A Black Catholic Tuskegee: Archival Memory of Vocational-Religious Education and Futurity at St. Joseph Parish Schools, Wilmington and Clayton, Delaware

This presentation examines the archival memory of St. Joseph Catholic Church’s parochial school network in Wilmington and Clayton, Delaware (1880s–1900s), an understudied Black Catholic parish founded by Mill Hill (later Josephite) missionaries. Centering a focused set of primary sources, administrative reports by missionaries and Franciscan sisters, student enrollment records and photographs, and former students’ testimonies, I read these white-authored documents against the grain to recover Black Catholic perspectives on dual religious-vocational education modeled as a “Black Catholic Tuskegee.” This pedagogy catechized youth in orthodox faith while fostering trades for economic self-reliance, challenging racial stereotypes and asserting belonging amid racism and anti-Catholicism. By highlighting attached schools’ role in transmitting Black Catholic identity across Chesapeake missions, it expands African American religious historiography’s geographical boundaries and engages the 2026 theme “FUTURE/S,” illuminating contested racial-religious futurities forged by children as embodiments of community horizons beyond constraint.