What’s the difference between God and Fr. Hesburgh? God is everywhere, whereas Fr. Hesburgh is everywhere except Notre Dame.
Arthur remembers seeing this joke carved into a desk on campus. It does well to capture the tension between Rev. Theodore M. Hesburgh, C.S.C. (1917-2015), the man, and “Father Ted,” the towering figure in US Catholic history.
Hesburgh was arguably the most transformative president in Notre Dame history, leading the institution for 35 years (1952-1987). More relevant for us is the fact that Hesburgh was and remains widely celebrated for his civil rights advocacy. As a member of the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights, he helped shape the Civil Rights Act, which earned him the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 1964 and later the Congressional Gold Medal in 1999.
Fr. Theodore Hesburgh is immortalized in this famous photograph, where he stands hand-in-hand with Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. at a 1964 Chicago rally.
Afro-American Society student activists had a different opinion of him, to put it mildly.
What they saw was a president who preached civil rights to the South while ignoring rampant racism on his own campus, and they challenged him to do something about it.