Photograph of St. Augustine Catholic Church, circa 1899. (Source: Library of Congress).
In 1946, two attorneys finalized their purchase of a historic church building in the heart of Washington.
[1] For seventy years, Saint Augustine Catholic Church at 15
th and L was the place where the Black Catholics of the District were baptized, educated, given communion, and buried. In two years, it would be rubble.
At its founding in 1858, the church then known as Blessed Martin de Porres established the first school for Black children in the District of Columbia.
[2] Operating out of the basement of St. Matthew’s Cathedral, the free Black Catholics of Martin de Porres sought to create a church of their own that would meet the needs of the Black community and grant them the dignity that was afforded to their white counterparts.