Mother of Mercy Catholic Church in Washington is celebrating 189 years of Catholicism having a formal presence in North Carolina.

That celebration will be held from noon to 4 p.m. Feb. 24 at the Mother of Mercy parish building, 112 W. Ninth St.  Along with exploring the church’s history, the event will shed light on the church’s connections with the black community.

Larry McDaniel possesses many items related to the church and the school, including photographs and documents. McDaniel loves sharing that history with others.

“We’re the oldest Catholic church in North Carolina, but the confusion comes because we had three different church buildings,” McDaniel said. “The first Catholic church in North Carolina was in Washington … at the corner of Third and Van Norden streets, where a Methodist church now stands. That church was consecrated, or blessed, March 25, 1829. That started the whole thing. So we went 63 years without a church building.”

After the church was destroyed, services were held in homes and in different buildings, McDaniel said.

“We also brought in, which I have photographs of and will be part of the display, railroad altar cars. According to North Carolina state law, we had to have one for blacks and one for whites, which we did,” McDaniel noted.

In 1927, sisters from the Immaculate Heart of Mary, a Catholic church in Scranton, Pennsylvania, came to operate and teach at what would become Mother of Mercy Catholic School that was built by blacks in the area; it became the first accredited high school in Washington. The sisters’ mission was to educate the children of freed slaves. “That was not a popular thing to do, but they did it,” McDaniel said.

A family in New York heard about what the sisters were doing and provided money to help build St. Agnes Chapel in the 1930s. The church closed in the 1940s. “It’s over there on Market Street. It still stands,” McDaniel said.

Mother of Mercy church was consecrated in 1948. Usually, Catholics would build a church then a school, but in the case of Mother of Mercy, that order was reversed, according to McDaniel. The building that once housed the school now houses a community center.

The celebration, according to a flier, includes the following events:

• information about Father Mark Moeslein and Mother De Chanti, who led the effort to produce outstanding Mother of Mercy School graduates who won many state academic awards;
• information about why a book was written about Mother of Mercy School graduate Sarah Keys Evans;
• identifying photographs associated with the church and its school;
• finding out which Bonner was named North Carolina Mother of the Year in 1952.

Sarah Keys Evans, according to a proclamation signed by Mayor Mac Hodges in 2016, filed a complaint alleging discrimination on interstate buses. In November 1955, the Interstate Commerce Commission ruled in her favor, stating the segregation on interstate buses was illegal. That decision came about a week before Rosa Parks challenged the practice of making blacks sit in the rear of city buses in Montgomery, Alabama, according to the proclamation.

Evans was 87 when Hodges signed the proclamation.