Records Relating to Local Administration. South | Saint Michael's College Archives & Special Collections

In the 1930’s, after moving their general administrative offices from England to Vermont, the Society of Saint Edmund began to seek ways in which it could meet the call of Pope Pius X’s to serve the “Negro and Indian populations of North America.”  In January 1937, Bishop Thomas Toolen of Mobile (AL) invited the Society to “establish a mission among the colored population in Selma.”  By July 1937, three Edmundites were serving in Selma.  Within a month, they began publishing Your Edmundite Missions Newsletter (now the Edmundite Missions Newsletter) to solicit funds for the new mission.

Over the years, the work of the Edmundites included work in parishes and schools throughout Alabama, (especially in Selma, Anniston, Gadsden, Mobile and the Gulf Coast), in Elizabeth City and Wake Forest, NC, in Apalachicola FL,  in New Orleans, LA and in Caracas, Venezuela. The Society also sponsored  the Good Samaritan Nursing Home and Good Samaritan Hospital in Selma from the 1940s until their closure in the 1980s, the Don Bosco Boys Club, and  the Good Samaritan School of Practical Nursing, the first school of practical nursing for black students in Alabama.  Additionally, the Edmundites have sponsored learning centers, health clinics, nutrition centers, and other social service organizations in Dallas, Wilcox, Monroe, and Lowndes Counties in Alabama, and have maintained parishes and a school in Louisiana.