Holy Ghost Catholic Church

Holy Ghost was one of the separate churches and parochial schools for African American Catholics that Bishop Cornelius Van de Ven oversaw in Marksville and Mansura. Founded in September 1919, it was staffed first by the Holy Ghost Fathers, a Spiritan order that worked closely with Katharine Drexel in Black parishes. A second marker, for the 1919 to 2019 centennial, says more than 90 percent of the congregation is Black today. Before it opened, the first marker says, Black Catholics worshiped at St. Joseph.

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• Avoyelles Parish Courthouse: Solomon Northup Marker — 0.3 mi
  The Marksville courthouse where Solomon Northup was freed in January 1853, with a marker and a 2026 bronze that shows him rising from the mud.
• Tunica-Biloxi Museum — 0.9 mi
  The Tunica-Biloxi Tribe of Louisiana's own museum at Marksville, built around the Tunica Treasure that the tribe won back in court.
• Epps House: Solomon Northup's Gateway to Freedom — 21 mi
  The Creole cottage Solomon Northup helped build for the man who enslaved him, moved twice and now a small museum on the LSU Alexandria campus.
• Arna Bontemps African American Museum — 26 mi
  The restored Alexandria house where the Harlem Renaissance writer Arna Bontemps was born in 1902, on the Louisiana African American Heritage Trail.

More markers nearby

• Holy Ghost Catholic School — steps away
• Louisiana's Atchafalaya Basin — 0.3 mi
• Fort De Russy — 0.3 mi
• The First Bowie Knife — 0.3 mi