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Sat, 07.24.1897

The St. Francis de Sales School Opens

A 1922 Classroom

*On this date in 1897, the St. Francis de Sales School was established. Located in Powhatan County, Virginia, it was built to educate young Black and Indigenous girls in America.

The school was located near the James River and the Appomattox River on the Belmead plantation. Katharine Drexel opened St. Francis with a curriculum focused on academics and domestic science. The three-story school was a simpler Romanesque-influenced U-shaped building with a tall tower, many buttresses, and verandas.

St. Francis was an important education center for young African American and Native American women until it closed in 1970.

New Poem Each Day

Poetry Corner

When black people are with each other we sometimes fear ourselves whisper over our shoulders about unmentionable acts & sometimes we fight & lie. these are something's we... WHEN BLACK PEOPLE ARE by A. B. Spellman.
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