Why I Stand with Father Pfleger

Father Michael L. Pfleger stands during a march last year to protest the killing of George Floyd and the continuation of systemic racism. (Photo credit: John W. Fountain)

This is an extended version of a column that appears in Sunday's Chicago Sun-Times newspaper 

By John W. Fountain

I stand with Father Pfleger.

Oh, I hear you, dear Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Chicago, in purporting to be on the side of justice and transparency in your silencing and removing of the nationally renowned, longtime pastor of the Faith Community of St. Sabina while officials conduct a probe into allegations of sexual abuse of a minor more than 40 years ago.

Indeed I am among the multitude that believes that truth and justice--no matter how long delayed--must prevail. That we must, at all costs, protect the least of these: Our children.

I hear you, trust me, I do. Even as I stand painfully aware of the Catholic church’s well-documented ferrying of known pedophile priests from parish to parish while paying incalculable sums in settlements to sex abuse victims--including a reported more than $200 million by the Chicago Archdiocese.

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"How often does the church’s hierarchy venture beyond its majestic gothic headquarters to touch the untouchable in Englewood?"  

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My Visit To Ghana: Remembrance of Black History Long Before Slavery

John W. Fountain stands at Cape Coast Castle in Ghana, overlooking the Atlantic Ocean. 

He visited Ghana in 2007 and will return this August as a Fulbright Scholar where he will teach 

at the University of Ghana in Accra and conduct a research project titled,

"Africa Calling: Portraits of Black Americans Drawn To The Motherland."

He is a professor of journalism at Roosevelt University.

By John W. Fountain

Imagine. If the ocean could cry. If the walls did cry. If the sands could speak. If the cells here in Cape Coast would try to tell the tale of blood lost, of tears shed. Of souls dead. Imagine…

These were the words I penned shortly after visiting the former slave castle in Cape Coast, Ghana, in 2007--a hauntingly majestic white stone fortress overlooking the Atlantic Ocean. 

Standing on that side of the Atlantic upon this castle, where my ancestors began their shackled journey to North America, staring into waves that lapped at its shores, I was awash in Black history. Moved in ways I had not been before by our story as African Americans, by our journey, which did not begin in 1619.

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