Father Stephen Eckert, O.F.M. Cap.

The Apostle and Champion of the Colored Race

Stephen Eckert was born in 1869 in Canada. As a young man he entered the Order of Friars Minor Capuchin and was ordained a priest in 1896. His early assignments gave no hint of the mission that would define his life. That changed in 1904, when he was sent to Milwaukee and encountered the African American community there, largely ignored or excluded by the city’s Catholic parishes.

Father Eckert threw himself into this work with a convert’s zeal. In 1908, he founded St. Benedict the Moor mission in Milwaukee, a parish dedicated entirely to serving Black Catholics. He opened a school the following year, recruiting religious sisters to teach the children. He went door to door in Black neighborhoods, inviting families to Mass, offering catechism classes, and providing material assistance to those in need.

In 1912, Eckert was transferred to New York City, where he began ministry in Harlem. He helped establish Capuchin missions serving the rapidly growing African American population of upper Manhattan. His approach was always the same: meet people where they are, serve their needs, and fight the racism that kept them from the full life of the Church.

He returned to Milwaukee around 1920 and continued his advocacy until his death on February 16, 1923, at the age of fifty-three. His years of tireless work had worn him out. His tombstone bears the inscription: “The Apostle and Champion of the Colored Race.” His cause for canonization was introduced in 1952, the diocesan process concluded in 1959, and documentation was presented to the Vatican in 1977.

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