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African American Celebration Series 2025
“Strength in Unity:
A Journey of Justice, Hope and Resilience”
St. Columba’s Sankofa JourneySunday Masses 8:00 am | 10:30 am
Sunday 10:30 AM LIVESTREAM >
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Current Speakers
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February 16, 2025TBA
February 23, 2025
Dr. Kim R. Harris
Dept. of Theological Studies, Loyola Marymount University
Dr. Kim R. Harris is the Associate Professor of African American Religious Thought and Practice in the Department of Theological Studies at Loyola Marymount University in Los Angeles. In addition to teaching courses on Black liberation and Womanist theologies, Dr. Harris leads music in a variety of liturgical and academic settings.
Dr. Kim is a liturgist, composer and recording artist, presenting lectures on the music of the Black Catholic experience, the historic Negro Spirituals, and the freedom song of modern Civil Rights Movement. Dr. Harris is a member of the Black Catholic Theological Symposium and the North American Academy of Liturgy.
Dr. Kim is the composer of the Welcome Table: A Mass of Spirituals, one of the complete Mass settings included in the Lead Me Guide Me Black Catholic hymnal, second edition, and the Gather IV hymnal (both published by GIA Publications). And she is one of the editors, authors, and compilers of The Fire This Time: A Black Catholic Sourcebook.
M. Roger Holland II
Gospel Choir Workshop with M. Roger Holland II
M. Roger Holland, II is a Teaching Associate Professor in Music and Religion and Director of The Spirituals Project at the Lamont School of Music, University of Denver. A graduate of Union Theological Seminary in New York City where he received the Master of Divinity degree, Roger also served as Artist-in-Residence and director of the Union Gospel Choir for over 13 years. In 2015 Union awarded him the Trailblazers Distinguished Alumni Award, the first given to a graduate whose ministry is music, for his contributions to the legacy of African American music. He received a Master’s Degree in Piano Performance from the Manhattan School of Music, also in New York, and completed his undergraduate work at Westminster Choir College in Princeton, New Jersey where he majored in Music Education with a concentration in piano and voice.
Roger toured nationally and internationally with The Boys Choir of Harlem, working with them as a conductor, pianist, instructor and arranger for several of their recordings. Roger served as Minister of Music for Our Lady of Charity Roman Catholic Church in Brooklyn, NY for 12 years and is Liturgical Music Consultant for the New York Archdiocese Office of Black Ministry, acting as Music Director for their special Masses at St. Patrick’s Cathedral.
Roger is the newly appointed editor of the In Spirit and Truth series published by GIA He has played for the Broadway productions of Oprah Winfrey’s The Color Purple and the Tony award winning show, Memphis. In November 2016 Timothy Cardinal Dolan of the Archdiocese of New York presented Roger with the Pierre Toussaint Medallion for service.
M. Roger Holland | (mrogerholland.com)
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Past Speakers 2025
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January 19, 2025
Fr. Ken Hamilton, SVD, Ph.D.
St. Columba Clergy Support
Fr. Ken is the oldest child of the late Dr. James Hamilton and Mrs. Barbara Crowe-Hamilton. Aleta Hamilton Miller and Jessica Hamilton Meyer are his two sisters; his brothers are David [RIP]and Detective Gerald Hamilton. He comes from a family of proud heritage (as we all do) based in towns in Mississippi, such as the all black Mound Bayou and also West Point (MS). His immediate ancestors were everything from farmers, to civil rights workers, to preachers, to entrepreneurs, to griots...storytellers.
Fr. Ken is a Divine Word Missionary (or “SVD”), a Roman Catholic community of over 7,000 men--Brothers and priests—working in around 70 countries throughout the world. They also work with their two sister communities: the Sister Servants of the Holy Spirit (active and contemplative). He was also ordained to the presbyterate in December of 1982. He has ministered since then around the country, particularly in the US South and West.
Ken went through schools in the north and the south in the United States, including Chicago, Mound Bayou (Mississippi), Lansing and Detroit (Michigan). He joined the “SVD” at Divine Word College in Epworth, Iowa and has been with them in their work in the black Catholic communities in the United States. He is a revivalist of over 40 years and has led revivals, workshops, and retreats across the country in hundreds of parishes and cities.
In 1992 he and Frs. Charles and Chester Smith were led to form the Bowman-Francis ministry team, a name which honors three memorable black Catholics: Fr. John Bowman, SVD, Bishop Joseph Francis, SVD, and Sister Thea Bowman, the “Mother of Black Catholicism.” Many other persons have also inspired and led them to work in youth ministry, preaching and retreat ministry, AIDS ministry, prison ministry, particularly Brother Jim Fisher, SVD, etc.
The Bowman-Francis team has led and designed “Rite of Passage” programs, “Ambassadors of the Word” youth pilgrimage programs, the Sankofa national black youth retreat, Gyname (now the National Black Catholic Men’s Conferences), Kapona Dada women’s spirituality groups, Christ-Kwanzaa and other Afri-centric ministries. To contribute to this ministry, Fr. Ken completed a doctoral degree in History of Religions and Cultures with an emphasis on colonialism and religious expression around the African diaspora. He has been a lecturer and adjunct professor, also preaching in a number of the African American parishes in the Bay Area (California) and around the country amd particularly on Bowman Francis.org’s “Ubuntu Educational Ministry.”
Finally, Fr. Ken tries to hold to a black liberation “thea/ology,” one based in the radical teachings of the gospel of Jesus and open to all genders, races, sexualities, ages, physical conditions, faiths, and “classes.” His personal spiritual practice revolves around the concept of “Namaste”.... “I behold the Divine in YOU.”January 26, 2025Deacon Casey Walker
St. Basil the Great Roman Catholic Church, Vallejo, CA
Deacon Casey Walker serves at St. Basil’s the Great, Catholic Church in Vallejo California and is the Chairperson of the Diocese of Sacramento Intercultural Committee on Access, Integration and Mission (ICAIM).
Casey joined the Catholic Church in 2003 and was ordained in 2018. He and his wife Andrea have been married for 33 years and have 3 children. Along with serving on the Dioceses ICAIM, he also serves as an advisor for the diocese Black Catholic Ministry as well as St. Basil’s Sr. Thea Bowman fellowship group.
Having appeared on numerous radio shows, locally and nationally, to discuss race, human dignity and the Church in today’s world, his work in these areas made him a finalist for the national Lumen Christi award.February 2, 2025Daryl R. GrigsbyDaryl Grigsby is a Catholic layperson, author and speaker. He was confirmed into the Catholic faith at St. Therese parish in Seattle, Washington in 1998. Daryl received a Master of Arts in Pastoral Studies from Seattle University School of Theology and Ministry in 2002. He also completed the Loyola Institute of Spirituality ‘Spiritual Exercises in Everyday Life’ program, and a Loyola Marymount University class on ‘Black Catholic Spirituality.’ Daryl also completed a year-long Sabbatical Renewal Program at the Jesuit School of Theology (JST) program in 2020-21. In 2022, Daryl was also one of the presenters for the priests, religious and laypeople attending the Sabbatical Renewal Program at JST.
Author, Commenter, The Black Catholic Messenger
(National Day of Prayer for the African American and African Family)
Daryl has authored five books, including, the most recent, ‘Catholics for the Common Good: An Eternal Offering’ by Paulist Press. He has contributed articles to National Catholic Reporter and Black Catholic Messenger. At National Black Catholic Congress XIII in 2023, Daryl presented a session on ‘Black Catholic Spirituality, Synodality, and the Racial Divide’. He was part of the Discerning Deacons pilgrimage to Rome during the 2024 Synod of Bishops to discern and advocate for women in the diaconate. Daryl has also spoken at various black Catholic events and conferences in Seattle, Sacramento and Los Angeles.
Daryl is currently a volunteer for Get On the Bus, a California program uniting children with their incarcerated parents. Daryl serves on the Board of Leadership Foundations, a faith-based organization serving those in need in cities around the world. He is also on the Board of Directors for Color Me Human: Nevada County, and the Sierra Nevada Memorial Hospital, a CommonSpirit hospital.
February 9, 2025 Fr. Kwame Assenyoh Chaplain, Saint Mary’s College of California
Born Kwame (on Saturday) and baptized Bernard in Accra, the capital city of theRepublic of Ghana, Father Kwame is a black American Roman Catholic priest of theDiocese of Oakland, California.
Following ordination in 1998, Kwame started pastoral ministry in the USA. He served as pastor of three black American Catholic churches in Louisiana and led one of them to recoveryand rededication after the destructions of Hurricane Katrina.
Since 2008, Kwame has served as assistant clergy for Saint Joseph the Worker Church in Berkeley, Saint Columba Church in Oakland, associate Pastor and Pastoral Administrator at the Catholic Community of Pleasanton and, very recently, Pastoral Administrator of Saint Charles Borromeo Church, Livermore.
He has preached at revivals and missions in parishes and given keynote speeches at diocesan
gatherings across the United States. Kwame has held part-time teaching positions in numerous schools, including lecturer in African languages and literature at Stanford University. Currently, his is serving as Priest Chaplain of Saint Mary’s College of California helping students, faculty, and staff in transforming learning into living through liturgy.
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