Passing for White: Race, Religion, and the Healy Family, 1820-1920

An insightful account of America, the Roman Catholic Church and the plight of being of Black in the mid-1800s. The most profound idea springing from this volume is that success in America and the Catholic Church depended upon the absolute non-disclosure by the Healys of their "Negro" ancestry. Nevertheless, the Healy brothers were remarkable individuals who made decisions to excell as distinct ways. Yet the author provides key commentary on the impediment of being Black in this country.

I first learned of the Healy family in January 1959, when I paged through the new 12 month Catholic calendar. Each month was devoted to a 19th century Catholic who made a significant contribution to American Catholic life. One of the individuals was James Augustine Healy. The short description said that James Healy was the first American negro (the acceptable for Blacks or African Americans in 1959) to be ordained a priest; and that he later became Bishop of Portland Maine (certainly another first), where he provided distinguished leadership in pastoral work, education, social advocacy, and public welfare. The commentary went on to report that James was born in Georgia to an Irish-born white father and a black slave woman. Nothing was mentioned of any siblings, the names of his parents, or how he got from Georgia to Maine. My immediate reaction was a mild (to myself) comment, "Isn't that interesting." Over the years I learned more bits and pieces about the famous Irish-American Healy family --- and what a family! . I learned that two other Healy brothers were prominent American priests --- the Jesuit, Patrick Francis Healy, being the one time president of Georgetown University; and Alexander Sherwood Healy, a canon law expert in the diocese of Boston. From James Michner's Alaska, I learned that that another Healy sibling, Michael Healy, was a famous captain of the BEAR, a US Coast Guard in vessel operating in the Alaskan waters. And later still I learned that two Healy sisters became nuns with one of them attaining the rank of mother Superior in her community. But then I learned so much more from Passing for White: Race, Religion, and The Healy Family, 1820-1920 by James M. O'Toole. Indeed the founder of this family was Michael Morris Healy, born in Ireland (Galway or Roscommon) in 1796. Sometime in the early 1800s he acquired land near present day Macon Georgia, and became a cotton plantation owner. And yes he acquired slaves to work the plantation, including one Eliza Clark. Unlike other slave owners, Michael did not have a wife in the big house and a concubine in the slave quarters. Laws during the slavery era prohibited interracial marriages, but Michael and Eliza carried out their family life as husband and wife until their death in 1850 (Eliza's death preceded Michael's by about three months.) Their union produced nine children who survived to adulthood. (One died in infancy) The Healy children were never treated as slaves, but under contemporary Georgia law, they were indeed slaves. Why? A person's slave-status was determined from the status of the mother. Knowing this, Michael Healy began to send children North for their schooling. James was first to move North, followed by brothers Sherwood, Patrick, Hugh (another brother), Michael, and sister Martha Ann. Later, after the death of the parents in 1870 the younger children Amanda Josephine, Eliza Dunamore, and Eugene moved North -- with Hugh's able assistance. All this was happening

I'm somewhat biased from having studied under Dr O'Toole who is a friendly and generous scholar. That said this book is a good microhistory of one families experience at "passing". There's a fairly deft handling here of identity politics as the Healy sibling redefined themselves from being Black to being Catholic and white. There is an assumption that the siblings Black heritage should be just as important as their Irish heritage, and at times the book is a little sad as many of the Healy siblings very forcefully turn their back on their former Black identity. The book is fascinating both as the reconstruction of a 19th century family (which is the direction from which I approached it) and as an examination of the fluid nature of identity in America.

This book opened my eyes to what's been going on even in the 21st century in this country. I've been experiencing something of a struggle like that family's my entire life, but it took reading about it during that particular period in history to understand where today's societal attitudes are coming from. Nothing has changed. Blacks still treat you like you're trying to "pass for white" just by becoming a nun or a monk. And that explains all the racial problems, tensions, and attempted violence that goes with it; black society's resistance to the religious orders has taken even more of a nasty turn in the last century than in the one before it.

The kind press of UMass sells this brilliant book for thirty dollars! Race, Faith, and our society are examined in this absolutely engrossing piece of non-fiction. O'Toole may have edged out Steve Almond for the best B.C. book of the year. Norton? PGW?, holler!