What Black Lives Matter can teach Catholics about racial justice

Olga Segura

February 01, 2019

Felix Cepeda, a 38-year-old Catholic activist and community organizer, cannot remember how many protests he has participated in. But there is one, in particular, that stays with him. On the night of Oct. 18, 2016, Deborah Danner, a 66-year-old African-American woman with schizophrenia, was shot and killed by a sergeant in the New York Police Department. Ms. Danner lived in the Castle Hill section of the Bronx, where Mr. Cepeda currently lives. Just a day later, Mr. Cepeda and dozens of others marched in a protest in the Bronx. The march was an expression of the anger, disgust and fear felt by people of color over police brutality, and it was part of a larger, nationwide group galvanized by the death of Trayvon Martin in 2013, the Black Lives Matter movement.

Mr. Cepeda tells me he felt called to march with Black Lives Matter because of his experience growing up black and Catholic.   Read more…..