Emanuel A. Romero
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Emanuel A. Romero | |
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| Born | February 21, 1887 Kingston, Jamaica, B.W.I. |
| Died | December 8, 1960 (aged 73) |
| Occupations | Lecturer, writer, advocate for interracial justice in the Roman Catholic church |
| Spouse | Minnett Ennever (m. 1919) |
| Children | 4 |
Emanuel A. Romero Sr. (February 21, 1887 – December 8, 1960) was a Jamaican-American writer and speaker who was a prominent voice for racial justice from a Black Catholic perspective in the 1930s and 40s. He wrote for publications such as The Catholic Interracialist and The Interracial Review and he led both the Catholic Interracial Council and a majority-Black organization known as the Catholic Laymen's Union.[1] He spent 47 years as an administrator at the ecumenical Protestant Union Theological Seminary, where he was remembered by students as having "a deeper understanding of our faith than most Protestant professionals."[2]
Emanuel Augustus Romero was born in Kingston, Jamaica when it was the British West Indies, on February 21, 1887, the son of a Haitian mother, Marie Hewitt Romero (? – 1924), and a Spanish father, Manuel Francisco Romero (1869 – 1893).[3] He had a sister, Isadora. He attended parochial school in Kingston, and graduated from St. George's College before moving to New York in 1903 or 1906.[4] Over the next years he attended business school at night in what was then known as the New York City Evening Schools (1825-1935), moving on to Columbia University's extension program, and then Fordham University, as well as studying law by correspondence course with Philadelphia's LaSalle University.[4]
Career
He began his career clerking at the American Consular Service. He then worked for the Lee & Fleischer law firm until it laid off much of its staff during a financial crisis known as the Panic of 1907. He then joined Union Theological Seminary later in 1907 at its Park Avenue location, running the Hastings Hall office, and working for 47 years until his retirement in May, 1954.[2] He served in the Army during World War I, winning a commission at Camp Pike, rising to First Lieutenant, and afterward continuing in the Officers' Reserve Corps.[1][5] In 1942 he registered for the World War II draft at age 55, but was not called up.[6]
After WWI he was named "special organizer for colored troops" by the War Camp Community Service. There he organized activities for Black youth such as boys' clubs and Boy Scout troops. He also oversaw sports for Black adults such as tennis and swimming, in what was then a highly segregated society. In 1922 his name appears on the letterhead as adjutant for the Colonel Charles Young Post 398 of the American Legion of Harlem, named for the first Black man to achieve the rank of colonel in the Army.[7]