Pierre Toussaint
1766-1853 19th century
The quiet, stubborn charity of daily life, working in order to be able to give.
Who was Pierre Toussaint?
Born into slavery in Saint-Domingue and brought to New York by his masters, he became one of the city's most sought-after hairdressers. Freed at forty-one, he turned his fortune into a quiet work of mercy: buying slaves their freedom, taking in orphans, nursing yellow-fever patients when everyone else fled. Every morning for sixty years he was seen at the six o'clock Mass.
In their own words
Madam, I have enough for myself, but if I stop working I have not enough for others.
I have never felt I was a slave to any man or woman, but I am a servant of Almighty God who made us all.