In A Cry for Justice, Gary Agee recovers the story of Daniel Rudd (1854–1933), one of the best-known black Catholics of the post-Civil War era. In 1886, Rudd started the American Catholic Tribune (ACT). At its peak in 1892 while operating from Cincinnati, the ACT claimed ten thousand subscribers. Agee's account of Rudd's life relies heavily on the 285 remaining copies of the ACT. On the pages of this weekly newspaper, the author argues, “Rudd promoted a church-centered vision of justice that presumed for the Catholic Church a vital role in the establishment of a racially equitable society in America” (ix).

The book begins with a brief look at Rudd's upbringing, a story that scarcely predicts his future successes, but does foreshadow his committed Catholicism. Rudd hailed from Bardstown, Kentucky, born into slavery as the eleventh of twelve children. The house where he lived was a few short steps from the Saint Joseph Proto-Cathedral, the place where Rudd was baptized and received first communion. At the conclusion of the Civil War, Rudd relocated to Springfield, Ohio, where he completed an education and began his career in journalism. Agee notes that among the challenges in reconstructing this phase of Rudd's life was the editor's reluctance to write about it in the ACT. Agee speculates, “perhaps he feared that drawing attention to the fact that he had been the property of a Catholic family would put off the African American audience he was trying to evangelize” (7).

Indeed, Rudd placed Catholicism at the center of his journalistic endeavors. The editor frequently made mention of the “Fatherhood of God and the Brotherhood of Man,” as a way of stressing a Catholic doctrine of interdependence that he believed made the church uniquely qualified to address the concerns of African Americans. Rudd had influential allies inside the church, to include John Ireland, archbishop of Saint Paul's in Minnesota. In 1890, just as Louisiana passed legislation that segregated railcars, Ireland proposed that the solution to the “race problem” was “to obliterate the color line” (63).

The archbishop became Rudd's North Star, his shining point of reference for highlighting a progressive racial attitude among Catholics. Alas, Ireland met resistance both from non-Catholics and Catholics alike. Southern newspapers in particular lambasted the archbishop, claiming that racial integration violated the laws of God and nature. Similarly, John M. Mackey, pastor of the Cathedral of Saint Peter in Chains in Cincinnati, announced his opposition to Ireland, claiming that the color line was “drawn apparently by nature herself” (70). The priest's rebuttal was curious not only because his cathedral had more black members than any other in Cincinnati, but also because he was the associate editor of the ACT.

We are mostly left to wonder if Mackey's disagreement with Ireland strained his relationship with Rudd. Mackey left the paper in January 1891. And, as Agee notes, there was no reference to the ACT in Mackey's obituary. The two seemed to share a common commitment to racial justice. But one must conclude that, on the matter of full racial equality, Rudd and Mackey agreed to disagree. No doubt, in the following years, Rudd continued holding aloft the views of Ireland and the likeminded. The editor inserted his integrated vision for American society into his writings on issues ranging from labor and lynching, to education and public transportation.

Rudd also used the pages of the ACT to promote the National Black Catholic Congress, which, in 1889, gathered for the first time in Washington, D.C. Rudd had hopes that the Congress would become a body that would advance African-American interests, while bearing a distinct Catholic mark. After five meetings, however, the Congress came to an end. Leaders could not find church officials who would sanction the event. And it seems that Rudd had become disillusioned with the congress. It is unclear if he even attended the final meeting.

Meanwhile, Rudd's newspaper was also trending toward collapse. In 1893, Rudd moved the ACT to Detroit, perhaps hoping to capitalize on the demise of the Detroit Plaindealer. Factors such as an economic recession and competition from another black Catholic newspaper precipitated the ACT folding in 1897. With his newspaper no longer operating, Rudd went south, living first in Mississippi and then in Arkansas. There, he found employment with Scott Bond, a wealthy black farmer and businessman. Rudd would use his journalistic skills to write a biography of his employer. According to Agee, the text reveals Rudd's adoption of a self-help ethos similar to that of Booker T. Washington.

Rudd lived and worked in Arkansas until 1932, when he suffered a stroke and moved back to Bardstown. There, he died at age seventy-nine and was buried at the Saint Joseph cemetery, near the cathedral where he first encountered the faith that would become the core of his life's work.

Agee's biography of Rudd merits praise because it shines a light on a conspicuously dim corner of African-American religious history. Additionally, he forces readers to consider why Rudd's story has yet to be told in any comprehensive manner. Agee speculates that Rudd's religious affiliation might be the culprit, reasoning that Catholicism isolates the editor along the periphery of existing narratives of African-American religions. For this reason alone, specialists of this subject should not let this book slip underneath their radars. In addition to complicating the historiography, historians might feel compelled to examine Rudd's audience, those legions of readers who took the editor's insights seriously. What A Cry for Justice does best, then, is to open doors of inquiry that will no doubt lead the conversation of African-American religions to new and interesting places.