BLACK CATHOLIC FIRSTS: BALTIMORE BREAKTHROUGH

As America marks its 250th year, attention is turning to Mother Mary Lange, who in 1828 founded St. Frances Academy in Baltimore, the first Catholic school for Black children, and a year later became the first superior of the Oblate Sisters of Providence, the first successful Catholic women’s congregation founded by women of African descent. Her rise spotlights a brutal gap in early U.S. education and the fierce struggle Black Catholic women waged against prejudice, poverty and exclusion. A legacy the record tried to bury