CHARLOTTE — On Nov. 19, more than 100 parishioners from Our Lady of Consolation Church and St. Peter Church gathered to view and discuss “Facing an Uncomfortable Truth: The Struggle of African American Catholics in Kentucky.”
The screening of this documentary, produced by award-winning journalist Steve Crump, was one of Our Lady of Consolation Parish’s Black Catholic History Month events.
Crump is a Louisville native and a longtime reporter for WBTV in Charlotte. He grew up in the Archdiocese of Louisville and is a descendant of those early African-American Catholics who helped build some of the oldest churches in Louisville.
The film dives into the history of the early Catholic Church in central Kentucky. Enslaved men and women adopted the faith of their captors, and according to the documentary, helped establish the parishes in what’s now known as the “Kentucky Holy Land” in Nelson, Washington and Marion counties. Those slaves who were skilled masons and carpenters helped build some of the very first places of worship for Catholics in Kentucky, as well as structures on the campus of the Sisters of Charity of Nazareth in Nazareth, Ky.
The film screening was the first of two major collaborations between the Black Culture Commission of Our Lady of Consolation Church and St. Peter Church’s Social Justice Committee. The two groups have been building “authentic relationships” since 2015 and remain committed to “walking the talk” of racial equity and social justice together.
The Nov. 19 audience seemed to find the film riveting and the discussion afterward, as well as the questions posed to Crump, were thought provoking. One key point of the discussion centered on the fact that this history remains unknown and needs to be taught and discussed openly.
Five Catholic students from North Carolina A&T State University in Greensboro also came down to participate in the event.
— Toni Tupponce, Special to the Catholic News Herald; WAVE 3 News in Louisville, Ky., contributed.
View the documentary
Watch the documentary “Facing an Uncomfortable Truth: The Struggle of African American Catholics in Kentucky” by award-winning Catholic journalist Steve Crump: