
The first community school to educate Black children in the South opened in New Orleans in 1848.
The Société Catholique pour L’instruction des Orphelins dans l’indigence, or Catholic Institution, was located at the corner of Touro and Dauphine Streets in Faubourg Marigny. Marie Justine Couvent, a free woman of color who came to New Orleans after the Haitian Revolution, established a trust fund for the school in her will.
“Although she was a former slave and could not read or write,” the Creole Genealogical and Historical Association (CreoleGen) states, “Couvent understood the importance of receiving an education.”
The school was run by a board of directors, instructors and volunteers.
“The students at the Catholic Institution studied under artists and writers inspired by the ideals of the revolutionary Atlantic World, many of them with ties to Haiti and France,” Paper Monuments states. “They also displayed a deep attachment to the city of New Orleans and a commitment to the cause of civil rights in the United States, a commitment they shared with their students.”
Thomas Lafon, a Creole philanthropist who died in 1893, left money for the school to construct a new building. It was destroyed by the Hurricane of 1915. Then Sister Katherine Drexel, founder of Xavier University and the Sisters of the Blessed Sacrament, agreed to build and operate the new St. Louis School of Holy Redeemer on the site. It closed in 1993.
“The memory of the Catholic Institution lived on in the Creole community as an important milestone in the struggle of people of color to educate their children — an institution that existed in the face of slavery, racism and segregation,” Paper Monuments states. “Over time, the school … was remembered as the Couvent School, to honor the lasting contribution of its founder.”
For more tales from New Orleans history, visit the Back in the Day archives.