St. Augustine's Seminary

The Society of the Divine Word founded this seminary in 1920 in Greenville, Mississippi, as the first in the United States meant to train Black men for the priesthood, in an era when few seminaries accepted Black applicants. In 1923 it moved to Bay St. Louis, closer to a larger city and away from Ku Klux Klan harassment. Four Black priests were ordained in the first class in 1934. Nearly all of the first Black Catholic bishops of the modern era trained there, among them Harold Perry. Its higher studies ended in 1967, and it closed in 1982.

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• INFINITY Science Center — 16 mi
  NASA's visitor center for Stennis Space Center, at the Mississippi welcome center near the Louisiana line, with a Saturn V booster outside and a story of five river towns that were moved.
• Ship Island and Fort Massachusetts — 23 mi
  A barrier island twelve miles off the Mississippi coast with a brick fort burned half-built in 1861, a Union prison camp, and the garrison post of the 2nd Louisiana Native Guard.
• Crosby Arboretum — 24 mi
  A Mississippi State University arboretum in Picayune showing the plants of the Pearl River basin, with Fay Jones's Pinecote Pavilion among the pitcher plant savanna and pines.
• Biloxi Beach Wade-In Marker — 26 mi
  The beachfront parking lot beside the Biloxi Lighthouse where state markers recall the 1959 and 1960 wade-ins that opened Mississippi's public beaches to Black residents.

More markers nearby

• Elmwood Manor — 0.7 mi
• Old Shieldsboro — 0.8 mi
• 100 Men D.B.A. Hall — 0.8 mi
• St. Stanislaus College — 0.9 mi