New Icon Drop - Ven. Pierre Toussaint
- Aug 13
- 2 min read
Springfield, Ohio is our neighbor. The Haitian immigrants there are our neighbors. As TPS is ended, join us in prayer and action, guided by this incredible Saint.
PRINTS AND PRAYER CARDS AVAILABLE NOW!
All print purchase proceeds are going to the Haitian Community Help and Support Center in Springfield, Ohio. I’ll also include a free “Stand With Springfield Ohio Immigrants” postcard I designed in your order for free.
Pierre was born to an enslaved family in Haiti in the late 1700s. He was raised Catholic on the sugar plantation, but was taken to New York by the plantation owners when they were threatened by a slave uprising. In New York, he was apprenticed to a hairdresser, and quickly became extremely skilled at styling the complicated hairstyles that rich women wanted at the time. He was able to support his family doing this, eventually becoming Alexander Hamilton’s family hairstylist, and making enough money to buy his and his family’s freedom. He married and raised his sister’s daughter to be well-educated.
Even as a free person, Pierre still was not truly free, having to fear not just for the rampant racism and Catholic prejudice of his day, bit also the fact that he could be captured and re-enslaved in the South. Even as the holy man we know him as today, he admitted these evils were too much to bear, and that he often had temper when it came to injustice.
In his home parish, he helped raise money for the school St. Elizabeth Ann Seton was building, took in and educated orphaned Children of Color, donating generously to St. Patrick’s and the first New York City school for Black Children. He and his wife organized a credit bureau and employment agency, a French translation service for new immigrants, and gave aid to priests, people seeking to buy their freedom, and friends in Haiti. He selflessly personally served those stricken with Yellow Fever each time an epidemic hit the city, despite the danger. He continued to work as a hairdresser through it all so that he could raise funds for these causes.
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