Jackson Advocate

Catholic Schools Report Mounting Enrollment Of Negro Students

Washington, Mar. 5.-A mounting number of Negroes are enrolling in Catholic schools, both integrated and segregated.

An episcopal commission headed by Francis Cardinal Spellman of New York released a report here which reveals that 90,755 pupils are registered in 340 Catholic schools for Negroes.

Last year 343 schools had 83,384 students.

A similar situation exists among the integrated schools, although no statistics exist. Parochial schools do not keep records by race.

"Besides these 90,756 pupils," the commission said, "many others are attending other parochial

schools. In several large cities the number of these pupils exceeds the number of pupils in the all-Negro schools."

The Commission for Catholic Missions among Colored People and Indians made the report. Other members of the commission, established in 1884 to aid Negro
and Indian mission work, are John Cardinal O'Hara of Philadelphia and Archbishop Francis P. Keough of Baltimore.

The report noted that American Catholic Negroes total 595,155, an increase of 20,000 over last year. "The increase in terms of percentage is three times the increase of the Negro population in this country," the commission noted.

There are about 17,000,000 American Negroes.

Many of the Negroes seeking entry into Catholic schools, both integrated and segregated, are not Catholics. Archbishop Albert G. Meyer of Chicago, reporting on his former Milwaukee See, stated that "more and more Negro parents are striving to have their children educated in a Catholic school. But in a few years we will be able to accommodate only Catholic children."

Bishop Vincent S. Waters of Raleigh, N. C., reported to the commission that in his diocese there are "only 3,056 Catholic Negroes and yet 2,133 colored children in our schools."

Bishop Henry J. Grimmelsman of Evansville, Ind., wrote, "there are colored Catholic children in all the Catholic high schools. That the Negro is interested in Catholic education is evident from the fact that of the 156 children in our elementary grades, seventy are from homes wherein neither parent is Catholic nor are the children."

Catholic Negroes in the South number 245,000. Border, northern and western states account for 350,000. Parochial schools for Negroes in the South number 203, and in other sections of the country, 134.

Funds for the commission's work is derived from an annual collection taken up in all Catholic churches during Lent. The money is allotted to dioceses for mission work on the basis of need. Last year the commission showed receipts totalling over $1.8 million. More than $1.5 million was appropriated to 78 dioceses.

"The total number of Catholic Indians, according to reports from dioceses where there are missions, is 120,110 souls," the commission stated.

It continued that this "does not include many others now living in other dioceses. These are now about 380,000 persons of Indian blood in the United States including Alaska, the newest state."