In 1897, Servant of God Father Augustus Tolton established St. Monica Parish as the first parish for Black Catholics in the Archdiocese of Chicago.

Nearly 43 years later, 17 Black Catholic women led the effort to establish the second parish where Catholics of color could worship freely, at Holy Name of Mary Church, 112th and Loomis streets in the city’s Morgan Park neighborhood.

While St. Monica merged into St. Elizabeth Parish in 1924, Holy Name of Mary Church is still active as the main worship site of Our Lady of Kibeho Parish, which united Holy Name of Mary, St. John de la Salle and Sts. Peter and Paul parishes during the Renew My Church restructuring process.

“The fact that the two parishes — St. Monica and Holy Name of Mary — were founded by African American Catholics is significant because everybody else had their own church,” said Auxiliary Bishop Joseph Perry.

The Black Catholic community in Morgan Park formed as part of the Great Migration, when many Black people moved to Chicago from southern states. But they found it difficult to celebrate their faith in their geographical parish of St. Catherine of Genoa.

“Although they were Catholic, Black families were not welcome at St. Catherine of Genoa or at the neighboring parishes of St. Margaret of Scotland, St. Cajetan or St. Barnabas,” reads the section on Holy Name of Mary in “A History of the Parishes of Archdiocese of Chicago” published by the archdiocese in 1980. “The Sisters of the Blessed Sacrament who staffed schools in the Black parishes of St. Anselm and St Elizabeth travelled to Morgan Park to instruct children in their catechism and they encouraged black families to request a parish of their own where they could worship without the unwelcome stares of white Catholics.”

Holy Name of Mary pastor Father Anthony Vader put it more bluntly in a 1986 article in a special section of Chicago Catholic, “Chicago’s Black Catholics: What we have seen and heard.” Vader wrote, “The parish was created by the machinations of some pastors in the area who did not want the 30 Black families in their otherwise all-white congregations.”

“The community at the time wanted to keep Blacks at bay, so it’s a familiar piece of our history,” Bishop Perry said. “Present generations are not so much plugged into it unless someone sits them down and says this is how our parish came to be.”

The women who got the ball rolling on the idea for their own parish formed the St. Martin de Porres Guild in 1938 and began mobilizing. A priest in a nearby parish suggested they visit parishes and congregations — Catholic and non-Catholic — to share their goal and solicit donations.

Approval for the new parish came from then-Archbishop Samuel Stritch. It was the first new parish he approved after becoming archbishop following the death of Cardinal George Mundelein. On Sept. 12, 1940, and with a nod to the women who spearheaded the effort to establish a parish, Archbishop Stritch created the parish and named it after Jesus’ mother.

“In the 1940s, for a group of women to press the founding of a church like this was very significant,” Bishop Perry said.

The parish held its first Mass in nearby Shoop Elementary School, a public school.

“They were going to build a wooden structure, but at that time, the neighborhood was afraid that it might catch fire and burn the neighborhood down, so we got a tent. We worshipped in the tent until the combination church and school was built in 1942,” said Opal Easter, a longtime parishioner of Holy Name of Mary and resident historian.

The parish purchased a house across the street from the parish for a rectory, but it was soon converted into a school until the new building was finished.

Education is important in the Black community, so the founders knew they needed to build a school right away, Easter said. Families enrolled more than 100 students before the school was finished.

In 1942, Holy Name of Mary Parish and School opened with the school operating upstairs and parishioners worshipping in the basement. About 200 people could fit in the church for services.

Oblate Sisters of Providence sent women religious to staff the school in 1941; they ministered at the parish until 2001.

In 1949, the parish built a convent for the sisters and later, in 1954, men of the parish built a small parish hall next to the convent with their own labor and materials.

During the Civil Rights Era, parishioners began making plans to build a larger church where they could worship. Attendance at the church had increased and they needed more space.

Construction began in 1970 and on April 22, 1972, Cardinal John Cody celebrated the first Mass in a new church designed by a Black architect and built by a Black contractor.

The parish raised funds to pay off the debt to the archdiocese in just 13 years. On Dec. 14, 1985, Cardinal Joseph Bernardin celebrated Mass at the parish and attended a ceremonial “mortgage burning.”

“This occasion marks a special day in the life of this parish,” Cardinal Bernardin said in his homily that day. “You and your pastor have worked long and hard to arrive at this moment when, in a sense, you are free at last — at least of the burdens of a mortgage. It’s time to celebrate what you have done and what God has accomplished through you and for you.”

While the number of parishioners has ebbed and flowed over the years, the spirit of the 17 women who led the charge to establish the parish still lives on, Easter said.

“We were always the little church that could that nobody paid attention to,” Easter said. “As part of the discussions of Renew My Church, our team decided that we had to continue to bring up the history of our church, and that was something that we needed to take pride in and support.”