Xavier University of Louisiana

A Philadelphia banking heiress named Katharine Drexel spent her entire $20 million inheritance — roughly $350 million today — on schools for Black and Native American communities. In 1925, she founded Xavier University of Louisiana, the only historically Black Catholic university in the United States. When Drexel was canonized in 2000, Xavier became the first Catholic university founded by a saint. The founding itself required subterfuge. Drexel bought the Magazine Street property in 1915 through an agent named Harry McEnerny to avoid public scrutiny — her reputation for establishing Black schools was well known, and she knew the city would never approve a sale for that purpose. Even after the deal closed, vandals smashed all the windows. A decade later, when Xavier needed room to expand beyond high school into a full university, Drexel again purchased land through an agent — this time a tract at Palmetto and Pine Streets, where the campus stands today. The Gothic Revival administration building, completed in 1932 and built from Indiana limestone, anchors a campus that has quietly become a national pre-med pipeline. Xavier sends more African American students to medical school than any other university in the country. Its College of Pharmacy, opened in 1927, consistently ranks among the top three nationally in graduating African Americans with pharmacy degrees. In May 1961, a group of Freedom Riders arrived in New Orleans by plane after bus drivers in Alabama refused to take them to Montgomery. Locals refused to accommodate them with lodging out of fear of retaliatory violence. Norman C. Francis, the university's Dean of Men, secretly arranged for the group to stay several days in a dormitory on campus — third floor of St. Michael's Hall, no press. Hurricane Katrina in 2005 submerged almost every structure on campus. Students began returning in January 2006. By 2010, Qatar had donated $17.5 million for hurricane recovery and pharmacy expansion; the Qatar Pharmacy Pavilion opened that October, adding 60,000 square feet to the existing College of Pharmacy building. The campus is open. Visitors welcome.