Timeline Stories

NBCC renews the tradition of gathering Black Catholics from across the country. The first renewed congress, Congress VI, takes place in May of 1987 in Washington, D.C. Since then the NBCC holds a national congress every five years, and each event attracts a growing number of attendees.

The National Black Catholic Congress (NBCC) is re-established in 1985 as a coalition of Black Catholic organizations.

^{Used with permission of the NBCCC}

Prior to the meeting of the Catholic Clergy Conference on the Interracial Apostolate in 1968, Father Herman Porter of the Diocese of Rockford, IL invites all U.S. Black Catholic clergy to a special caucus. More than 60 Black clergy gather to discuss the racial crisis and they decide to form a permanent organization. They send a statement to the bishops that strongly criticizes the church but is clear in its devotion and hope. The statement lists nine demands for the Church to be faithful in its mission to Blacks and restore itself in the black community. The National Black Catholic Clergy Caucus remains active today.

Pictured from top left to bottom right: Cardinal Wilton Gregory, Bishop Emerson Moore, Bishop Moses Anderson, Bishop J. Terry Steib, Bishop John Ricard, Bishop Joseph Francis, Bishop Harold Perry, Bishop Joseph Howze, Bishop Eugene Marino, and Archbishop James Lyke.

Many Catholic clergy and women religious join the march in Selma, AL, making the Church’s foray into the civil rights struggle for racial equality.

^{Page from The Advocate newspaper}

The American bishops denounce racial prejudice as immoral for the first time.