Mother of Mercy Catholic Church has a long, rich heritage in Washington. Its history is heavily tied to education through its school and is marked by a historic, unsung stand taken by one of its graduates. The church is now showcasing its history through open houses, with plans to preserve it for generations to come.

Church and community members turned out for an open house April 3 to see the multiple exhibits made up of documents, photos and more.

One of Mother of Mercy Catholic School’s 1948 graduates, Sarah Louise Keys Evans, is a figure the church is most proud of, according to church member Larry McDaniel. Keys, a single African-American woman, was a member of the Women’s Army Corps branch of the U.S. Army and became a part of civil rights history one night in 1952 at a bus station in Roanoke Rapids.

McDaniel has extensively researched Keys and other history related to the church, and relayed the story of Keys being asked to move seats from the middle of the bus to the rear, since blacks were confined to riding in the back seats of public transit. Keys refused, was arrested and put in jail for 13 hours. After she was released, she wanted to let the incident go, according to McDaniel.

Although an earlier Supreme Court ruling made segregation on interstate buses illegal, bus companies found loopholes in the law that allowed them to continue persecution toward blacks, McDaniel said.

Keys, with the help of attorney Dovey Roundtree — the same attorney that led the case Brown vs. Education, which would desegregate schools across the nation — eventually won the case on Nov. 7, 1955 and judgment was rendered on Nov. 25 of that year. Six days later on Dec. 1, Rosa Parks took a stand that gained national attention and marked the start of the Civil Rights Movement, according to McDaniel.

“Rosa Parks got all the publicity,” McDaniel said. “The main importance in what these two women did — Rosa Parks challenged intrastate travel. The ruling on her case may not have gone out of Alabama, maybe not even out of Montgomery. But Sarah Keys challenged interstate travel — travel between states that went nationwide. I found it astonishing that a young lady from this town was not recognized for this. Why not? Look at what she did. At the federal level, she wasn’t recognized either. The support of the NAACP was more important, which is why Rosa Parks had the spotlight.”

Keys, who turned 88 on April 18, currently lives in Brooklyn, New York, where she was a hair salon owner after retiring from the military, according to McDaniel.

The story of Keys is just one of the many that mark the church and school’s history. The church has had a presence in Washington since March 1829 when Bishop John England consecrated the first church building — St. John Evangelist.

McDaniel said the church building, one of three throughout its history, was burned in 1864 by Union troops, and for the next 64 years, the church would have no building, McDaniel said.

In 1927, sisters from the Immaculate Heart of Mary, a Catholic church, came to head the school that was built by blacks in the area, McDaniel said. It became the first accredited Catholic high school in North Carolina and the first high school accredited in Washington. The sisters, who taught at the school, made it their mission to educate the children of freed slaves, and the attendance grew from 15 to 100 in its first three months, according to McDaniel.

“Our faith has been here for 187 years,” McDaniel said. “We’ve had open houses the last two years to educate people about (our history). No one has heard about Sarah Keys. There hasn’t been anything in the media. We’re trying to educate people about it. When we have the open house, I tell people it’s a dual celebration — the church and what we did here in this community, and then along with that, we try to celebrate Sarah Keys and some of the other people that graduated from our high school.”

Another significant figure in the church’s history, William Holliday Jr., was instrumental in getting the church and the school added to National Register of Historic Places by the N.C. Dept. of Cultural Resources Office of Archives and History, giving the church access to grants and resources to help it restore its historic properties and preserve its history, McDaniel said.

“To me, it’s important that people know what the people of our church did in this town,” McDaniel said. “We’re proud of it. To hang on for 187 years through all the strife that our church had to go through says something in itself, I think.”

Moving forward, the hope is to preserve church history by renovating its community building, which used to be the school that closed in 1973. The church, led by Father Brendan Buckler, the church’s priest, hopes to showcase all its photos and documents in a room, much like a museum, of sorts, he said.

“We’ve put together a committee to look at what we’re doing with the community building,” McDaniel said. “When we refurbish that building, we’ll have a place for historic documents. That’s the end goal — to have a room, at least, dedicated to this history.”

Mother of Mercy Catholic Church is located at 112 W. Ninth St. in Washington.