Later this month, the Parish of Saint Monica community in Atlantic City will pay tribute to a figure who played a significant role not only in the parish’s founding, but the legacy of Black Catholics in the seaside resort city.
Mother Emma Lewis, a devout Black Catholic convert and member of the lay apostolate of the Oblates of Divine Providence of Washington, D.C. – and who is credited with starting the parish mission in the early 1900s – will be honored the weekend of April 25-26. After the 11:30 a.m. Sunday Mass, all are invited to visit, pray and lay a wreath at Lewis’ graveside in the Atlantic City Cemetery in Pleasantville.
Lewis was born in 1868 to Baptist parents in Ohio and grew up poor. Upon her arrival in Atlantic City, she saw the hardship faced by Black Catholics who were not welcomed in church communities on Absecon Island. As a champion for inclusion for Black Catholics like herself, Lewis organized faithful in a small, rented house and named the mission she founded after Saint Monica. In 1917, it came under the administration of the clergy at Saint Nicholas of Tolentine. Lewis died on Dec. 11, 1921, but the parish mission she founded blossomed into a multi-cultural faith community that continues today.
Saint Nicholas of Tolentine Church is located at 1409 Pacific Ave., Atlantic City. For more information on the celebration, visit accatholic.org.
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