Celebrating Black History Month with a Spotlight on Mother Mary Lange
Mary Lange was born in San Domingo, Dominic Republic in 1789. When the Haitian Revolution occurred, Lange and her family moved to Santiago de Cuba where she stayed until the early 1800s. She then immigrated to the United States where Lange settled in Baltimore, Maryland. It was there where she discovered that African-American children needed proper education. Lange opened a school in the Fells Point area of the city, as there were no free public schools for black children at that time.
Mother Mary Lange
While living in Baltimore and running her school, Mary met a priest by the name of James Nicholas Joubert. Joubert wanted to open a school for girls as well as start up a women’s religious order. Lange and Joubert founded the first religious congregation of women of African-American descent (the Oblate Sisters of Providence).
On July 2, 1829, Mary and three other women took their vows and became Nuns. Sister Mary became the first superior general in the community. While facing various issues such as poverty, racism, and extreme hardships, the Oblate sisters wanted to better the Black community through a Catholic education. Sister Mary continued to lift the Black community up until her death on February 3, 1882.
Because of the positive impact Sister Lange had, she was placed into the Maryland Women’s Hall of Fame in 1991. Two Catholic schools were built and named after her, in 2005 and 2021. Many individuals considered Sister Mary Lange a Saint which led to her life being examined for a possible canonization (declaration of a deceased person as an officially recognized Saint) in 1991.
In 2023, the Vatican approved Sister Lang’s position as Venerable and Pope Francis declared Sister Mary as Venerable on June 22nd, 2023. Currently, her status of Saint is still being processed.
Written by Keeara M. Van Der Merwe, Sports & Exercise Science
