(C) Verite News New Orleans

(C) Verite News New Orleans
This story was originally published by Verite News New Orleans and is unaltered.
. . . . . . . . . .

This week in history: 1874 [1]

['Jerry Mitchell', 'More Jerry Mitchell']

Date: 2023-07-31

Patrick F. Healy was the first Black president of Georgetown University. Credit: Library of Congress

July 31, 1874: Patrick F. Healy was inaugurated as president of Georgetown University in Washington, D.C.

Though Healy was the first Black person to become president of a predominantly white university, Georgetown didn’t recognize him as such for nearly a century. According to James O’Toole, a leading scholar on the Healy family, only Georgetown’s Jesuit inner circle knew about Healy’s lineage. To the general public, he passed as white.

In 1834, he was born into slavery in Macon, Georgia, the son of a slave owner and an enslaved African-American woman named Mary Eliza Smith, who became his common-law wife.

Healy fought discrimination as an elementary school student, both for his African-American ancestry and his Irish Catholic roots. In 1850, he became the first African American to enter the Jesuit order and was sent to Europe to study eight years later, earning a doctorate at Catholic University of Leuven in Belgium.

In a letter, he referred to rumors circulating among students about his race, “which wound my heart. You know to what I refer.”

After the Civil War ended, he returned to the United States and taught philosophy at Georgetown before becoming the school’s president. He helped transform the small college into a major university, upgrading the law school and modernizing the sciences.

His influence became so profound that many refer to him as the institution’s “second founder.” Georgetown, however, did not publicly acknowledge him as its first Black president until the 1960s and 1970s, according to a 2010 article in the university’s student-run magazine.

He was buried in the Jesuit cemetery on the university grounds, and Georgetown’s Alumni Association now has an award in his name.

Republish This Story Republish our articles for free, online or in print, under a Creative Commons license.

Close window X Republish this article This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License. Unless otherwise noted, you can republish most of Verite’s stories for free under a Creative Commons license. For digital publications: Look for the “Republish This Story” button underneath each story. To republish online, simply click the button, copy the html code and paste into your Content Management System (CMS).

You can’t edit our stories, except to reflect relative changes in time, location and editorial style.

You can’t sell or syndicate our stories.

Any web site our stories appear on must include a contact for your organization.

If you share our stories on social media, please tag us in your posts using @VeriteNewsNola @VeriteNewsNola For print publications: You have to credit Verite. We prefer “Author Name, Verite News” in the byline. If you’re not able to add the byline, please include a line at the top of the story that reads: “This story was originally published by Verite News” and include our website, veritenews.org

You can’t edit our stories, except to reflect relative changes in time, location and editorial style.

You cannot republish our photographs, illustrations or graphics without specific permission (contact our managing editor Tim Morris

Our stories may appear on pages with ads, but not ads specifically sold against our stories.

You can’t sell or syndicate our stories.

You can only publish select stories individually — not as a collection.

Any web site our stories appear on must include a contact for your organization.

If you share our stories on social media, please tag us in your posts using @VeriteNewsNola on Facebook @VeriteNewsNola on Twitter. If you have any other questions, contact managing editor Tim Morris. This week in history: 1874 <h1>This week in history: 1874</h1> by Jerry Mitchell, Verite July 31, 2023 <figure class="wp-block-image size-full"><img src="https://veritenews.org/wp-content/uploads/2023/07/OnThisDay-FinalLogo_page-banner-2-1200x151-1.webp" alt="" class="wp-image-7754" /></figure> <figure class="wp-block-image size-full is-resized"><img src="https://veritenews.org/wp-content/uploads/2023/07/PatrickHealy-LOC.jpeg" alt="" class="wp-image-8058" width="810" height="1162" /><figcaption class="wp-element-caption">Patrick F. Healy was the first Black president of Georgetown University.</figcaption></figure> July 31, 1874: <a href="https://repository.library.georgetown.edu/handle/10822/552740">Patrick F. Healy </a>was inaugurated as president of Georgetown University in Washington, D.C. Though Healy was the first Black person to become president of a predominantly white university, Georgetown didn't recognize him as such for nearly a century. According <a href="https://georgetownvoice.com/2021/02/10/the-legacy-of-patrick-healy-sj-georgetowns-first-black-president/">to James O'Toole</a>, a leading scholar on the Healy family, only Georgetown's Jesuit inner circle knew about Healy's lineage. To the general public, he passed as white. In 1834, he was born into slavery in Macon, Georgia, the son of a slave owner and an enslaved African-American woman named Mary Eliza Smith, who became his common-law wife. Healy fought discrimination as an elementary school student, both for his African-American ancestry and his Irish Catholic roots. In 1850, he became the first African American to enter the Jesuit order and was sent to Europe to study eight years later, earning a doctorate at Catholic University of Leuven in Belgium. In a letter, he referred to <a href="https://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/born-enslaved-patrick-francis-healy-passed-his-way-lead-georgetown-university-180975738/">rumors circulating among students about his race</a>, “which wound my heart. You know to what I refer.” After the Civil War ended, he returned to the United States and taught philosophy at Georgetown before becoming the school’s president. He helped transform the small college into a major university, upgrading the law school and modernizing the sciences. His influence became so profound that many refer to him as the institution’s “second founder.” Georgetown, however, did not publicly acknowledge him as its first Black president until the 1960s and 1970s, according to a <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20170517072931/https://blog.georgetownvoice.com/2010/04/14/on-the-record-georgetown-and-the-racial-identity-of-president-patrick-healy/">2010 article</a> in the university's student-run magazine. He was buried in the Jesuit cemetery on the university grounds, and Georgetown’s Alumni Association now has an award in his name. This <a target="_blank" href="https://veritenews.org/2023/07/31/patrick-healy-first-black-president-georgetown/">article</a> first appeared on <a target="_blank" href="https://veritenews.org">Verite</a> and is republished here under a Creative Commons license.<img src="https://i0.wp.com/veritenews.org/wp-content/uploads/2022/05/cropped-Verite-icon.png?fit=150%2C150&ssl=1" style="width:1em;height:1em;margin-left:10px;"><img id="republication-tracker-tool-source" src="https://veritenews.org/?republication-pixel=true&post=8059&ga3=319934958" style="width:1px;height:1px;"> Copy to Clipboard

[END]
---
[1] Url: https://veritenews.org/2023/07/31/patrick-healy-first-black-president-georgetown/

Published and (C) by Verite News New Orleans
Content appears here under this condition or license: Creative Commons BY-NC-ND 3.0 US.

via Magical.Fish Gopher News Feeds:
gopher://magical.fish/1/feeds/news/veritenews/