Brick walls at 86 Martin Luther King Avenue hold St. Benedict the Moor School, in the Lincolnville Historic District of St. Augustine, Florida. This school began as part of a Catholic mission in 1871 to serve and minister to newly freed slaves. The brick school before you was built in 1898 with $7,500 donated by Katherine Drexel (1858–1955), founder and superior of the Sisters of the Blessed Sacrament, an order formed "to serve Indians and Colored People.
Drexel, a niece of Anthony J. Drexel, founder of Drexel University, was later made a saint by Pope John Paul II in 2000. Named for St. Benedict the Moor, it was one of the first schools for black students in Florida. Nuns from a local convent of the Sisters of St. Joseph instructed between 90 and 100 students a year.
Picture Katherine Drexel's $7,500 gift raising these brick walls in 1898, and the ninety to a hundred students the Sisters of St. Joseph taught here each year.