Saint Augustine's: Gary's Black Episcopal Congregation

Saint Augustine's Episcopal Church was chartered in nineteen twenty-seven by thirty African American professionals in Gary, at a time when Black parishioners at the local mother church were admitted only to segregated afternoon services. Attorney F. Louis Sterling and other community members began organizing in nineteen twenty-three, and four years later the congregation formally launched as a Colored Episcopal Mission.

Only seventeen people attended the first service. For its first decade the church could only attract part-time priests. Benedictine monks from Saint Gregory's Abbey stabilized the congregation from nineteen thirty-eight to nineteen forty-six.

Saint Augustine's is the only historically Black Episcopal church in northern Indiana and remains an active parish today.