Black Catholic Schools

The mission of the Catholic Church in the United States focused primarily on evangelizing European immigrants, according to the 1993 book, "Mission and Memory: A History of the Catholic Church in Arkansas." It wasn’t until 1866 that the Catholic Church pushed efforts to evangelize black people.

In Arkansas, black Catholic schools were established in the 1800s and flourished in the first half of the 20th century.

"First of all, it was a mission of the Church," said Vernell Bowen, superintendent of Catholic schools."...They were not receiving an equal education so I think the religious who came really took that on as a mission which is what the Catholic Church needs to be doing even today—reaching out on the fringes, providing what we can, a good quality education."

The Benedictine sisters of Holy Angels Convent in Jonesboro came to Pocahontas in 1887 and established a black school in 1888, according to a 1912 article in The Southern Guardian. According to information unearthed in recent years from a roll call log in the rectory at St. Paul Church in Pocahontas, the school stayed open until 1909, with seven students enrolled, said Sister Mary Anne Nuce, OSB.

"It was a different culture so it may not have even crossed their mind because their skin was darker they wouldn’t go to school," said Sister Mary Clare Bezner, OSB, of the founding sisters from Switzerland. "They loved all people it didn’t matter race, ethnicity, they were children of God."

Father Warren Harvey, the diocese’s first and only black priest, attended Good Shepherd School in Conway.

"The thing that the Church always wanted to do even though they did not advocate integration that much, they still advocated education," Father Harvey said. "The Church has always been an organization that says we’ve got to help y'all...if we can’t educate you in our schools, then we’ll build a school for you."

While non-Catholic students were never pressured to convert, some, like Ed Gilyard’s family, joined the Catholic Church when their children attended St. John the Baptist School in Fort Smith. Gilyard's daughter Carmelita Adams, one of seven children, started attending St. John as a fifth grader in 1950. She had previously attended a black public school in her neighborhood, but when her mother saw the care and attention the sisters took providing music lessons to her cousin, she switched schools.

Despite racial tensions brewing throughout the South, students at many of the black Catholic schools were deliberately shielded from the hatred. The focus was never about the color of a person’s skin, but rather, love for God, people and self.

Sheila Campbell said her parents made it a point to avoid downtown Little Rock where there were separate water fountains for blacks and whites.

"I had a good self-image of myself, which is more important than anything," she said.

However, racism was front and center her first day at MSM, an integrated school.

"The first day I went to Mount St. Mary's I did not know I was black. The first day I cut myself on the desk accidentally and a nun said, 'That's why we didn’t want you people here because you're trouble makers.'" She ran out of the school crying to her mother, who told her, "There's no place in America for a weak black person. Don't be weak.' I knew from then I couldn’t be weak...I always made sure I made the honor roll. I was going to show her whatever she thought of me was not correct."

St. Scholastica, an all-girls high school in Fort Smith, began accepting black students in the early 1950s.

Carmelita Adams said as a whole, integration to St. Scholastica was not as tumultuous as Central High.

"I do remember reading in the paper about the Little Rock school and I always kind of felt bad for the kids because of the negative things they’d hear," she said. "Then I thought it was never going to change until somebody takes a stand and obviously those kids and the parents did."