The parish of Our Lady of Africa was formed from the merger of five parishes on the south side, with worship consolidated to the former Holy Angels church which has been renamed to match the new parish name, but since there was no other possible Mass for today, I went to Bronzeville for the 10.30a daily Mass.
The parish was one of the early parishes to have Black parishioners in Chicago during the 1930s and while originally, the church maintained segregated seating, to his credit Cardinal Stritch put a end to the practice in 1946.
The original church building was destroyed in a fire in 1986, and while from the exterior, the building seems rather undistinguished, I found the artwork inside to be of superior quality and the interior architecture also managed to engage in some post-modern tributes to traditional church architecture, using steel I-beams as decorative elements in the interior archwork.
There were maybe ten to twelve parishioners at the Mass, although surprisingly, my middle-aged ass was not the youngest one in the pews as is typical at a daily Mass.
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