Fathers and Sons

Fathers and Sons. Worthy Ambition. St. Martin of Tours Catholic Church celebrated its first Mass in 1901 in a nearby mansion. Father Eugene Hannan, a graduate of Gonzaga High School just south of here, founded St. Martin's to serve the growing Catholic population that dated to the city's very beginnings. To create the nation's capital, Irish laborers and Italian craftsmen worked beside free and enslaved African Americans as well as German and English immigrants. This church was built in 1939. , African Americans began attending St. Martin's around 1950, two years after Archbishop Patrick O'Boyle directed DC's white parishes and schools to integrate. The desegregation of public schools in 1954 and a suburban building boom accelerated white flight from Bloomingdale and other urban neighborhoods. By the early 1960s, the St. Martin's congregation was nearly all African American. Leslie Branch, whose family lived on the 100 block of U Street, was St. Martin's first black altar boy, and in 1982 he became the U.S. Navy's first black Catholic chaplain. His brother Edward also entered the priesthood. Because St. Martin's priests regularly visited parishioners' homes, Father Edward Branch recalled, "there was a real relationship between our family and the church." , , St. Martin's School operated across North Capitol Street at 62 T Street, NE, from 1912 until it closed in 1989. Sisters of Notre Dame de Namur, who lived in the convent next door, served as teachers. Their convent later became part of the Summit at St. Martin's apartments. , , In the 1990s the North Capitol Street and Rhode Island Avenue Ecumenical Council formed to pressure city officials to clean up the neighborhood. St. Martin's worked on issues with Metropolitan Wesley AME Zion, just ahead at R Street, Mt. Pleasant Baptist at 215 Rhode Island Avenue, and St. George's Episcopal at Second and U Street. The council also launched festivals and wellness fairs.