St. Augustine Catholic Church (originally St Martin de Porres Catholic Church) is a

Catholic The Catholic Church, also known as the Roman Catholic Church, is the largest Christian church, with 1.3 billion baptized Catholics worldwide . It is among the world's oldest and largest international institutions, and has played a ...

parish in

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It is considered by many to be the "

Mother Church Mother church or matrice is a term depicting the Christian Church as a mother in her functions of nourishing and protecting the believer. It may also refer to the primary church of a Christian denomination or diocese, i.e. a cathedral or a metro ...

of Black Catholics", as the first Black parish in the district and the administrator of DC's oldest surviving Black school.

History

Because of

Jim Crow laws The Jim Crow laws were state and local laws enforcing racial segregation in the Southern United States. Other areas of the United States were affected by formal and informal policies of segregation as well, but many states outside the Sout ...

in the 1850s, emancipated black Catholic attendees of St. Matthew's Cathedral on

Rhode Island Avenue Rhode Island Avenue is a diagonal avenue in the Northwest and Northeast quadrants of Washington, D.C. and the capital's inner suburbs in Prince George's County, Maryland. Paralleling New York Avenue, Rhode Island Avenue was one of the original st ...

were segregated and relegated to worship in the basement of the church. In 1858, the group of emancipated black Catholics founded Saint Martin de Porres Church, in honor of

Peruvian Peruvians ( es, peruanos) are the citizens of Peru. There were Andean and coastal ancient civilizations like Caral, which inhabited what is now Peruvian territory for several millennia before the Spanish conquest in the 16th century; Peruvian p ...

Dominican brother St Martin de Porres. It was the first Black Catholic parish in Washington D.C., and its original location was on 15th Street NW, near L Street. That same year, the parish opened a school for Black children in the district—inaugurated five years before the

Emancipation Proclamation The Emancipation Proclamation, officially Proclamation 95, was a presidential proclamation and executive order issued by United States President Abraham Lincoln on January 1, 1863, during the Civil War. The Proclamation changed the legal sta ...

, after which education of Black children gradually became mandatory.

Saint Martin de Porres era

On July 4, 1864, their group raised building funds at the "strawberry festival" on the White House grounds, hosted by

Abraham Lincoln Abraham Lincoln ( ; February 12, 1809 – April 15, 1865) was an American lawyer, politician, and statesman who served as the 16th president of the United States from 1861 until his assassination in 1865. Lincoln led the nation thro ...

and his wife

Mary Todd Lincoln Mary Ann Todd Lincoln (December 13, 1818July 16, 1882) served as First Lady of the United States from 1861 until the assassination of her husband, President Abraham Lincoln in 1865. Mary Lincoln was a member of a large and wealthy, slave-owning ...

Saint Augustine era

In 1876, the church building was inaugurated and re-dedicated to

Saint Augustine Augustine of Hippo ( , ; la, Aurelius Augustinus Hipponensis; 13 November 354 – 28 August 430), also known as Saint Augustine, was a theologian and philosopher of Berber origin and the bishop of Hippo Regius in Numidia, Roman North Af ...

. It was a 60-foot building with two Gothic spires, and seating for 2,500 people. In 1928, it acquired property at 15th and S Streets N.W., where it eventually built a new school, rectory, convent, and new church building. In 1946 the original church was sold, under circumstances which are debated, for $300,000, and operations shifted to the 15th and S property; the last Mass in its original building was held on Christmas Day. It was demolished the next year. The site became the location of the ''Washington Post'' newspaper, and remained the Post's home until 2016 when the site was sold to private developers.

Current church and building

In 1961 St. Augustine Church merged with St. Paul's Church, a parish whose original membership was primary of Irish and German descent, located at 15th and V Street. It was renamed to Sts. Paul and Augustine Church. In 1979, as St. Paul's continued to dwindle, the decision was made to consolidate operations on the old St. Paul campus, and that the 15th and S property would be sold. On November 12, 1982, Cardinal Hickey decreed that the parish would be renamed once again to Saint Augustine Catholic Church. The parish did not have a Black pastor until January 1991, when Fr. Russell L. Dillard was installed. In 2019, the church had 3,000 members in an active congregation of approximately 1,000 families, primarily Black and middle-class. The present building is made with crafted stone and also has two

spires The Stanford Physics Information Retrieval System (SPIRES) is a database management system developed by Stanford University. It is used by universities, colleges and research institutions. The first website in North America was created to allow re ...

as the original building once had.

References

External links