St. Katharine Drexel and DeSales Hospitality Core Value
Today the church celebrates the feast of St. Katharine Drexel, the heir of the vast Drexel Family wealth from Philadelphia. March is also Women’s History Month. In this excerpt from the writings of Kathy Coffey’s Women of Mercy (Orbis, 2005 p, 111-112), we see the deep commitment of Katharine to care for Black and Native American peoples, despite great resistance. St. Katharine’s zeal for inclusion and equity, generations before it became the norm, is a clear expression of our University core value of hospitality.
The situation for African-Americans in the early 1900s hadn’t changed much since the days of slavery. Although Black people were eager for freedom, they had little education and found few jobs. “Nothing is too good for my students!” vowed Katharine, who saw an education permeated with Christian principles as vital equipment. Starting schools for Black girls, she incurred the wrath of the Ku Klux Klan. They burned a cross on her front lawn in 1926 and called her community “n***** sisters.”
Despite the racists who targeted her, Katharine continued to buy property and insisted that African-Americans should have not only trade schools but academic colleges. But even her abundant charm couldn’t convince homeowners righteously defending their neighborhoods. Unfazed, she contributed $750,000 toward the founding of Xavier University in New Orleans, the first Catholic college in the United States for African-Americans. She explained her independence: “You have no time to occupy your thoughts with… consideration of what others will think. Your business is simply, ‘What will my Father in heaven think?’”