James Augustine Healy

The Right Reverend James Augustine Healy, Bishop of Portland

Date of Birth: April 6, 1830

Place of Birth: Jones County, Georgia, U.S.

Date of Death: August 5, 1900

Place of Death: Portland, Maine, U.S.

Ethnicity:
*father – Irish
*mother – African-American, English

The Right Reverend James Augustine Healy was an American prelate of the Catholic Church. He is known as the first American of significant African descent to have served as a Catholic priest or bishop. He passed for white and identified as white. He was Bishop of Portland, Maine, from 1875 to 1900.

James was born into slavery, the son of Mary Eliza (Clark/Smith) and Michael Morris Healy. His father, who was white and a plantation owner, was born in County Roscommon, Ireland. He owned more than 1,500 acres, near the Ocmulgee River, and owned between 49 and 60 slaves. His mother was a slave, of mixed-race ancestry. His father bought her, and later took her as his common-law wife. He was later freed, educated overseas, and ordained as a priest in 1854.

Among his siblings were Patrick Francis Healy, a Catholic priest and Jesuit, who was President of Georgetown University, from 1873 to 1882; Michael A. Healy, a career officer with the U.S. Revenue Cutter Service/U.S. Coast Guard, nicknamed “Hell Roaring Mike;” and religious sister Mary Magdalen Healy, who was with the Congregation of Notre Dame of Montréal.

Source: https://www.washingtonpost.com