavigerie in a letter to Archbishop Elder. "The reception extended us was royal, for His Eminence kissed us like a father. So overjoyed was Africa's great Apostle when he read our letters and credentials that he said our very presence there would give him new life and new zeal for a race that was so full of gratitude." 32
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| The Birth of Catholic Social Teaching |
In
1894 Rudd moved his paper from Cincinnati to Detroit. In fact,
the Tribune
of
December 1893 was published in Detroit. The issue of February 1,
1894, however, was published in Cincinnati. A week later the paper had the
dateline February 8, Detroit, and John R. Rudd was listed as city editor. The
Detroit city directory listed the address of Rudd and his nephew until 1897.33 It would
seem Chat the
paper did not flourish in the new surroundings. Judging from the numbering
of the issues, it appeared somewhat irregularly. The last extant issue is dated
September 4, 1894.
(Chapter 7 continues on “black catholic laity”, for
an other 23 pages)
Special thanks to Julien Cormier, M. Afr.
Special thanks to Julien Cormier, M. Afr.
NOTES
CHAPER 7
Chapter 7: "A
Humble Experiment ... an Entering Wedge": The Emergence
of the Black Catholic Laity
1. Three Catholic Afro-American Congresses, 59-60.
2. Sec Hennesey, American Catholics, 190-92. For the only study of the black Catholic
congresses, sec David Spalding, "The
Negro Catholic Congresses, 1889-1894," Catholic Historical Review 55 (1969): 337-57. The author remains indebted
to Brother Thomas [David] Spalding for his research on Daniel Rudd.
3. Rudd
gave an account of his mother's life in her obituary notice in American Catholic
Tribune (hereafter ACT) for April 29,
1893.
4. Baptismal
Register, p. 102 for the date of September 17, 1854, St. Joseph Cathedral Records, Bardstown, Kentucky.
5. Sec
Cleveland
Gazette (a
black newspaper) for July 10,
1886. The article, which is a reprint from the Globe Republic of Springfield,
announced that Rudd began the newspaper in Springfield and thon moved it
to Columbus, Ohio.
6. Reprinted
in the Washington Bee, September
11, 1886, on page 1. The
Washington Bee was an influential black newspaper published in Washington, D.C., during the last quarter of the nineteenth century (microfilm in Library of Congres.)
The only extant copies of the ACT
are in the Archdiocese of Philadelphia Archives and Historical Collections, Overbrook, Pennsylvania. Here are found 283 copies, February
1887 to September 1894. All issues
have been microfilmed and are
available from the American Theological
Library Association Board of Microtext.
7. In
1894 Camillus Macs, the bishop of Covington, wrote Rudd asking that his name be removed. "By what
authority do you print the headline `Approved by... the Rt. Rev. Bishop of Covington?' You know I never did so personally and you have every reason to know that I do not approve
it (Maes to editor of ACT, July 17, 1894, Diocese of Covington Archives).
8. Sec
"Apology Accepted," ACT, June
10, 1887. "American
Catholic Tribune
has a Correspondent in Rome, a
Colored man at that in the
person of Colonel Read,
formerly of Pittsburgh, and a former associate, who is now in the College of the Propaganda."
9. Ibid.,
September 19, 1891.
10. Ibid.,
March 4, 1887,
11. Ibid.,
January 10, 1891, "The Negro."
12. Ibid.,
January 3, 1891.
13. Ibid.,
April 18, 1891.
14. For the issues giving the
text of Rerum
Novarum, sec
ACT, June 10, June 27, July 13, July 25, August 1, and August
8, 1891. For the editorial on the encyclical, sec the issue of August 1.
15. Ibid.,
August 1, 1891.
16. Ibid.,
July 9, 1892, "Lynch Law."
17. Ibid.,
sec editorials for February 18, 1887; May 2 and October 17, 1891.
18. Ibid.,
sec May 8, May 16, May 23, and June 13, 1891.
19. Ibid.,
March 11, 1887.
20. Ibid.,
November 7, 1891.
21. Ibid.,
April 4, 1891, editorial. It is not clear what standing Rudd had among black
newspapers of the time. Mention was frequently
made of him in the African
American press as lecturer and promoter of the black Catholic congresses. According to his own account, he was elected to certain positions
in the Negro Press Association. On the other band, Rudd is almost never mentioned in any history of the nineteenth-century black press.
Little mention, it seems, was
made of him in the rather
large and extensive black religious
press of the period.
22. Ibid.,
May 8, 1891.
23. Ibid.,
June 3, 1887.
24. Ibid.,
Fort Wayne, sec April 1, 1887. For Lewiston, Maine, sec "Msgr. J. M. Lucey Scrapbook,"
Diocese of Little Rock Archives,
in which is affixed an unidentified Lewiston, Maine, newspaper clipping for May
9, 1896. For Natchez, see A. J. Peters
to John R. Slattery, 9-D-15, August 19, 1891, Josephite Archives. For Rudd's lectures in
German see the Journal,
August 20, 1892. This publication was a black
Catholic weekly newspaper of Philadelphia,
published from February to September
1892. AU extant issues are
to be found in the Archdiocese of Philadelphia Archives and Historical Collections.
25. Thomas
McMillan, "Knowledge of Public Questions," Catholic World 47 (1888): 711-13.
26. Charles Martial Allemand-Lavigerie was born in Bayonne, France, in
1825, was ordained in 1849, became bishop of Nancy in 1863, then archbishop of Algiers in 1867 and of Carthage in 1884, having been created a
cardinal in
1882. He was the founder of the White
Fathers and White Sisters, now known as the Society of Missionaries of Africa and Missionary Sisters of Our Lady of Africa, in 1868 and 1869
respectively. Founded originally for missionary work in North Africa, both societies
began to work in black Africa in 1878. Lavigerie represented the more liberal wing of the French
church. He supported Pope Leo XIII and
was used by the latter to shift Catholic allegiance
in France away from a narrow Royalist focus. He
also was supported by the pope in his
own ardent fight against the slave trade. Lavigerie died in Algiers on November
26, 1892. Sec New Catholic
Encyclopedia, s.v. "Lavigerie,
Charles Martial Allemand."
27. ACT, July 6, 1889. This article by Street had been
copied from the Philadelphia
Sentinel. Robert Leo Ruffin (1857?-1934) was a prominent member of the black Catholic community of Boston. He was, it seems, related to George L. Ruffin, the first black judge in New England.
John Boylc O'Reilly (1844-90) was the
Irish-born editor of the Pilot and a well-known speaker
on public issues. He was an outspoken advocate of the rights of African
Americans, taking a position that was not always
popular in the Irish community. Sec
"John Boyle O'Reilly's Speech in Behalf of the Negro, December 7, 1855, and His Editorial on the Excommunication of Dr McGlynn. July 16, 1887," in Documents of American Catholic
History 2:
432- 37.
28. Sec
Robert Ruffin, "Charles Martial Allemand-Lavigerie," . 41If.E. Church Review 4 (1892): 320-35.
29. ACT, July
13, 1889.
30. Ibid.
31. Sec
for example, ibid., August 17, 1889.
32. Rudd
to Elder, London, August 12, 1898, Archdiocese of Cincinnati Archives.
33. The
address was 37 Mullett Street from 1894 to 1895, and 469 Monroe Avenue in 1897.
