[Congressional Record Volume 144, Number 49 (Tuesday, April 28, 1998)]
[Extensions of Remarks]
[Page E692]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




    REMEMBERING REV. CLAUDE HEITHAUS--``A CIVIL RIGHTS TRAILBLAZER''

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                        HON. WILLIAM (BILL) CLAY

                              of missouri

                    in the house of representatives

                        Tuesday, April 28, 1998

  Mr. CLAY. Mr. Speaker. Trailblazers are people who take chances and 
stand up for what's right, even when the status quo tells them the time 
is ``not right''. Trailblazers change the course of history, as Rev. 
Claude Heithaus did at Saint Louis University on a day in February 1944 
when he delivered a sermon that led to integration in higher education 
in the city of St. Louis. As a proud alumnus of Saint Louis University 
and beneficiary of Rev. Heithaus' courageous actions, I commend to our 
colleagues the April 14, 1998 St. Louis Post Dispatch article, titled 
``Priest led the fight for university integration'', which tells of the 
great sacrifice Rev. Heithaus made for the benefit of racial harmony. 
It is my hope that our colleagues in the struggle for racial equality 
and justice will find strength in this story.

              Priest Led Fight for University Integration

                            (By Paul Shore)

       St. Louis is rich in history, and we honor those who have 
     contributed to its history in a number of ways: by naming 
     parks, streets, hospitals and schools after them, or by 
     keeping their memory alive by dedicating a civic project or 
     program to them. Yet an important figure in the history of 
     our city continues to go largely unacknowledged. His name was 
     Claude Heithaus, and this spring marks the 100th anniversary 
     of his birth.
       Before Brown vs. the Board of Education had made its way to 
     the Supreme Court in 1954, before the Archdiocese of St. 
     Louis had integrated its schools, when St. Louis was an 
     entirely segregated city, the Rev. Claude Heithaus, a Jesuit 
     priest, took it upon himself to preach a sermon in the St. 
     Frances Xavier (College) Church of St. Louis University, 
     where he was a faculty member. In this sermon, which he 
     delivered on the morning of Feb. 11, 1944, he called upon his 
     listeners to repudiate racism and welcome people of color to 
     the university. His words were uncompromising as he called 
     upon the community to face its prejudice and hypocrisy:
       ``Do you want us to slam our doors in the face of 
     Catholics, because their complexion happens to be brown or 
     black? It (the claim that white students would refuse to 
     attend classes with people of color) is a lie. I see that you 
     repudiate it with indignation. You scorn it all the more 
     because some of the very people who disseminate this lie have 
     themselves sent their sons to Harvard and Yale, where they 
     were glad to sit in the same classrooms with Negroes.''
       Heithaus' call to justice, which he couched in religious as 
     well as moral terms, did not go unnoticed. Within the year, 
     St. Louis University became the first institution of higher 
     learning in a former slave state to admit African-Americans, 
     and the city of St. Louis thereby became the scene of one of 
     the most important breakthroughs in racial integration.
       Heithaus soon departed from St. Louis. Because he had 
     preached the sermon without the permission or support of his 
     Jesuit superior and had continued to call attention to the 
     problems of racism, he was banished, first to Kansas and then 
     to Milwaukee.
       Late in life he was allowed to return to the St. Louis 
     area, where he lived quietly, never speaking publicly again 
     on the topic of race relations. He died in 1976.
       In the story of Heithaus' courage and determination there 
     is much that St. Louis can be proud of. He risked--and lost--
     a great deal in order to further a process of acceptance, 
     toleration and integration that remains unfinished in our 
     community.
       Although the first part of his story is fairly well known, 
     the price he paid is less well known, and neither the 
     university nor the community has ever formally recognized his 
     accomplishments and sacrifices.
       After his speech and his subsequent refusal to drop the 
     issue of race relations, his career as a teacher was severely 
     curtailed. A valuable collection of antiquities that he had 
     acquired on his travels was lost or destroyed. His work as a 
     trainer of young journalists (a quarter century earlier he 
     had founded St. Louis University's University News) came to 
     an end as well.
       Even after the policies that Heithaus had called for became 
     an accepted reality, he was never publicly thanked or even 
     acknowledged by this community for his role in their 
     realization, although the Father General of the Jesuits and 
     the French government eventually recognized his 
     accomplishments.
       While much of the responsibility for this acknowledgement 
     lies with the school where I work, St. Louis University, some 
     of it ultimately lies with the community that also benefited 
     from his vision and persistence. His commitment and his 
     ideals should not be forgotten.
       I call upon St. Louis University to mark the hundredth 
     anniversary of Claude Heithaus' birth with some gesture 
     worthy of his beliefs. I also call upon the greater St. Louis 
     community to reflect on the actions of someone, who, when it 
     was still politically incorrect, sought to widen educational 
     opportunities for people of color. Surely there is a place in 
     our city for some remembrance of him, a way to call attention 
     to his ideals.
       Heithaus is of course not the only unsung hero of St. Louis 
     history. In the past 200 years, many men and women in this 
     community have stood for worthy but unpopular causes and paid 
     high prices for their beliefs. We should give each one 
     recognition, not only out of respect for what they did, but 
     also for what their lives can offer all of us as models of 
     courage and vision. And by honoring Claude Heithaus, we would 
     be making a very good start.

     

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