Black and Catholic in Savannah, Georgia

Book excerpt: 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. A city divided for two centuries by conflicts over culture, class, and race, Savannah is permeated by ambiguous identities that often end up before the altar. Religion thus serves as a cultural language through which urban life can be observed as well as a system of belief and identity shared by blacks and Catholics. This multidisciplinary study links ethnography to wider debates on symbolism, gender, class, and cultural power. The vivid voices, memories, ritual and social acts, and observations of Savannah provide the basis for comparative insights and theoretical generalizations on communities within the United States and on a broad range of urban and religious issues.