Amidst all the changes of Ward 1 in Washington, D.C., including restaurants opening and closing and the redevelopment of large properties such as the Reeves Center, not to mention gentrification, St. Augustine Parish has been a steady presence in the Meridian Hill neighborhood. 

On Jan. 26, the parish’s Catholic school received an official form of recognition from the District of Columbia government, with the dedication of St. Augustine School Way, a block-long section of V Street between 15^th and 16^th Streets, N.W., during a brief ceremony on an unseasonably warm day.

“What is the way of St. Augustine?” Father Patrick Smith, pastor of St. Augustine Parish, asked during introductory remarks in front of the parish school entrance, speaking before a group of several dozen staff, students, parishioners, and friends of the parish.

“It’s a way of serving. It’s a mission,” Father Smith said. “It was a way out of the indignity of slavery,” since Saint Augustine Catholic School was founded in 1858 by free men and women of color, before slavery was eliminated in the United States. “It’s a way out of poverty,” he said, since Catholic schools have been a ticket that many African Americans have punched on their way to a middle class life. 

“It’s a way out of ignorance,” the priest said. “It’s a way into a loving community that cares about them,” he said of Saint Augustine students. A District of Columbia native, Father Smith has served as pastor of the oldest Black Catholic parish in the city, St. Augustine, since 2004.

During her introductory comments, Sister Emmanuella Ladipo, a member of the Handmaids of the Holy Child Jesus who serves as president and interim principal of St. Augustine School, told the gathered crowd about St. Augustine’s history, which began in 1858 when emancipated African Americans, forced by segregation to worship separately at St. Matthew’s Church, began a chapel and school under the patronage of Blessed Martin de Porres on 15^th Street. After the school was closed during the Civil War, it reopened on 15^th Street, above L Street.

St. Augustine Catholic School was closed from 1885 until 1908, when the Oblate Sisters of Providence from Baltimore agreed to work there, a ministry they continued for 90 years. The parish school has been located at its current location, at 15^th and V Streets, N.W., since 1971, after the Archdiocese of Washington merged St. Paul Catholic Church with St. Augustine. 

In 2007, while a member of the 12-school Center City Consortium, the parish school was scheduled to be closed, among seven other Catholic elementary schools in the city that the Archdiocese of Washington had decided to shutter, but under Father Smith’s leadership, parishioners came up with a five-year strategic plan to take on daily management and financing of the parish school, which then-Archbishop Donald Wuerl of Washington accepted. The prelate soon became impressed by the strong religious identity of St. Augustine, and since 2010, more than 70 children from the parish school have been received into full communion with the Catholic Church.

Ward 1 Councilmember Brianne Nadeau (D.), who sponsored legislation to name the one-block area St. Augustine School Way, arrived toward the end of the ceremony, and spoke to the gathered crowd, amidst the din of 15^th Street traffic, about St. Augustine’s role in the community. “I wish you many, many good years,” she said to the crowd. 

Avery Clark, a church volunteer and cantor, told the Catholic Standard it took two years for St. Augustine School Way to become a reality. Clark, who is a lawyer, learned that she had to work through the City Council to sponsor the legislation for the street block dedication, after initially inquiring through the District of Columbia government and consulting with officials from the D.C. Department of Transportation.

Apparently, navigating the bureaucratic red tape was all worth it in the end.

“It’s absolutely wonderful. I think it’s overdue,” said lifelong parishioner Marsha Lyons, a graduate of the parish school who is a leader in Team HOPE, a 14-year parish ministry to support individuals experiencing homelessness. “I couldn’t be happier.”

“This is something I wanted to be a part of,” said Angie Young, a parishioner of 35 years and the widow of Johnny Young, one of the first Black American ambassadors at the State Department. She and her husband hosted a school donor reception at their Kensington home about 10 years ago, capitalizing on their large circle of Foggy Bottom professional and personal associates, during a time when the parish school was working hard to build support. 

Shelore Williams, an attorney and longtime parishioner, came back to the school where she served as principal from 1995 to 2002. “My favorite years of working were as principal of St. Augustine School,” she told the Catholic Standard, speaking effusively about the staff she worked with. “We pray together, we laugh together, we discipline together, we teach together,” she said of working at St. Augustine Catholic School and the strong community she fostered.