Black America is taking pride in a truth shaking up the Vatican and resonating through the streets of New Orleans: Pope Leo XIV—formerly Cardinal Robert Prevost of Chicago—has Black and Creole roots, and not just symbolic ones.
According to genealogist Jari Christopher Honora, his maternal lineage traces directly to the Black community of New Orleans’ 7th Ward, with family ties to Haiti, and census records identifying his ancestors as “Black” or “Mulatto.”
“By the Europeans’ own ‘1/8th’ rules, we have a Black Pope,” justice correspondent Elie Mystal declared. “Anyway, [the] pope’s grandfather is Haitian. We kind of got a Black Pope. ‘End Woke’ is not gonna be happy about this.”
Honora, a New Orleans historian speaking to the National Catholic Reporter and Black Catholic Messenger, detailed how the pope’s grandparents married in 1887 at Our Lady of the Sacred Heart Church on Annette Street in New Orleans before migrating north.
His mother, Mildred Martínez, was the first child in the family born in Chicago.
“The Holy Father’s ancestors are identified as either Black or Mulatto,” Honora said.
The Chicago Tribune and New York Times also reported on Pope Leo’s mixed-race background and Creole lineage, noting that his election marks a defining moment in the Church’s evolving identity.
“As a Black man, a proud son of New Orleans, and the U.S. Congressman representing the very 7th Ward neighborhood where our new pope’s family hails from, I am bursting with pride today,” said Rep. Troy Carter (D-La.). “This is history! The first American Pope, with Creole and Haitian roots, rising from the streets of New Orleans to the Vatican. As a Xavier University alum, I know how deeply faith and resilience run in our community. We celebrate this moment—with joy, with prayers, and with pride.”
Former New Orleans Mayor Marc Morial called Leo XIV’s background “universal.”
“Here’s an American whose ministry was in Peru, who has roots in the American South and also ancestry in the American Black community,” said Morial, president of the National Urban League.
Representation, Resilience and Reshaping History
Pope Leo XIV is a member of the Augustinian Order, named after the African theologian St. Augustine of Hippo.
His election came from a conclave in which two other leading contenders—Cardinal Peter Turkson of Ghana and Cardinal Fridolin Ambongo Besungu of the Democratic Republic of Congo—were also men of African descent.
But Leo XIV stood apart—not just as the first pope from the U.S. but as one known for his outspokenness on racial justice, immigrant rights, gun reform, and the abolition of the death penalty.
TIME Magazine reported that his selection represented a Vatican rebuke of efforts by wealthy Americans and political operatives aligned with Donald Trump to influence the papal outcome.
Known in Rome as “The Latin Yankee,” Leo XIV used his verified X account (@drprevost) to amplify criticism of Trump-era immigration policies, often reposting commentary from respected Catholic figures.
The New York Post reported that his last post before his election was a retweet of Catholic journalist Rocco Palmo slamming Trump’s alliance with El Salvador’s President Nayib Bukele over migrant deportations. In 2017, Leo also reposted a message quoting Chicago Archbishop Blase Cupich, calling Trump’s refugee bans “a dark hour of U.S. history.”
Though Trump offered congratulations to Pope Leo XIV from the White House driveway, his far-right allies were quick to lash out.
Laura Loomer tweeted, “WOKE MARXIST POPE,” calling him “just another Marxist puppet in the Vatican.”
But outside the MAGA echo chamber, in Black communities across the globe, the emotion is pride.
“The pope is Black,” said journalist Clarence Hill Jr. — a discovery that means something in the Black neighborhoods of Chicago and the Creole corridors of New Orleans.
Many said it means representation, resilience, and the reshaping of history at the highest level of the Catholic Church.
“We celebrate this moment—not because it erases the struggles of our past, but because it affirms that our faith, our heritage, and our presence matter,” Rep. Carter said. “This is history, and it belongs to all of us.”
