The Franciscan Handmaids of the Most Pure Heart of Mary are a predominantly African-American religious congregation of Roman Catholic women who follow the Rule of the Third Order of St. Francis of Assisi. Their primary mission has always been education, primarily of the children of the African-American community. The congregation was founded in 1916, in Savannah, Georgia, by Fr. Ignatius Lissner, S.M.A., in response to threatened segregation of teachers in Negro schools by state legislators.
To forestall the expected effects on the black children of the state, Father Lissner recruited Mother Mary Theodore Williams to help found a congregation of African-American women to teach these children. The bill never passed, but the Sisters found little support in Georgia. Thus it was decided that the motherhouse of the congregation be moved to the Harlem neighborhood of New York City in 1924, where it has remained.[1]
At its height in the 1960s, the congregation counted 80 Sisters. As of 2001, they were down to 21 Sisters, mostly in their sixties or older.