Karen J. Johnson. One in Christ

Historical studies of Catholic interracialism in Chicago, and there are many, have a serious figure-ground problem. The figure is a small group of Catholic interracial activists, mostly white; highly educated; deeply, mystically devout; eccentric in manner; and usually under the leadership of a charismatic and handsome priest. The ground is the racism of white Catholics, whether priests, prelates, or people, who have resisted even frequent admonitions from Rome to do better. Whatever claims are made for the historical importance of the figure are effectively undermined by the facts of the ground. But it is an American Catholic historiographical given that Chicago Catholicism was an exceptionally progressive outpost on the otherwise conservative American Catholic landscape, and evidently no amount of contrary historical evidence is sufficient to displace this resilient trope, which underwrites arguments for the significance of white Chicago Catholic interracialism in the city and in the nation. Karen J. Johnson is a Chicago Catholic exceptionalist (a reference to her historiography, not her religion). “Nowhere else in the nation,” she writes, for example, “were Catholics—especially laypeople—more confident of their place in American society than Chicago” (6). As usual with Chicago Catholic exceptionalism, such judgments are made without evidence (what evidence could there possibly be for such a claim?) or comparison (at least a glance toward, say, Detroit, seems called for). It is a strength of One in Christ: Chicago Catholics and the Quest for Interracial Justice, however, that it calls throughout on the voices of black lay Chicago Catholic activists, in particular the physician Arthur G. Falls and his wife, Lillian Proctor Falls, to express this figure-ground tension in no uncertain terms. Although she is not the first to write about Arthur and Lilian Proctor Falls, Johnson puts them at the center of her account of Chicago Catholic interracialism. The enduring myth of Chicago Catholic progressivism informs One in Christ throughout, and throughout Arthur Falls and Lillian Proctor Falls challenge it. They are striking and powerful voices of black Catholic devotion and resistance. Their presence goes far toward making One in Christ impressively judicious in its account of white Chicago interracialism and a welcome corrective to earlier celebratory accounts.

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