Lucey as the Colored Industrial Institute and in 1897 became St. Peter Academy, a.k.a.

[2] It was later staffed by both Fr John Henry Dorsey, SSJ, one of the first African-American Catholic priests in US history, as well as the Sisters of the Holy Family, the second-oldest order of Black Catholic nuns.

Sandra Gordy, author of Finding the Lost Year: What Happened When Little Rock Closed Its Public Schools, stated that in the late 1950s the enrollment of St. Peter's was uneven from grade level to grade level, and that it was "small".

[3] The elementary school division became racially integrated in early 1963.

It was the last Catholic school established for black students in the state of Arkansas.