Anderson Shaw, the quiet visionary who kept LA Black Catholics together

When Anderson F. Shaw was baptized in his early 20s at Holy Name of Jesus Church in the 1960s, Los Angeles was experiencing something of a Black Catholic boom.

From the 1940s to the 1960s, thousands of Black and Creole families from the South — especially from traditionally Catholic pockets of Louisiana — migrated to Southern California in search of better lives. Bringing their faith with them, they worshipped and raised their families in parishes across Greater Los Angeles.

But as demographics shifted again over the following decades, the number of majority African American parishes in the Archdiocese of Los Angeles shrank to a small handful, which today include Holy Name Church in Jefferson Park and nearby Transfiguration Church in Leimert Park.

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(Photo Credit: Victor Alemán)