When St. Katharine Drexel Defeated the KKK
St. Katharine Drexel was the first person born a U.S. citizen to be made a saint. And what a saint she was!
Born into a wealthy family in 1858, when St. Katharine got older she took a vow of poverty, founded a new order of religious sisters, and devoted her great wealth to serving those discriminated against in the U.S., namely Native Americans and African-Americans.
In the early 20th century, this got her into a lot of trouble, especially with the Ku Klux Klan (KKK). The KKK was not only notoriously anti-black, but also anti-Catholic. So you can imagine how they felt about Catholic sisters helping blacks!
One thing that St. Katharine’s order did was open up schools for Native American and African-American children.
In 1922, a local KKK group turned against one of their schools in Beaumont, Texas and “threatened to tar and feather the white past[or] at one of Drexel’s schools and bomb his church.”
So what did the sisters do? They prayed, of course!
And here’s what happened, according to one telling of the story: “The nuns prayed and days later, a tornado came and destroyed the headquarters of the KKK killing two of their members.”
The result? “The Sisters were never threatened again.”
Born into a wealthy family in 1858, when St. Katharine got older she took a vow of poverty, founded a new order of religious sisters, and devoted her great wealth to serving those discriminated against in the U.S., namely Native Americans and African-Americans.
In the early 20th century, this got her into a lot of trouble, especially with the Ku Klux Klan (KKK). The KKK was not only notoriously anti-black, but also anti-Catholic. So you can imagine how they felt about Catholic sisters helping blacks!
One thing that St. Katharine’s order did was open up schools for Native American and African-American children.
In 1922, a local KKK group turned against one of their schools in Beaumont, Texas and “threatened to tar and feather the white past[or] at one of Drexel’s schools and bomb his church.”
So what did the sisters do? They prayed, of course!
And here’s what happened, according to one telling of the story: “The nuns prayed and days later, a tornado came and destroyed the headquarters of the KKK killing two of their members.”
The result? “The Sisters were never threatened again.”
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