Sacred Heart School in St. Tammany Parish began as an 80-student, two-room school, but quickly grew to 240 students in the first through 9th grades after a group of Black nuns crossed Lake Pontchartrain in 1958 to teach there.

As the only Black Catholic school in the eastern part of the parish, just outside of Slidell, Sacred Heart moved to a new building in 1961 and changed its name to St. Linus Elementary.

“The Sisters, upon their arrival to Bayou Liberty, made a huge, positive change to the people of color in our community,” Sheryl Jackson, a former student, said in a 2018 Times-Picayune article. 

The Sisters of the Holy Family were founded as the Congregation of the Sisters of the Presentation of the Blessed Virgin Mary in 1837 in New Orleans by the Venerable Henriette Delille. The free woman of color dedicated her life to serving enslaved and poor Black communities. 

The order adopted its current name in 1942.

According to Sister Maria Gonzales, a former student who joined the order, St. Linus students learned social skills in addition to academics and religion. Due to desegregation, the school closed. 

“When it opens this fall, it will be known as Bayou Liberty School and will be run by the St. Tammany Public School Board, which will rent the building,” a 1967 article in the Georgia Bulletin states. “The Holy Family Sisters, who now teach in the school, won’t leave, however. They will remain to operate religious instruction classes.”

In 1968, St. Linus merged with St. Genevieve Catholic Church.

“Our church was like a mission,” said Jackson’s mother, Laura Narcisse. “It was a Black church, then we moved in with St. Genevieve.” 

Though St. Linus is closed, its legacy continues. In 2018, the building was rededicated as the Mother Henriette Delille Religious Education and Catholic Social Teaching Center.

For more tales from New Orleans history, visit the Back in the Day archives.

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