The deep prejudice against African Americans is so painful and shameful to witness on our newscasts, and in our own experience and makes me think of the way Sister St John Fournier in 1845 defended the teaching of African American girls, against a furious white mob in St. Louis, who came at night to forcibly drive out the Sisters. I want to share with you what she wrote about it.
But first, I think we would be proud to note also that in the book Spirited Lives, which treats the way a French Sisterhood, namely the Sisters of St. Joseph, adapted to American culture, the authors (Carol K. Coburn and Martha Smith) has a footnote listing those Sisterhoods that used slave labor, and state that the Sisters of St. Joseph never did so. (Spirited Lives, footnote 14, p.241).
-Sister Wendy Cotter, csj
Now, here is Sister Saint John Fournier:
Sister St. John Fournier
"In 1845 Bishop Kendrick, [Bishop of St. Louis] established a school for Catholic coloured girls, the daughters of free negroes". Sister Saint John Fournier (to whom Mother Saint John had given her name while she was preparing to come to the New World, a new novice) was now thirty years old when she faced the threats of a mob determined to drive them from the house. Here is her account:
"Obedience sent me there with two Sisters. We were preparing these girls for the reception of the Sacraments. This so displeased the white people that they threatened to drive us away by force. The leaders came every day. One morning several persons spoke to me after Mass and warned me that the next night we were to be driven from the house. I had no fear and said nothing to the Sisters because I had so much confidence in the Blessed Virgin. I placed miraculous medals on the street door and on the fence.
That night, at eleven o'clock a great noise suddenly awakened the Sisters. A crowd of men, gathered in the street, were screaming and blaspheming. We cast ourselves on our knees and began the Miserere and other prayers. In the meantime, the enraged mob rushed upon the door. The police drove them away. They returned three times that night. The Blessed Virgin protected us. In spite of their fury and their efforts, they succeeded neither in opening nor forcing the door.
The day after this occurrence, the Mayor of Saint Louis advised the Bishop to close the school for the time being. Peace was restored. The Sisters' schools received indiscriminately rich and poor, Catholics, Protestants, schismatics, and children of all religions. A few years later, the asylum alone numbered two hundred fifty orphans."
- Mother Saint John Fontbonne; A Biography, 1936 English translation of the French original, 1929, researched and written by "A Sister of St. Joseph", pp 358-359.