St. Augustine Church will mark 150 years

A stained glass icon of St. Augustine, located at St. Augustine Church, 1310 West Broadway, was designed by Houston Conwill and his wife, Kinshasha Holman Conwill, in the late 1970s.

Record Staff Report

St. Augustine Church, 1310 W. Broadway, will kick off a year-long celebration this month to commemorate the parish’s 150th anniversary.
The celebration will begin Feb. 23 at 10:30 a.m. with a motorcade and walk from the Cathedral of the Assumption to St. Augustine.

The event will mark the day in February of 1870 when parishioners walked from the cathedral, where they’d celebrated Mass in the undercroft, to the new church at 14th Street and West Broadway.

During the Feb. 23 event, Mass will be celebrated at noon followed by a meal in the parish’s Hines Hall.

St. Augustine was established in 1870 as a parish for black Catholics seven years after the Emancipation Proclamation. It was the first African American church in the Archdiocese of Louisville, according to the archdiocese.

The parish celebration will continue on Aug. 23 with a Mass at noon in honor of St. Augustine’s feast day, followed by a picnic in Shawnee Park.

The celebration will close Feb. 21, 2021 with a breakfast at 10:30 a.m. in Hines Hall followed by Mass at noon.

To make reservations for any of the events, contact the parish office at 584-4602 or staugustine@mw.twcbc.com.