February 28, 2022 - Father John Augustus Tolton

This month we have explored the lives of brave individuals who have risked their lives for freedom, who have broken color barriers in fields such as music, art, and education.
As we end the month of February with Ash Wednesday only two days away, it is appropriate that we turn our attention to Father John Augustus Tolton, the first African American priest in the United States. As a young boy, he escaped slavery and went on to conquer the religious persecution that he encountered from both blacks and whites as he attended to his parishes.
When Tolton was born in Missouri, his father was owned by one family, with his mother owned by another whose property adjoined. The Tolton cabin was located in the middle. Both families were Catholic and arranged that their slaves be baptized and raised in the Catholic faith although keeping them enslaved.
During the Civil War, his father fled the plantation to fight for the Union, dying of dysentery while fighting for freedom. Young “Gus” as he was known, convinced his mother to take him and his brother and infant sister and escape to the North, to freedom.
This was no easy task-much less for a woman with children, one of them an infant-but Gus convinced his mother. The family had to escape from the cruel overseer, evade the slave-catchers and the Confederate soldiers who would capture them to turn them in for a bounty, and, a more daunting task, cross the Mississippi River which kept them in Missouri, one state away from freedom in Illinois.
However, in 1862, young Gus escaped with his mother Martha, two brothers and sister, rowing across the Mississippi River to freedom.
According to one report, when they reached freedom, Tolton’s mother turned to him and said, “John, boy, you’re free. Never forget the goodness of the Lord.”
They settled in Quincy, Illinois, where Father Peter McGirr, the local parish priest, allowed Augustus to attend school, despite objections from whites in the parish. He baptized Tolton, instructed him for his First Communion, and encouraged him to pursue his vocation in the priesthood, but due to racial discrimination, no seminary in the United States would accept him. Father McGirr was so impressed with Tolton’s dedication that he continued helping him and arranged for him to study in Rome, where he was ordained at age 31.
While in Rome, he learned to speak fluent English, German, Italian and Latin, Greek and African dialects.
His musical talents grew, and he became an accomplished musician with a voice that his parishioners praised.
The newly ordained Father Tolton expected to be sent to Africa as a missionary, but the Church sent him back to Quincy and then Chicago.
Father Tolton was greeted with a parade of thousands when he returned to the states, with a brass band belting out hymns as both blacks and whites followed him into the local church.
Father Tolton had just broken the racial barrier in the American Catholic Church, becoming the first African American priest to be ordained. He remained in Quincy for three years and was then sent to Chicago to start a new parish for African American Catholics, St. Monica’s.
Under his leadership, the parish multiplied twenty times over, going from 30 parishioners to over 600.
In both Quincy and Chicago, Father Tolton met with some resistance. He opened the church doors to whites and blacks alike, angering white Catholics who did not believe in integrated worship -and a bishop who instructed him to turn away white parishioners-and angering Black Protestants who resented the possibility of losing congregation members to another denomination. He welcomed and assisted the newly arrived Irish immigrants who suffered from discrimination and financial hardships themselves.
Despite the resistance of some, “Good Father Gus,” as he was known by his parishioners was praised for his "eloquent sermons, his beautiful singing voice, and his talent for playing the accordion."
Tolton received national recognition when he held mass at the U. S. Congress in Washington, D. C., and in 1889, when he participated in the international centenary celebration of the first U.S. Catholic diocese in Baltimore.
In 1893, Father Tolton’s health began to falter, and he took a temporary leave of absence in 1895.
During the 1897 heatwave in Chicago, he collapsed from the heat and was taken to Mercy Hospital where he passed away.
He was buried in the priest’s lot in St. Peter's Cemetery in Quincy, following a funeral led by 100 priests.
Tolton is a candidate for sainthood, after being awarded the title Venerable in 2019 by Pope Francis for living a life of heroic virtue.
Tolton is also the focus of a short film titled Across, featuring his escape from slavery.