With xavier however there will be this distinction mapping the

Louisiana State University LSU Digital Commons LSU Doctoral Dissertations Graduate School 2014 With Xavier, however, there will be this distinction: Mapping the Educational Philosophy of Saint Katharine Drexel in the Intellectual Tradition of Black Higher Education in New Orleans, Louisiana Berlisha Roketa Morton Louisiana State University and Agricultural and Mechanical College Follow this and additional works at: https://digitalcommons.edu/gradschool_dissertations Part of the Education Commons Recommended Citation Morton, Berlisha Roketa, "With Xavier, however, there will be this distinction: Mapping the Educational Philosophy of Saint Katharine Drexel in the Intellectual Tradition of Black Higher Education in New Orleans, Louisiana" (2014). LSU Doctoral Dissertations.edu/gradschool_dissertations/2799 This Dissertation is brought to you for free and open access by the Graduate School at LSU Digital Commons. It has been accepted for inclusion in LSU Doctoral Dissertations by an authorized graduate school editor of LSU Digital Commons. For more information, please contactgradetd@lsu.

WITH XAVIER, HOWEVER, THERE WILL BE THIS DISTINCTION: MAPPING THE EDUCATIONAL PHILOSOPHY OF SAINT KATHARINE DREXEL IN THE INTELLECTUAL TRADITION OF BLACK HIGHER EDUCATION IN NEW ORLEANS, LOUISISANA A Dissertation Submitted to the Graduate Faculty of the Louisiana State University and Agricultural and Mechanical College in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in The School of Education by Berlisha R., Southern University and A&M College, 2003 M., Southern University and A&M College, 2006 May 2014 i For Mama Thank you for telling me I could do anything if I put my mind to it. You are missed. ii TABLE OF CONTENTS LIST OF ARCHIVES AND ABBREVIATIONS. v CHAPTER ONE: NARRATIVE AND HISTORICAL CONTEXT.

1 Saint Katharine Drexel. 14 Challenging Knowing and Embracing Haunting. 15 CHAPTER TWO: WARRANTS FOR NEW PERSPECTIVES. 20 The Historicization of Gender in Higher Education.

22 What is University Building?. 24 CHAPTER THREE: SOUTHERN WOMANISM. 28 Defining Southern Womanism. 32 Catholicism and Education in the South.

38 Performing Southern Womanism. 41 Embodying Southern Womanism: Data Collection. 44 Taking the Veil. 49 Applying Southern Womanism.

54 CHAPTER FOUR: INTRA-ACTIONS. 57 Agential Realist Ontology. 58 Intra-Actions: Drexel and the Sisters of the Blessed Sacrament. 60 Intra-Actions: Native and African American Communities.

65 Intra-Actions: The Church Hierarchy. 75 CHAPTER FIVE: 5100 MAGAZINE STREET. 77 Black Higher Education in New Orleans. 81 Entangled Education: Southern University.

83 Southern University:Entangled Places?. 93 From Old Southern to Xavier University. 96 Performing Curriculum in Entangled Spaces. 102 CHAPTER SIX: IMPLICATIONS FOR HIGHER EDUCATION AND SUMMARY.

106 Challenging the Historiography of Higher Education. 106 American Dream Ideology and Black Higher Education. 109 Implications for the Study of Higher Education. 113 Fluid versus Static Definitions of Institutional Identity.

114 Conceptions of University Building and Leadership Development as Isolated Processes. 116 EPILOGUE: EDUCATIONAL PHILOSOPHY. 132 iv LIST OF ARCHIVES AND ABBREVIATIONS New Orleans Archdiocese Archives (NOAA) New Orleans Notarial Archives (NO Notarial Archives) Sisters of the Blessed Sacrament Archives, Bensalem, Pennsylvania (SBS Archives) Xavier University Archives, New Orleans, Louisiana (XULA) v Abstract Historical studies on higher education often utilize traditional historical methods. This practice has produced a body of literature, both historical and contemporary, which has a particular focus on (a) the histories and mythologies of institutions, (b) the individuals who function within the system at the administrative or student levels, and (c) the individuals who have been excluded from the system.

Therefore, utilizing southern womanism, a theory developed in this study, I presented primary and secondary historical sources to show that Saint Katharine Drexel, a White Roman Catholic nun, and the university she founded, Xavier University, the first and only Black Catholic university in the United States, have been grossly understudied in the history of higher education. I found that regionalism, anti-Catholicism, racism, and sexism have functioned in a manner for Drexel and the intellectual tradition of the Afro-Catholic community in the New Orleans to be written out of the history of higher education. This is due to the tradition of African American higher education being studied solely through the lens of the Booker T. DuBois debates which focuses exclusively on the problematics of White male philanthropy and Protestant benevolent societies on curricular development.

Saint Katharine Drexel was a present, thoughtful participant whose impact in Black higher education has been woefully understudied. Using her educational philosophy, Drexel did more than fund schools; she created a complex network of family members, clergy, lay persons, both White and Black, to create a multi-tiered system of education. vi CHAPTER ONE: NARRATIVE AND HISTORICAL CONTEXT The Saints were not super human. They were people who loved God in their hearts and who shared their joy with others.

-Pope Francis, Twitter, November 2013 “You don’t know our Sister,” Stella said as she graded papers. Stella’s cool composure was a stark contrast to my frenzied state as I told her about my dissertation frustrations. An assistant professor in the School of Education, Stella was my mentor and friend and often gave me academic, relationship, fashion, and life advice from her third floor office. I was looking forward to talking to Stella because we had not spoken in a while, and on this Monday morning, I was updating her on the highs and mostly lows of the final stages of my writing process.

I was having problems putting everything together and felt like my research questions were getting lost in the data. I thought Stella would tell a joke to make me laugh and ease my worries, but instead, she made matters worse. So with all the indignation I could muster, I replied, “I don’t know who?” Without looking at me or acknowledging my indignation she responded, “You don’t know our Sister Katharine.” I knew she was aware of all the work I put in over the past three years studying the life of Saint Katharine Drexel, founder of Xavier University in New Orleans, Louisiana, which is the first and only Black Catholic University in the United States. I was expecting her to say anything, but not that I did not know my research subject.

As I mentally prepared my retort, I reminded myself that Stella is a Black Catholic from New Orleans. Because I was raised in a Black Catholic family from Atlanta, Georgia, my whole life I have heard it said that there are not a lot of Black Catholics in the United States, and all of them live in New Orleans. This idea resonates in Estes’s (1998) observation in which, by quoting Zora Neal Hurston, he calls New Orleans the “neo-African Vatican” because “elements of Roman Catholic belief and ritual have been incorporated into a vibrant, traditional black religion” (p. So in that sense, Stella was right, Katharine Drexel did “belong” to New Orleans; she is a key figure in New Orleans and South Louisiana’s Black Catholic history.

Drexel was a wealthy heiress and native of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. Known for her philanthropy, Drexel channeled her wealth and influence into religious life when she founded the religious order, the Sisters of the Blessed Sacrament for Indians and Colored People, on February 12, 1891. She stated that the calling of her congregation was to “Instruct the Indian and Colored Races in religious and other useful knowledge” (Blatt, 1987, p. Simultaneously as an heiress, philanthropist, and foundress, Drexel became well known for conceptualizing, funding, and staffing schools for Native Americans in the Western United States and Blacks in the Southern portion of the country.

During the late 1880s, Drexel began funding schools in south Louisiana staffed by the Sisters of Perpetual Adoration and the Sisters of the Holy Family (Hurd, 2002; Lynch, 2001). Eventually, Xavier University became the centerpiece of what Hurd (2002) calls Drexel’s “ladder of education,” a system that staffed rural schools with teachers trained at Xavier University. The locations of these schools were numerous and included more well-known cities like Lafayette and Lake Charles and smaller towns such as City Price, Point a la Hache, Broussard, Glencoe, Rayne, Julien Hill, Abbeville, Bertrandville, Thibodeaux, Coulee, Crouche, Leonville, Prairie Basse, Church Point, Mallet, Duson, Reserve, Mamou, St. Martinville, and West Point a la Hache, Tyrone, Edgard, and Eunice (Hurd, 2002).

These schools provided the religious and educational foundations of four African American Bishops. According to Hurd (2002): Bishop Harold R. Perry, the first African American Bishop of the twentieth century, was a native of Sacred Heart parish in Lake Charles. Perry, consecrated in 1966, was the auxiliary bishop of New Orleans until his death in 1991.

Bishop Raymond Caesar of St. Mathilda’s parish in Eunice was the bishop of Papua New Guinea from 1980 until his 2 death in 1988. Bishop Curtis Guillory of St. Anne’s parish in Mallet was appointed auxiliary bishop of Galveston-Houston…Bishop Leonard Olivier, a native of Sacred Heart parish in Lake Charles, has been the auxiliary bishop of Washington, DC since 1988.

180) With this knowledge, I decided my best reply to Stella was to present my own Black Catholic pedigree. My hometown of Atlanta, Georgia provided some leverage because it was the home of the first Black Archbishop, Eugene Marino, and his predecessor James P. Lyke and Sister Thea Bowmen, an African American nun, were critical in crafting our church’s hymnal, Lead Me Guide Me, which not only provided church hymns, but chronicled the African American musical tradition. As a child, I had constant access to images of a strong Black expression of Catholicism.

With that being said, I reminded Stella that “I am Catholic” and that “My Sister went to Xavier,” and ended with a proud, “I do know her.” Again, without looking up from her task, or acknowledging my pedigree, she replied, “No. You don’t know our Sister Katharine.” I puffed up with anger and frustration, ready to unleash a flood of Katharine Drexel history on Stella. First, I may not have been from New Orleans, but I knew that, as the foundress of the Sisters of the Blessed Sacrament for Indians and Colored People, she was Mother Katharine, maybe Saint Katharine, but not Sister Katharine. Second, my sister graduated from Xavier University.

She was the first of three siblings to attend college, so her entrance into university life was accompanied by excitement and fanfare that remains vivid to me as an adult. Back then, I was a precocious ten year-old, and I was curious about the place called Xavier where several of the teens at church were going to spend their college years. I also wanted to know about Katharine Drexel, the woman after whom my sister’s dormitory was named. So, I read all the informational placards around the school, read my sister’s college handbook, and I learned that Katharine Drexel was a nun, and that she founded Xavier.

In my ten year old mind, I thought my sister was extra special because she was 3 selected to live in the dormitory named after the woman who founded the university; that feeling was something that always remained with me. Finally, I was the one who spent the last three years of my life reading every book or article that contained even the slightest reference to Katharine Drexel in order to find the answers to my primary research question: why have Saint Katharine Drexel and Xavier University been left out of the history of higher education? I was the one who had spent countless hours in the Xavier University Archives, the Archdiocese of New Orleans Archives, the New Orleans Notarial Archives, the Sisters of the Blessed Sacrament Archives in Philadelphia, and the Saint Francis de Sales School in Powhatan, Virginia; a feat which without a research grant or car seemed impossible at times. I even managed to obtain second class relics—articles of clothing Katharine Drexel wore—that I kept on the mirror in my bedroom.