No Color Line at Loretto Academy: Catholic Sisters and African Americans on Chicago's East Side

During the 1950s, over 300,000 African Americans from the rural South moved to Chicago, "the capital of black America," in search of a better life. A majority of these newcomers, traveling by train (Illinois Central), got their Þrst glimpse of the promised land at 63rd and Dorchester in Woodlawn. Loretto Academy, an established Catholic girls' high school owned and staffed by the Ladies of Loretto, was located only a few blocks away. Not unlike many other South Side schools, the student population of Loretto Academy changed demographically during the 1950s. In August 1950, only two African Americans had enrolled; a decade later, this high school had only ten white pupils. This article examines the Loretto Sisters' response to racial change. It explores the ways in which the nuns, who always expected to teach white girls, adjusted their ministry both in the school and in the neighborhood of Woodlawn by demonstrating that their commitment to racial justice preceded the Brown v. Board of Education decision of 1954 and the participation of numerous Catholic sisters in the Selma march of 1965. More important, it analyzes the workings of race, religion, gender, and education at the local level during the early years of the modern civil rights movement.