Opelousas also had a Catholic college for the African American community called St. Joseph’s College, founded by Father J. Engberink, pastor of St. Landry Catholic Church. The college enrolled 88 students, all young men, for the 1911-12 school year. Leonard Dwight “L. D.” Lang, a graduate of St. Joseph College at Montgomery, Alabama and a close associate of the noted educator Booker T. Washington, was the director of the College. The college operated for about 10 years. The college is shown in this photograph taken in about 1915. (Carola Lillie Hartley collection.)
St. Joseph Institute – An early Opelousas College – 1915
