Title: Black and Catholic in Savannah, Georgia /
Authors: McDonogh, Gary W.
Publisher: University of Tennessee Press,
Year: 1993
Subjects: Catholic Church Georgia Savannah History.; African American Catholics Georgia Savannah History.; Savannah (Ga.) Church history.
Abstract: In this unique ethnography of urban southern Catholicism - one of the few substantial studies of modern African-American Catholics since the 1920s - Gary W. McDonogh employs a decade of anthropological and historical research to explore the contradictions and survival of black and Catholic parishes in Savannah. Given the disfranchisement of African Americans in the South as well as nativist responses to Catholics among both blacks and whites, those who are black and Catholic in Savannah constitute a double minority whose lives McDonogh explores by examining the interaction of community, church, and individual.
Contents: 1. The Evolution of Black Religion in Savannah: Choice and Constraint -- 2. The Divided City: Black and White as Metaphors and Action -- 3. Catholics Enter the Black Community: Race, School, and Missions -- 4. Parish, Neighborhood, and Community -- 5. Priests and People: Organization, Power, and the Church -- 6. Laity, Continuity, and Empowerment -- 7. Life Cycle, Family, and the Sacramental Order -- 8. The Eucharist: Worship, Belief, and Variation -- Conclusion: Contradiction, Church, and Conscience.