Black Catholic heroes: Dr. Norman C. Francis

By Peter Finney Jr.
Clarion Herald

Imagine, if you will, what the city of New Orleans would have been like without Dr. Norman C. Francis.

Francis, who will turn 90 on March 20, was the longest-serving university president in the United States when he retired in 2015 from Xavier University of Louisiana, an institution he led with charisma, prayer and personal witness.

Francis, widely recognized as the patriarch of the Xavier family since 1968, stepped down in June 2015 as president of the only historically Black Catholic university in the Western hemisphere.

As he said at the time: “After nearly 47 years, I know the time has come to take the brightly burning torch turned over to me by the Sisters of the Blessed Sacrament and pass it on to new leadership. I do this with a passionate confidence and absolute certainty that Xavier is better prepared than ever to continue its educational and spiritual mission and to build on its tradition of excellence.”

Overcame incredible obstacles
Francis’ tenure as Xavier president spanned generations and overcame many obstacles, not the least of which was restoring a campus inundated by the floodwaters of Hurricane Katrina in 2005.

When Francis, the son of a Lafayette barber, came to Xavier as a 17-year-old freshman on a work scholarship in 1948, the campus consisted of just a few permanent buildings, several small houses and Army surplus trailers in one city block. Xavier’s burgeoning campus today is dotted with 16 buildings on 63 acres, and the endowment has grown from $2 million to more than $160 million.

More importantly, more than 20,000 students have earned degrees, and Xavier annually places more African-Americans in medical school than any other college in the country. The school also leads the nation in the number of African Americans earning bachelor’s degrees in biology, chemistry, physics and the physical sciences.

Many 'firsts' in his life
Francis graduated from Xavier in 1952 and became the first African American to be accepted and graduate from Loyola Law School in New Orleans. His older brother Joseph was the fourth Black Catholic bishop in the U.S., serving as auxiliary bishop of Newark, New Jersey.

After serving in the Army, Francis worked with the U.S. attorney to help desegregate federal agencies in the South. He returned to Xavier in 1957 as dean of men and became the first lay president of Xavier in 1968, getting the appointment from the Sisters of the Blessed Sacrament on the same day civil rights leader Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. was assassinated in Memphis.

“His assassination was like blowing up the dream,” Francis said. “I think it dulled our senses. We were in shock.”

Miracle of longevity
Francis often reflected on the many “miracles” produced by Xavier, but the biggest miracle of all, he said, is that it existed in the first place. Xavier was founded by St. Katharine Drexel, a Philadelphia heiress who entered religious life, formed the Blessed Sacrament Sisters and then used her family inheritance to educate blacks and native Americans throughout the U.S.

St. Katharine opened Xavier in 1925, building an impressive administration and classroom building out of Indiana limestone. Xavier’s initial focus was to prepare African Americans, who could not get a private school education in Louisiana, for future careers as teachers.

Katrina challenge met
Francis had fleeting thoughts about retiring after Katrina devastated the Xavier campus and flooded 80% of the city of New Orleans. But those notions quickly vanished as he pulled together a small core of administrators, faculty and staff in temporary headquarters in Grand Coteau, Louisiana, not far from Lafayette, where he had grown up.

“I thought about it, but not for long,” Francis said. “I couldn’t leave, not just because of who I was, but because I knew that Xavier wasn’t ready to give up to a hurricane. We had 80 people who brought us back in 4 1/2 months, and 75% of them had lost their homes. That was not easy. There’s something about adrenaline. There’s something about knowing when it’s time to make a decision.”

Francis had lost his home, as well, but even in the midst of all the recovery efforts, he agreed to a plea from Louisiana Gov. Kathleen Blanco to chair the Louisiana Recovery Authority, the state panel that provided guidelines for how the region would use federal funds to rebuild. In 2006, Francis received the Presidential Medal of Freedom from President George W. Bush.

Just this year, the New Orleans City Council officially renamed Jefferson Davis Parkway as Dr. Norman C. Francis Parkway to honor his trailblazing efforts.

Friday: A.P. Tureaud Sr.

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