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Daniel Arthur Rudd was born in slavery on August 7, 1854 in Bardstown, Kentucky. He was the eleventh of twelve children of Eliza and Robert Rudd.
Sometime before 1876, Daniel left home and moved to Springfield, Ohio to complete his education. As a member of St. Raphael Catholic parish, Daniel helped desegregate the Springfield schools.
In 1885, Daniel founded a weekly black newspaper called The Ohio State Tribune. Unfortunately, it did not do too well, so in 1886, he changed the name of the paper to the American Catholic Tribune and moved the paper to Cincinnati. By 1892, the newspaper was printing ten thousand copies even though the literacy rate among black Americans was very low.
During these years, white supremacy was rampant in the United States, and many Protestant denominations were torn apart by the issue.
Because of the success of his newspaper, the Afro-American Press League, a consortium of about two hundred black newspapers that were being published in the nation at that time, asked Daniel to become their president. That he did.
This newspaper was only the beginning for Daniel Rudd, for he had grander plans. After traveling the country preaching about how the Catholic Church should welcome black Americans and how black Americans should check out the Catholic Church, he successfully convened the first ever National Black Catholic Congress in 1889 in Washington, D.C.
When his newspaper eventually folded, he moved to the South and worked in Bolivar County, Mississippi as a lumber mill manager. Eventually, he went to work for Scott Bond, the first black millionaire of Arkansas. In 1917, he coauthored Mr. Bond’s autobiography, From Slavery to Wealth: The Life of Scott Bond, the Rewards of Honesty, Industry, Economy and Perseverance.
Daniel Arthur Rudd died in 1933, but his National Black Catholic Congress continues meeting every five years to this very day. Attendees, energized by the congress, go back to their parishes and help with pro-black projects such as tutoring black youth, evangelizing in Black communities, enhancing black liturgies, and inspiring black Catholics to become leaders in their Catholic parishes and communities.
For more information on this inspirational Catholic home missionary, check out Gary B. Agee’s book, A Cry for Justice: Daniel Rudd and His Life in Black Catholicism, Journalism, and Activism, 1854-1933.
