On June 21, 1902, Father John Henry Dorsey became the second African American educated and ordained priest in the United States. From 1905 to 1907, Father Dorsey served the congregation of St. Peter’s Church, becoming the first African American priest in the South.
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John Henry Dorsey was born in Baltimore, Maryland on January 28, 1874, to Daniel and Emma Snowden Dorsey. During his youth, Dorsey was an altar boy at St. Francis Xavier Church in the St. Francis Xavier Parish, the first African American Catholic church and parish in the United States. In 1888, with the assistance of Father John Slattery, an advocate for African American priests, Dorsey enrolled in the College of St. Thomas (now known as the University of St. Thomas), a small Catholic university in St. Paul, Minnesota. In 1889, he enrolled in Epiphany Apostolic College, the Mill Hill Josephite Minor Seminary founded that year by Father Slattery. Soon after, Dorsey enrolled in St. Joseph’s Seminary, remaining there until 1894. For the next three years, he worked in Jarrett’s Station and Keswick, Virginia as a teacher and catechist. In 1897, Dorsey re-entered St. Joseph’s Seminary.
In 1891, while still a student at Epiphany Apostolic College, Dorsey attended the ordination of Charles Randolph Uncles, a fellow St. Francis Xavier parishioner, as he became the first African-American priest ordained in the United States. On June 21, 1902, Dorsey followed in his footsteps, becoming the second African American ordained priest in the United States.
On November 1, 1903, Father Dorsey dedicated St. Peter’s new building south of the Colored Industrial Institute’s school buildings in Pine Bluff, Arkansas. In 1905, Dorsey returned and served St. Peter’s congregation from 1905 to 1907, becoming the first African American priest in the South.
According to historian Steven Ochs, before 1950 few African American men became priests because they “often paid a staggering emotional price for their vocations.” When speaking about Dorsey, Ochs stated that Dorsey’s life “exemplified the heroic suffering of the pioneering Black priests of the early twentieth century. As a Black priest, he endured misunderstanding, humiliation, isolation, and discrimination, often from his brother priests. Eventually, the strain wore him down, leaving him only a shell of his former self.” In 1907, just five years after his ordination and shortly after receiving numerous complaints, Dorsey stated, “From … my ordination to the present, my life has been one heavy cross” as he faced prejudice from both his Southern congregation and fellow priests.
In 1907, Dorsey was transferred to St. Joseph’s College in Montgomery, Alabama, where he taught for almost a decade. Though he faced a great deal of discrimination, moving to Alabama helped Dorsey pursue a career as a traveling minister. Known for his powerful preaching style and eloquent delivery, Dorsey’s revival sermons attracted large, fervent crowds throughout the South and Gulf Coast. During this time, Dorsey befriended Booker T. Washington and even conducted mass at Tuskegee Institute (now known as Tuskegee University).
In 1909, Dorsey was among the Josephite Fathers who founded the Knights of Peter Claver, the largest African American lay fraternal organization in the United States. Dorsey became the first National Chaplain of the Noble Order, serving in the position for the next 14 years.
In 1917, Dorsey ended his missionary work and moved back to Baltimore after his health began to fail. For the next six years, he served at St. Monica’s Catholic Church, a poor African American parish. In 1923, he was struck on the head with a blunt object by one of his parishioners. Though Dorsey survived the attack, for the next three years he suffered from several strokes that eventually immobilized him. In 1926 Dorsey died as a result of his injuries.
In 2017, The University of St. Thomas renamed a corridor in their student center Dorsey Way, “to commemorate one of the University of St. Thomas’ most historically significant students, Father John Henry "Harry" Dorsey, S.S.J., a pioneering African-American priest of the early 20th century and St. Thomas' first African-American student.”
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Written by: Ninfa O. Barnard