Established in 1946 by the Missionary Servants of the Most Holy Trinity (the Trinitarians), this was one of the last African American Catholic parishes to be formed in the state. The congregation began worshiping in a reused World War II barracks moved from Meridian’s Key Field and built a four-classroom brick school in 1947 (c. 1960 wing addition). In June 1966, the school’s barrel-roofed auditorium-gymnasium (1956) gave overnight shelter to marchers in the March Against Fear, including Martin Luther King Jr. When the city refused a building permit in 1965 for a new church, Father Mikschl led one hundred parishioners to Sacred Heart Catholic Church (1928, C. H. Lindsley; 238 E. Center Street), which had a white congregation. After a joint service, Sacred Heart’s congregation pressured the city to grant the permit. The rectangular brick church’s pyramidal roof suggests a steeple, and a gabled portico with abstract dentils shelters a glazed vaulted entrance. Inside, circular seating surrounds a central altar.
This school produced one of the nation’s most eminent black Catholic nuns, Sister Thea, who joined the Franciscan Sisters of Perpetual Adoration and returned here to teach. Her 1987 Catholic hymnal, Lead Me, Guide Me, is credited with developing a distinctively African American style of Catholic worship.