John Markoe
Born: November 1, 1890
Died: July 26, 1967
Wherever he went, John Markoe was always a fighter.
Schooled at West Point to fight for his country, he battled on its football field against the likes of Knute Rockne and the Fighting Irish of Notre Dame. When he heard a Black cadet viciously maligned by his classmates, Markoe responded with his fists; it took four cadets to restrain him. His fighting finally got him thrown out of the army when, as a young officer patrolling the Mexican border, he spent more time brawling in saloons than on his job.
In 1917 he joined another sort of army—the Jesuits. He would find, however, that being a soldier for Christ brought him far fewer victories than his West Point classmates would win on the fields of Europe. Perhaps it was the battlefield he chose: equal rights for African Americans, a cause that would not become acceptable for decades.
During Jesuit training at St. Louis University in 1920, Markoe ignored warnings to stick to his own side of town. He made friends quickly in the Black community. Seeing for himself the poverty, unemployment, and discrimination faced by Black people, Markoe knew that such desperate conditions demanded a large, powerful institution to fight them—an institution just like the Catholic Church.
There was just one problem. During those years, the church itself barred Black people from Catholic schools and hospitals and segregated them in Catholic churches. Markoe would have to clean his own house first.
He wrote a series of articles for the Jesuit magazine America condemning the “heresy of racism.” Outraged letters poured in by the score. Some suggested he be thrown out of the order.
During the mid-1930s, Markoe realized that the archbishop of St. Louis would support neither his call for racial equality nor his attempts to build up parishes in Black communities. He asked for a transfer. In 1943, after eight years of fighting the bottle, a sober Markoe returned to St. Louis.
That year, at the request of a Black parishioner whose daughter wanted to attend St. Louis University, Markoe began the struggle to integrate the Jesuit school. He presented his case before a meeting of regents and deans, who then voted 13 to 2 against his proposal to admit Black students. “It would lower the standards of the university,” one claimed. But with the aid of the St. Louis Post Dispatch, Markoe took the fight to the whole city; the school was bombarded with letters and calls, most supporting integration. Finally the policy was changed.
Markoe was next assigned to the Jesuits’ Creighton University in Omaha, where the De Porres Club he founded would achieve remarkable results in integration. According to his biographer, Jeffrey Smith, Markoe here became a “pioneer in the nonviolent, direct action approach.” After staging successful sit-ins at segregated restaurants and lending support to Black people moving into largely white neighborhoods, the group began to focus on employment: a six-week boycott of Coca-Cola caused the company to begin hiring Black employees. Another boycott targeted the biased hiring at the city transit company.
John Markoe died in 1967. A friend recalls his last visit with him, when Markoe took his hand and said, “Never forget our motto: Don’t give an inch!”
Originally published in Salt magazine, ©Claretian Publications.
