Father Francis Gilligan and the STRUGGLE for CIVIL RIGHTS
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Father Francis Gilligan and the STRUGGLE for CIVIL RIGHTS Tom Beer and Tom O’Connell n September 22, 1955, civil rights leader Maj. Samuel J. after his parents died when he was Otwo hundred of Minneso- Ransom added, “Minnesota and five. The family was upper-middle- ta’s political and civic elite every state needs an Interracial class; his father had owned and gathered in St. Paul’s Lowry Hotel Commission and a Father Gilligan.” 1 operated a local mill. Fall River was to honor Father Francis J. Gilligan The story of Francis Gilligan’s a hardscrabble working-class town. on his retirement as chairman of the emergence as a civil rights advocate Conditions in the cotton mills were Governor’s Interracial Commission— is rooted in the intersections of per- harsh, giving rise to militant labor- a position he had held under four son and history, social action and union organizing.2 governors since the commission was faith. Almost from the day of his Young Frank, as his sisters liked established in 1943. All four of those 1928 arrival in St. Paul as a young to call him, witnessed both the ethnic governors were present, as were priest and professor of moral theol- diversity and the hard living con- leaders of the civil rights coalition he ogy, Gilligan put a Catholic face on ditions of the city. While working had helped build: colleagues from efforts to address economic and ra- summers as a cashier on the Old Fall the Urban League and the National cial injustice. In so doing, he helped River steamship line, he befriended Association for the Advancement of connect the growing power of the black crew members and heard Colored People, the labor movement, labor movement to the energy of the their stories of discrimination and and fellow clergy. One by one, leaders emerging civil rights movement in struggle. Looking back on those days, delivered their heartfelt appreciation, Minnesota. Along the way, he taught, he recalled “racial discrimination saluting their friend for his persis- cajoled, and challenged students and against Negroes, and also industrial tent, effective pursuit of social equal- citizens—Catholic and non-Catholic problems. Someplace or other it was ity. Referring to Gilligan’s legendary alike—to confront their prejudices in my blood.” skills at bridge-building and persua- and embrace social justice. By the time he graduated from sion, Senator Hubert Humphrey de- Gilligan was born in Fall River, high school, Gilligan appeared to be clared, “He has quelled emotion and Massachusetts, on April 26, 1898, marked for scholarship or perhaps exalted reason . [he is] a pioneer in and raised by his aunt and uncle the priesthood—not the mills. After the most difficult field of all—human relations.” Citing his “courage and undying devotion to equality,” black Tom O’Connell, a professor of political studies at Metropolitan State University, St. Paul, is a student of Minnesota’s populist and progressive political traditions. Tom Beer worked as a community organizer and union business agent, lobbyist, Facing: Francis J. Gilligan, professor of and political director. He remembers Gilligan’s visits to his father’s hardware store moral theology at St. Paul Seminary and in St. Mark’s parish. civil rights advocate, about 1942 Summer 2011 205 attending Holy Cross College in remembered, to examine American Worcester, he completed bachelor’s racism with a focus on blacks. “If and master’s degrees at St. Mary’s you have any courage, take it up. It’s Seminary in Baltimore in prepara- an undeveloped field.” The result- tion for the priesthood. In 1924 he ing thesis, published in 1928 as The was ordained a priest of the Fall Morality of the Color Line, was the River diocese and, given his aca- first extended treatment of the race demic talent, sent to Catholic Uni- question by an American Catholic. In versity in Washington, D.C., for what would become a characteristic a Ph.D. in moral theology. of his approach, Gilligan combined a sociological exploration of discrimi- nation with a sharp moral critique illigan’s lifelong encoun- based on Catholic social teaching. Gter with Minnesota began when Racism, Gilligan argued, was a grave Archbishop Austin Dowling, leader Archbishop Austin Dowling, who brought sin. Racial prejudice was a social of the St. Paul archdiocese, turned to Gilligan to St. Paul, about 1919 creation, rooted in slavery and re- Fall River for an infusion of clerical inforced through social custom and talent. Dowling had succeeded the economic exclusion. He advocated a legendary John Ireland, who had demic as well as activist, Ryan devel- gradualist approach to ending segre- transformed the church in Minne- oped a theology of social justice that gation, particularly in the South, ar- sota from a frontier backwater to a applied the principles of Pope Leo guing that abrupt efforts to end it in major center of American Catholi- XIII’s influential 1891 encyclical on public facilities could lead to serious cism. Seeing little chance for an aca- capital and labor, Rerum Novarum, disturbances of public order. Later, demic career in the Fall River to American society. Ryan’s 1919 doc- Gilligan would be apologetic about diocese, Gilligan persuaded his ument, Bishops’ Program of Social some of his more cautious, even bishop to release him to Dowling. Reconstruction (the “Catholic miracle,” paternalistic, views on such issues as Thus, the young priest was assigned Upton Sinclair dubbed it), called for interracial marriage and social mix- to teach moral theology at the St. sweeping private- and public-sector ing. His own attitudes would change Paul Seminary following completion reforms such as a minimum wage, as he learned from experience.5 of his doctoral degree.3 unemployment and workmen’s com- But if Gilligan was sanguine about the prospects for an early Racism, Gilligan argued, was a grave sin. end to the most entrenched forms of social segregation, he was very clear about the public actions nec- While at Catholic University, Gil- pensation insurance, labor’s right to essary to attack racial injustice in ligan developed a close relationship organize and bargain, regulation of both the North and the South. He with Fr. John A. Ryan, the nation’s monopolies and government-owned advocated anti-lynching laws, an most influential proponent of Catho- utilities, and workers’ cooperatives end to unjust arrests and biased lic social-justice teaching. Himself a and co-partnerships in industry. courts, increased spending for black Minnesotan, Ryan had taught moral Gilligan would practice in Minne sota education, municipal services, and theology at St. Paul Seminary from the principles Ryan advocated on housing. Applying the teachings of 1902 through 1915. In a career that the national scene.4 Catholic reformers like Ryan, he sug- foreshadowed Gilligan’s own, Ryan In a conversation that proved gested that the rights of labor ought developed close ties with the state’s providential, Gilligan sought Ryan’s to be extended to blacks and that labor and social-reform movements, advice on his thesis topic. Gilligan society embrace programs based on playing an influential role in the pas- had been thinking of a rather aca- the principles of distributive justice, sage of Minnesota’s minimum-wage demic exploration of moral theol- financed through a tax system based legislation in 1912. A writer and aca- ogy. Ryan convinced him instead, he on the ability to pay. ÓäÈÊÊiÃÌ>ÊÃÌÀÞ Despite modest circulation, Gilli- gan’s book established him as a mem- ber of a small but influential group of Catholics who were concerned about the race issue. By 1931 Gilligan was writing articles for America, the influential, Jesuit-published Catholic weekly, and the Interracial Review. In 1939 the National Catholic Wel- fare Council published a widely read distillation of his views, The Black Worker in White America. He became a close associate of the Jesuit theolo- gian John LaFarge, the church’s most prominent racial-justice advocate.6 These national connections linked Gilligan to the larger effort, but it was in Minnesota that he had his greatest influence. illigan’s commitment to Gracial and, more broadly, social justice flowed from his understand- ing of Catholic social teaching. Nei- ther his nor the church’s teaching Front-pageFront page news in the Minneapolis Spokesman,Spokesman a Twin Cities’Cities’ was particularly radical. In fact, the black newspaper, March 12, 1937 church was deeply anti-Communist and suspicious of other socialist movements as well; a well-ordered approach to social justice through his mained committed to forging prac- society included the rights of both powerful role as professor of moral tical approaches to achieving his labor and capital. As a young priest, theology at St. Paul Seminary. It was morally based social goals. Fr. Ryan Gilligan worried about the church hard to ignore Fr. Francis Gilligan. had set him on his intellectual becoming too distant from its He projected natural authority based course; now, Fr. Humphrey Moyni- people, as had happened in France. on obvious conviction. “We knew,” han, rector of the seminary, provided Mere opposition to Communism, remembered a former student, “how Gilligan with the social connections thought Gilligan, was a losing battle. active he was in the community.” He necessary to test his theories in the Something constructive was needed: made the subject—whether moral give-and-take of human relation- economic and social reforms based theology, sociology, or economics— ships. Moynihan was well connected on social-justice principles. His com- serve his larger purpose. He im- with both Catholic and non-Catholic ments to a largely black Twin Cities pressed on three generations of fu- figures in St. Paul’s professional and audience in 1937 on race issues ture priests that the quest of ordinary business classes.