9. A Home for Colored Girls in Louisville, Kentucky
Segregation of whites and blacks infiltrated even religious life in the United States. Louisville, Kentucky sits on the Ohio River and was a major slave-trade city in the years leading up to Emancipation. Just across the river was freedom and escaped slaves flocked to Louisville for a chance to flee their bondage. The Catholic Church was a formidable force in the city and had sever orders running reform homes for white girls. By 1931, the Convent of the Good Shepherd for Colored Girls was fully operational.
When authorities believed that African American parents were not caring for their children, they simply took them. Institutional racism prevented many African American families from jobs and earning a livable wage. As a result, they simply could not afford to care for their family. Seemingly neglected children and unwed teens were arrested and then sent to the Convent for Colored Girls where they worked in the commercial laundry washing linens for black-owned hotels and private citizens. As the US Supreme Court began dismantling institutional segregation, the Catholic Church closed the convent in the mid-1950s.