May 20th The St Benedict the Moor School Restoration

On my ACCORD Tour Tuesday, I noticed this building and sign, and looked it up-  Interesting story here...  The school is located in the National Register of Historic Places, Lincolnville Historic District:  

St. Benedict the Moor School

St. Benedict the Moor School, located at 86 Martin Luther King Avenue in the Linconville National Historic District of St. Augustine, Florida was an all black Catholic school built in 1898. The money for construction of the school ($7,500) was donated by Katherine Drexel (1858–1955), a nun of the Sisters of the Blessed Sacrament, an order founded “to serve Indians and Colored People.” Drexel a member of the wealthy Philadelphia, Pennsylavania banking family was the niece of Anthony J. Drexel founder of Drexel University. Katherine Drexel was made a Catholic saint by Pope John Paul II in 2000.

The school named in honor of St. Benedict the Moor was constructed of brick and was one of the first schools for black students in Florida. The students were instructed by nuns of a local convent, the Sisters of St. Joseph. There were between 90-100 students enrolled per school year at the school which was opened between 1898 and 1968. The school is located on a parcel of land which includes the school on the southern end of the property, the parish house in the center and the church of St. Benedict the Moor at the north end.

The school was closed partly as a result of school desegregation legislation which arose in the wake of the Civil Rights Act of 1964. The events which occurred in St. Augustine, of which Martin Luther King Jr. played a key rule, were an important catalyst in the passage of the Civil Rights Act.

Years prior to the Civil Rights Era, in 1916, three white Catholic nuns were arrested for violating a 1913 Florida law prohibiting white teachers for instructing blacks. The three were acquitted on the grounds that the law did not apply to private schools.

St. Benedict the Moor School, which sits in the Lincolnville National Historic District, was placed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1991. Despite this designation the building sits exposed to the elements with no roof or windows. The roof was removed during 2006 as part of a restoration project which has been stalled for an alleged lack of funding

From another article:

St. Benedict the Moor School, 86 M. L. King Avenue, stands at the very center of Lincolnville as the oldest surviving brick school building in the city. But how much longer will it survive? The northeast corner of its roof is open to the weather and exposure to the elements has resulted in rot to framing systems on both the first and second floors.

The school was built in 1898, a saint’s gift to St. Augustine. Money for its construction was provided by Mother Katherine Drexel (1858-1955), a wealthy Philadelphia heiress who was made a saint by Pope John Paul II in 2000. She was a nun of the Sisters of the Blessed Sacrament, an order founded “to serve Indians and Colored People.” It was the Sisters of St. Joseph who taught black students in this building, still owned by the Diocese of St. Augustine. In 1916 three of St. Benedict’s teaching nuns were arrested for violating the Florida law that forbade white teachers to teach black students. A judge ruled that they had not, however, violated the law because the law did not apply to private schools. The nuns were released.

St. Benedict was one of the first schools for blacks in Florida, serving from 90 to 110 students. In the middle of the 1960s the building ended its role as an educational facility and was essentially abandoned for about 20 years. St. Benedict School was placed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1991 as a contributing structure to the Lincolnville National Register Historic District.

St. Benedict the Moor Catholic Church is next door to the school building. Both buildings commemorate St. Benedict, who had once been a slave in Sicily. The term “moor” is misleading to speakers of English for whom the word refers to Africans who lived in Spain. “Il moro” is Italian for “the Black.” Of interest to St. Augustine residents is that St. Benedict (1526-1589) lived at the time our town was founded in 1565.

St. Benedict the Moor School Restoration Committee is attempting to save and rehabilitate the building. And it can be saved. Architects, engineers and building contractors agree that it is indeed salvageable. The inspectors offer the example of the St. Augustine Lighthouse Keepers Residence, which was in much worse condition than St. Benedict. Today the Keepers House is in beautiful condition.

But the school’s roof must be fixed immediately to salvage the rest of the building. Private donations or local-government appropriations are needed desperately. Given the diminished-funding situation at the State level for large historic preservation projects, this building cannot wait for its turn for State dollars.