The Josephites—Fr Charles Hannigan, SSJ in particular—staffed the parish, and the Daughters of Charity of Saint Vincent de Paul, who at the time staffed the St. Leos' Hospital in Greensboro, provided staff for the school.

[1] St. Mary's Church, originally having a mostly African-American congregation, was consecrated with its first Mass by Bishop William J. Hafey of Raleigh on Sept. 16, 1928.

That same month, at the invitation of Bishop Hafey, Daughters of Charity of St. Vincent de Paul from Baltimore, Md., opened the parish school, Our Lady of Miraculous Medal, to a dozen children.

There were also a great number of parishioners from the above regions that joined St. Mary's through family ties to the church.

In 2014, Emmanuel O. Ukattah, a native of Nigeria and naturalized U.S. citizen, became the first Catholic deacon of African descent in the history of St. Mary's.