By Eileen Reilly, SSND
As we continue in our efforts to support the canonization of the “Saintly Six” - who will become the first African Americans to be canonized - it is interesting to recall our deep SSND connection to one of them - Venerable Augustus Tolton.
Born a slave in Missouri, Augustus escaped with his mother and siblings into Illinois, a free state. He was soon enrolled in the parish school in Quincy, Illinois. For the next few years, Augustus attended St. Peter’s School for several months and then would return to work in a local tobacco factory when it opened for the season. He later spoke fondly of his time at the school, saying: “As long as I was in that school, I was safe. Everyone was kind to me. I learned the alphabet, spelling, reading and arithmetic.”
In a speech given at the First Black Catholic Congress in Washington, D.C. in 1889, Tolton provides some insight into how one particular SSND affected his life and vocation:
“The Catholic Church deplores a double slavery – that of the mind and that of the body. She endeavors to free us both. …it was through the direction of a (School) Sister of Notre Dame, Sister Herlinda, that I learned to interpret the Ten Commandments; and then I also beheld for the first time the glimmering light of truth and the majesty of the Church. In this Church we do not have to fight for our rights because we are black. She had colored saints – Augustine, Benedict the Moor, Monica. The Church is broad and liberal. She is the Church for our people.”
Eventually, due to failing health Sister Herlinda was no longer able to walk the three blocks from the convent to the school so she left Quincy and was sent to St. Mary’s in Annapolis, Maryland where she taught in the “Colored School” there. She was then sent to St. Joseph’s Orphanage in Manhattan, where she died on the morning of June 22, 1892, at the age of 51.
Sister Herlinda is buried in Fort Lee, New Jersey. Her obituary stated that she “labored with untiring zeal for many years in the Negro school in Quincy, Illinois.” What it does not say, is that she helped educate and shape a child, who would one day be the first African American priest in the United States, be given the title of Venerable and counted among the “Saintly Six.”
