In 1874, Patrick Francis Healy became the first African-American president of a predominantly white university when he received his appointment to this position at Georgetown University in Washington, D.C. The Jesuit leadership of the school was convinced that Healy was the most qualified person to lead the college, despite what one priest referred to as “the problem related to his background.”
Healy’s “problem” was his mixed-race heritage. Healy was the son of a biracial mother and an Irish immigrant father. Author James O’Toole writes in his history of the Healy family, Passing for White, that Healy’s fair skin enabled him to evade the prevailing racism of the era.
Healy was born in Jones County, GA, in 1834 to Michael Healy and Mary Eliza, a former slave. Georgia law prohibited interracial couples like Healy’s parents from marrying, so they entered into a common law marriage that lasted until their deaths in 1850. Consequently, Patrick and his nine siblings were considered illegitimate–preventing them from attending school in Georgia.
To shield his children from the racial laws of the South, Patrick’s father sent him and his brothers to school in the North. The boys attended a Quaker school in Flushing, N.Y., and then the nascent College of the Holy Cross in Worcester, Mass., where Patrick quickly distinguished himself in his studies. Jesuit priests ran Holy Cross, and it was there that Patrick embraced the Catholic faith. He entered the Jesuit order of priests in 1850, and continued his studies abroad. In 1865, he was one of the first African-Americans to receive a doctorate in philosophy from the Catholic University of Louvain in Belgium.
Patrick began his career at Georgetown in 1868 as prefect of studies. Although one-third of the student body hailed from former Confederate states, none of the students knew of Father Healy’s mixed racial heritage. Because of prevailing racial prejudices, Father Healy–and those of his Jesuits brothers who were aware of his background–kept the details of his ancestry quiet.
At the age of 39, Healy assumed the presidency of what was then the largest and oldest Catholic institution of higher learning in the United States. During his eight-year tenure, Healy made faculty improvements, built the endowment, strengthened the law and medical schools, and linked them more closely to the undergraduate institutions.
According to Georgetown University officials, Father Healy is considered one of the school’s most dynamic presidents, and is referenced as its “second founder.” Healy transformed the school into a modern university. Georgetown, in turn, has honored his role in history by naming the most recognizable building on campus the Healy Building. Although construction on the five-story Romanesque stone structure began during Healy’s presidency, it was not completed until after he resigned in 1882. The dramatic structure, a distinctive part of the Washington skyline, serves as a reminder of Healy’s triumph over the challenges imposed by racial stereotypes.