Knights of Peter Claver

The Knights of Peter Claver and Ladies Auxiliary is an international Catholic fraternal service order. Founded in 1909 by the Josephites and parishioners from Most Pure Heart of Mary Catholic Church in Mobile, Alabama, it is the largest and oldest Black Catholic lay-led organization still in existence.

The Knights of Peter Claver supports more than 700 subordinate units throughout the United States and in South America, as of 2019.

The organization was founded in 1909 by a group including Josephite father Conrad Friedrich Rebesher, a native of Kłodawa, Poland and pastor of Most Pure Heart of Mary Parish; 3 other Josephite priests: Father Samuel Joseph Kelly, Father Joseph Peter Van Baast, and Father John Henry Dorsey; and 3 Black laymen: Gilbert Faustina, Francis Xavier "Frank" Collins, and Francis "Frank" Trenier. Their initiation ceremony was attended by their bishop, Edward Patrick Allen.

The organization's model was based on other Catholic fraternal orders such as the Knights of Columbus, who at the time did not allow Black members in all of their councils. This reality illustrated the need for a Black Catholic fraternal order.

The Sublimed and Meritorious Fourth Degree was organized in 1917. This division is open to Knights who after two years of continual membership have proven themselves to be active workers in the Church, the community, and the Noble Order.

A program for Junior Knights existed from the Order's earliest days. The constitution of the Junior Knights Division was adopted in 1917 and the division formally recognized in 1935.

In 1922, a Ladies Auxiliary was formed to provide the same opportunities for Catholic action to African American lay women. The Auxiliary was officially recognized as a division of the Order in 1926. The Junior Daughters division was officially recognized in 1930.

During the 1920s, Thomas Wyatt Turner's Federated Colored Catholics locked horns with the Knights of Peter Claver over their reticence to speak out on racism and segregation.