The year 1818 is meaningful to everyone in the SLUH community. We take pride in the long tradition of academic excellence that began in that year when Bishop Louis W. V. Du Bourg founded the school, the first of its kind west of the Mississippi River.
Along with that pride, however, we must also accept responsibility for the participation of the school in the evil of slavery. Bishop Du Bourg himself enslaved human beings of African descent,[1] and he arranged for their involuntary labor to serve the Vincentian priests who first staffed the school.[2]
The Maryland Jesuits who journeyed to St. Louis in 1823 and assumed control of the school in 1828 also enslaved Black people. They brought with them from Maryland three married couples: Tom and Polly Brown; Moses and Nancy Queen; and Isaac and Succy Queen. In 1829, 16 more enslaved people were forced to move from Maryland to St. Louis.
The number of people enslaved by the Missouri Jesuits continued to grow through the birth of children, additional purchases, and even through “gifts.” Enslaved labor contributed to the development of our school through the end of the Civil War, ceasing with the abolition of slavery by the 13th Amendment.[3]
In accordance with Missouri laws mandating separate schools for Black students, SLUH excluded Black applicants for the next 80 years. In 1946, however, eight years before Brown v. Board of Education declared segregated education unconstitutional, SLUH admitted its first Black student, a sophomore named John Carter, whose father was an instructor at Stowe Teachers College.
From 1946 on, Black students attended SLUH in small numbers, generally representing no more than 1-2% of the student body. In 1991when the SLUH Minority Action Plan was approved, Black students represented 2.75% of the student body. At that time, the school had only four Black faculty members in its history, with the first being hired in 1976.
In the years since then, the percentage of Black students at SLUH has more than doubled. However, as we outline in this document, more work needs to be done in order to reconcile with our institutional history and with the Black community.
Reconciliation begins with an acknowledgment of wrongdoing. Grounded in a Catholic faith that views reconciliation as a sacramental reality for individuals, as representatives of SLUH we hereby apologize for the sins of enslavement and exclusion that mar our school history and have caused real and generational harm to Black individuals and families.
We also acknowledge that the legacies of these sins continue to impact our work, and we feel the call of God to improve our service to the Black community of St. Louis. It is our hope and belief that in taking even better care of our Black students, families and alumni, we will end up taking better care of all of our stakeholders.
[1] Jennifer Brinker, “Archdiocese’s research into history with slavery reveals three bishops, priests as slaveowners,” St. Louis Review (St. Louis, MO), June 17, 2021.
[2] Kelly L. Schmidt, “Slavery and the Shaping of Catholic Missouri,” article forthcoming in the bicentennial issue of the State Historical Society of Missouri, Fall 2021.
[3] Kelly L. Schmidt, Sean Ferguson, and Claire Peterson, “Enslaved People in the Jesuits’ Missouri Province,” Slavery, History, Memory, and Reconciliation Project, 2020.