By Jason Gray | America Magazine

As a Black American growing up in segregated Mobile, Ala., 11-year-old Jerome Gary Cooper likely never imagined that he would meet a future Catholic saint. He certainly never thought that a famous radio personality—then-Monsignor Fulton J. Sheen—would travel under police escort down the humble dirt road to Cooper’s house. But that brief visit in 1948 changed the trajectory of Cooper’s life.