Editor's note: This week, The Tidings continues a four-part series on the experience and impact of African-Americans in the Archdiocese, with a focus on the roots of the community.

It was 1986 --- more than two decades after the height of the civil rights movement in the United States --- when Cardinal Roger Mahony appointed Divine Word Father Fisher Robinson as the first black vicar for African-Americans in the Los Angeles Archdiocese.

And soon after, Josephite Father Carl Anthony Fisher --- a native of Mississippi --- was ordained as Los Angeles' first Bishop of African-American descent.

These were victories thought by some in the local African-American Catholic community to be late in coming, but victories nonetheless. The appointment of an African-American vicar to address the needs and concerns of the community was especially important to the black Catholic activists who struggled for years to make their voices heard in the Catholic Church.

Years earlier, Cardinal Timothy Manning had appointed Msgr. John Rawden as the first vicar, "and he did a great job exposing our community to the entire archdiocese," recalled Marian Fussey, director of religious education at Transfiguration Church in South Los Angeles. The next vicar, Father John Rhode, "really opened the doors for us. He asked us what we wanted and we told him --- a black bishop and black vicar. He helped bring in Father Robinson and Bishop Fisher."

Although Cardinal Mahony emphasized that Bishop Fisher was a bishop for the entire archdiocese, not just the black communities, "we still felt he was part of our community," said Fussey with a big smile.

The 77-year-old Fussey, a native of New Orleans, has been actively serving the archdiocese since 1960 when she moved here with her husband and three daughters from Georgia. She has served as director of religious education at Holy Name of Jesus Church in South Los Angeles and Our Lady of Victory Church in Compton. She served as principal of St. Odilia School and worked as assistant to Father Robinson at the archdiocesan central office for African-American ministry from 1989 to 2002.

With master's degrees in journalism, school administration and theology, Fussey used her education and firebrand personality as an active participant in the civil rights movement in the South advocating for the rights of African-Americans. Or, as she put it, "I was busy riding shotgun in the movement."

Once in Los Angeles she joined the growing black Catholic movement that was working to make its voice heard.

'We are a part of the church'

The black Catholic population in Los Angeles was buoyed by the migration of southerners to the city who were used to --- because of strict segregation --- worshipping in their own churches and fighting for acknowledgment and attention of the Catholic leadership.

Many of these sojourners brought this fighting spirit with them, and as their numbers in Los Angeles grew, began working together to effect changes here in Los Angeles.

"When you are neglected to a point where you are invisible in this white church then all hope is gone," said Fussey. "If you have no hope you have to get up and do something about it."

And that's just what Fussey and many others like her did.

"Marian, along with people like Horace Williams and Jean Zimmerman Lawrence, are pioneers," said Renette Scott, recently retired liturgy director at St. Philomena Church in Carson. "There is a whole layer of people who started advocating for civil rights."

As the civil rights movement in the United States picked up steam, black Catholics in Los Angeles felt frustrated by what they felt was the church's failure to publicly speak out against racism.

"Cardinal McIntyre forbade preaching about civil rights and sent out an announcement that civil rights should not be addressed from the pulpit," said Sister of Social Service Eva Lumas, a Los Angeles native. "Black Catholics just ignored Cardinal McIntyre. They felt it wasn't something the cardinal could tell them."

The cardinal reportedly felt that church and politics didn't mix. Such silence on the issue was particularly frustrating to black Catholics because many other religious groups were deeply involved in the movement and made up the backbone of support. But the Catholic Church was nowhere to be seen, noted Fussey.

Lumas remembers her grandmother telling her, "It was my time to stand up for what I believed in" by telling their priest at Holy Name of Jesus Church that the congregation wanted issues of civil rights addressed in the church.

"His response was, 'The cardinal doesn't want civil rights addressed from the pulpit --- but I can't tell you what to do on the church steps,'" said Lumas.

And among black Catholics in Los Angeles, this was how the civil rights movement was addressed --- from church to church, person to person and priest to priest.

Although his refusal to become involved in the civil rights movement was disappointing, it must be remembered that Cardinal McIntyre did not forget the African-American community entirely said Fussey.

Cardinal McIntyre was responsible for building St. Odilia Church, then known as the Negro National Catholic Church, and also opened the Negro Cultural Center.

"Cardinal McIntyre worked quietly," said Fussey. "He was not a political cardinal. He would do things silently."

Effecting change

As frustrating as the conditions in Los Angeles were, it was more of a benign neglect than the outright segregation and racism black Catholics suffered in the south.

"I grew up in Corpus Christi Church, run by the Josephites, in New Orleans where three blocks away was the white church, Sacred Heart," said Fussey. "I would never think of crossing over to go to their church, nor would they come to mine. In fact, the Holy Family Sisters [an order of black nuns] had to receive Eucharist at the back door of this church. They even discriminated against religious."

As blacks settled in Los Angeles they attended churches in neighborhoods that were often integrated. Many from Louisiana began attending Holy Name of Jesus Church that was predominately Irish at the time.

"We had more freedom here but we were always fighting with the church to say, 'You must respond to us,'" said long-time activist Jean Lawrence Zimmerman. "Priests would tell white people that it was OK to move when blacks moved next door. This was the kind of attitude we had to fight against."

Today people like Fussey and Lawrence continue to advocate for the almost 25,000 African-American Catholics in the Los Angeles Archdiocese as they face new challenges. Those include dwindling numbers and worshipping and working with other ethnic communities.

"There are many priests in this archdiocese who are sensitive to the issues that affect African-Americans and sensitive to the different cultural needs of all people," said Fussey. "Persistence is the only thing that works --- to just keep on going."

Next week: African-Americans and Latinos: Learning to come together in worship.