Pierre Toussaint was a slave, born in Haiti in 1766. During the course of his life, he raised funds for the first Catholic orphanage and began the city’s first school for black children. He is credited with being the founder of what is now known as Catholic Charities. He died a freeman in New York City in 1853.
Throughout his life, he was dedicated to the church and to others — donating to charities, helping to finance the original St. Patrick’s Cathedral in Manhattan and risking his life during epidemics to tend to the ill.
In 1997, nearly 150 years after his death, Pope John Paul II proclaimed Toussaint “venerable,” the first step on the road to sainthood.