In 1900, Leo's maternal grandparents Louise Baquié and Joseph Martinez lived in the predominately Black 7th Ward of New Orleans, according to U.S. Census records, the same part of the city where ...

Interestingly, while Pope Leo XIV’s mother, Mildred Martinez Prevost, is listed as white on her birth certificate, her father, Joseph Martinez, was recognized as Haitian.

Long before Pope Leo XIV was born in Chicago in 1955, his family was building a life in New Orleans’ Seventh Ward, an area that once buzzed with Black-owned businesses, culture, and a relentless ...

Pope Leo XIV, who is the first American pope in history, has lineage among “free people of color” in the U.S. dating back to at least the 1840s, a genealogist told Forbes.