Non pro schola, sed pro vita
—Not for school, but for life—

By Michael D. Wamble
STAFF WRITER

Ten years ago there were two Catholic high schools dedicated to the education of African-Americans. One directed its attention toward young men, the other worked with young women.

The building that housed Longwood Academy in 1999 (formerly Academy of Our Lady), is now the site of a charter school. CNW/ Michael D. Wamble

Today, only one of these two institutions has survived: Hales Franciscan High School.

The hillside grounds where Longwood Academy, formerly Academy of Our Lady, once molded girls into young women is the site of a charter school.

Chicago’s black Catholic community, like its ethnic counterparts, has endured school closings and consolidations. Some are wary of what the future may bring to high schools and parish schools: More closings and/or consolidations?

More black Catholic history and black Catholic schools buried beneath signs of the times?

Or does the Catholic Church have at its heart a mission to keep schools open?

Sitting in a room at Catholic Theological Union this spring, just down the hall from the office for the school’s Augustus Tolton Ministry Program for lay black Catholics, it was hard to keep Benedictine Father Cyprian Davis focused on questions of history.

Davis, author of “The History of Black Catholics in the United States,” really didn’t want to talk about the past.

What the silver-haired priest wanted to talk about was what he perceived to be a nationwide crisis among black Catholic schools.

Divine Word Fathers Louis Wade and Vincent Smith instruct children at St. Elizabeth School in 1938. CNW file photo

“The Catholic Church has a mission to keep these schools open,” said Davis, who described schools as visible signs of a diocese’s commitment to evangelization.

Davis said the Catholic Church has a mission to teach the faith in its classrooms and its parish halls.

For some, but not all, Catholic schools have also become ground-zero for some areas of “race relations” in Chicago, in Evanston, and throughout the archdiocese. High schools, most notably Queen of Peace High School, have led the way in opening lines of communication among young people through COR, Catholic schools Opposing Racism.

For Daughter of the Heart of Mary Sister Anita Baird, forming these types of relationships among Catholics of all ages has been a driving force in her work in the archdiocesan Office for Racial Justice. The office was created by Cardinal George earlier this year.

As black Catholics look beyond a historic Nov. 3-4 convocation at DeLaSalle Institute, questions concerning the future of Catholic education and the role of educating Catholics to move beyond tolerance toward love of one another are certain to be raised.

Almost as certain is another fact: there are no easy answers.

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Sister Anita Baird didn’t become a Catholic in spite of racism, but because of it.

The fact that there was a nearby Catholic school that welcomed her didn’t hurt.

It is out of racism that we are Catholic,” said Sister Anita Baird, archdiocesan director of the Office for Racial Justice of her family’s conversion to the faith. CNW/Dorothy Perry

“We were Lutheran,” said Baird of herself and her parents, prior to reaching school age in the early 1950s at 68th Street and Indiana Avenue.

Baird’s mother took her down to the denomination’s school, where she received the news that she wasn’t wanted there.

The Lutheran pastor, Baird said, went out of his way to find the family a Lutheran school that would accept a black student. The closest school he could find was located near the area that became O’Hare Airport.

“‘With all due respect,’ she told him. ‘If my child isn’t good enough for your schools, your church isn’t good enough for me,’” said Baird.

Shortly after, Baird’s mother marched her up to nearby St. Anselm Church, where the parish school was receptive of black children.

“It had to be God’s divine plan because there was an Episcopalian school down the street. You would think being Protestant that’s where she would have placed me, but that’s not what happened,” said Baird.

Because of the archdiocese’s desire to evangelize and win families over to the faith, in order to attend a Catholic school, the student and at least one parent had to become Catholic.

Countless black Catholics entered the faith due to this church requirement.

“My mother’s primary concern was that I receive the very best education that my parents could afford so my mother and I became Catholic,” said Baird.

Later, Baird’s father also converted.

“But it was out of racism that we are Catholic,” she said.

The location of her family’s residence also was key in their conversion.

Had Baird’s family lived farther south on the South Side, they would have experienced great difficulty in finding a Catholic school that welcomed blacks.

At St. Anselm, and later at St. Clotilde, Baird attended school alongside white-ethnic Catholics, who at the time, still lived in both neighborhoods in large numbers.

Looking back, she doesn’t recall instances of racism at either school.

What did occur was a dramatic change in the area.

Before she graduated from St. Clotilde, Baird estimates, the school population shifted from 10 percent black enrollment to predominantly black.

One of the few schools that accepted black students was barely 10 years old when Baird readied for kindergarten.

Holy Name of Mary on the far South Side was the first church built for and by black Catholics in the archdiocese. A majority of black parishes, like St. Clotilde, inherited buildings as a result of “white flight” out of city neighborhoods.

Oblate Sister Augustine Green’s llargest class, 39 students represented the growth of black Catholics throughout the archdiocese in the early 1980s. Courtesy of Holy Name of Mary

Just as Tolton’s parish, St. Monica—now St. Elizabeth—relied on the support of St. Katherine Drexel’s Sisters of Blessed Sacrament, Holy Name of Mary found its strength from the Oblate Sisters of Providence, an order founded in Baltimore by Mother Elizabeth Mary Lange.

The mandate of the Oblates has been to provide a Catholic education for children of color.

The order first arrived in the Chicago Archdiocese in August of 1941 at Academy of Our Lady. Two weeks later, 110 children made their way into the parish kitchen, a rectory dining room, and the church basement for instruction.

A year prior to the order’s South Side arrival, Sister Augustine Green entered the order.

An educator with over 50 years of service as a teacher and as a principal in Catholic schools outside of Illinois, Green joined the staff of Holy Name of Mary in 1981 as a seventh-grade teacher.

Among black Catholics in Chicago, the early ‘80s were a time of growth within the community where seniors and seventh-graders could proclaim the pride of being both black and Catholic.

The eighties also marked the start of a change in the number of Catholic educational institutions.

Since 1982, 13 Catholic high schools have closed.

As of June 1999, 85 elementary schools have closed. There have been 15 mergers within that period.

But back in 1982, Green taught one of her most memorable classes: The Class of 39.

Her second class at Holy Name of Mary consisted of 39 students. It was the largest class she ever taught at the school.

How did she handle such a big group?

“Then we had Father John [Calicott, pastor of Holy Angels] as an associate. He was a big help. We also had [the late Oblate] Sister Carmela Duncan as principal and [pastor emeritus] Father [Anthony] Vader you could call from down at the rectory,” said Green.

Six years after that class, Green became the school principal, a position she held until her retirement in 1998.

She will very likely be the last Oblate principal of the South Side school.

As the number of vocations has dropped among teaching orders such as the Sisters of the Blessed Sacrament and Oblate Sisters of Providence, the role of education in the parish has been handed over to the laity.

Green was succeeded by Belinda Howard, a lay Catholic parishioner.

Reflecting on her decade at the helm of Holy Name of Mary, the Oblate said within black Catholic schools, the salary disparity between public and Catholic school teachers isn’t a new phenomenon. It is a constant that has demanded an extra sense of dedication from teachers who chose to work at Catholic schools as well as a higher level of creativity from its principals.

And then there is the matter of student enrollment.

Two years ago, the size of the school’s graduating class was a handful of students. But a year later, the overall enrollment of the school greatly increased, including the next graduating class, to nearly 200 students.

In good times and in down enrollment years, Green said the school has been “blessed” by its alumni who have contributed time, talent and treasure to keep it alive.

Despite fluctuations in enrollment, does the Catholic Church have a mission to educate black Catholics where they live?

“Yes,” said Green. “And the [Catholic] church should educate all of its members about the contributions that have been made by African Americans.”

While she knows another student boom that brings 39 students to a seventh-grade class is unlikely at many black Catholic schools, Green is optimistic about the future.

“This is a parish school that will carry on the work and spirit of the Oblates,” said Green.

For many in the black Catholic community, the fact that there remains a Hales Franciscan High School at 4930 S. Cottage Grove is “a miracle.”

Former Hales Franciscan president and principal Tim King believes there is a need for “innovation” in the area of black Catholic schools.

If that is true, what term best describes the closing of Longwood Academy—the former Academy of Our Lady—an all-girls, primarily black, Catholic high school in 1999?

At a recent press conference, Joan Neal, a member of the Black Catholic Convocation’s steering committee, called the closings of schools “deaths” in the community.

Before his resignation last June as president and principal of Hales Franciscan, Tim King reflected on the progress the school made over five tumultuous years, with the hope that black Catholics might learn from the criss-crossing paths taken by both institutions.

Founded in 1962, Hales defined its mission to “provide warmth and affirmation” needed to exceed “societal expectations—and too often the realities—that stifle so many young black men,” King wrote in a letter prior to stepping down.

Academy of Our Lady provided the same type of personal support for the countless classes of young women that passed through its classrooms.

Two ailments nearly killed Hales: 1) insufficient fundraising and 2) a declining enrollment.

The matter of fundraising continues to gnaw at the heart of the school. Each year it must raise $1,000,000 just to cover maintenance costs.

In 1989, when the future of the school looked bleakest, King credits the initiative of the late Cardinal Joseph Bernardin, the support of its founding Franciscan order, and efforts of alumni to keep Hales alive.

“There was a real desire at the time not to close the school,” said King.

King, like many associated with Hales, does not believe the archdiocese should concentrate on creating models of schools like it, but should focus their energies in another direction.

“I think the archdiocese could be most helpful by finding innovative ways to fund schools—not ways to run schools—but to fund schools,” said King.

Instead of turning to the state for funding, the former school president suggested another option.

“Maybe what could be created is a billion dollar educational endowment. Wouldn’t that be something to create and say ‘We will never again have to ask for money for Catholic schools in Chicago. Or maybe there is a re-evaluation of the number of schools that exist,” said King. “Maybe what should be done practically is the creation of 10 regional Catholic schools that we can affordably fund.”

Although King spent much of his five years running Hales fund-raising for the school, he didn’t work alone.

Among other groups, Hales received support from the National Black Catholic Congress (NBCC) through the organization’s Catholic High School Consortium.

The project also has been employed at schools in California and along the East Coast, as well as Leo High School in Chicago.

“What we’re trying to do is have high schools come together to stay open,” said Hilbert D. Stanley, executive director of the Baltimore-based group, during a phone interview.

“When you have older churches and populations shift, it becomes a real challenge to keep schools open. As the money [generated by, allotted for white-ethnic Catholics] moves out of the city into surrounding counties, you find schools with tuitions going up,” said Stanley.

He continued, “As cities become more populated with the poor and people of color, and more and more Catholics move outside the city, the people in these new areas will want new schools to be built in the suburbs.”

In Chicago, the first new Catholic elementary school built in 30 years welcomed students to class this August. The Cardinal Joseph Bernardin School is a regional school located in far south suburban Orland Hills where few blacks, and even fewer black Catholics, live.

On the South Side, there is little prospect of building more schools. There is only the unspoken fear of which school will be “consolidated.”

In an interview conducted prior to her commencement, Natasha Harvey, the valedictorian of her school’s last graduating class, said she vividly remembered first hearing about the decision to close Longwood.

“When I arrived to school, everybody was in a panic. There were tears that it was finally happening,” said Harvey.

“In my sophomore year [1997] there was a threat that Longwood might close, but it didn’t,” she said.

Instead, the school entered a period of restructuring that might best be described as hooking up to life-support.

What makes the death of Longwood harder to comprehend is that, according to King, the school rejected a proposal to merge with Hales into one high school with a shared mission of educating black Catholics.

“That might have saved both schools. Or it could have closed us both,” said King. “We will never know.”