As Nov. 1 marks All Saints Day, we take a closer look at — and a closer walk with — them all.

It should be noted and understood, however, that they were products of their time: an era of slavery and racial segregation, when Black Americans were often denied the full right to worship God.

SERVANT OF GOD SISTER THEA BOWMAN, FSPA (Dec. 29, 1937 – March 30, 1990) is perhaps the most widely recognized contemporary candidate for this belated honor.

Born a Methodist, the future Black Catholic religious sister, teacher, liturgist and scholar converted to Catholicism at age 9. Sister Thea spoke often on faith, spirituality, racial harmony and social justice.

She visited the Diocese of Charleston in the 1970s and 1980s, speaking on her favorite topics with the help of music and song. Her name now adorns dozens of religious institutions, colleges and educational centers.

Her legacy includes helping to found the National Black Sisters’ Conference for African American women in Catholic religious life. In 2018, the Catholic Diocese of Jackson, Mississippi, opened her cause for beatification. Bowman, a Mississippi native, now bears the title Servant of God.

For more about this remarkable woman, visit the Diocese of Jackson’s website, jacksondiocese.org, and that of her order, the Franciscan Sisters of Perpetual Adoration, at fspa.org.

SERVANT OF GOD JULIA GREELEY (circa 1833 – June 7, 1918) was blinded in one eye by a whip lash meant for her mother, struck by their enslaver in Missouri. She might have lived a life of bitterness and hatred. Instead, after emancipation freed her, she traveled West.

Greeley settled in Denver, where she entered the Catholic Church and found immense spiritual healing through receiving Holy Communion and serving those in need, regardless of race.

She is known today as “Denver’s Angel of Charity” and as a symbol of love, holiness, faith and charity. She is a Servant of God in the cause for canonization. (See: usccb.org/servant-god-julia-greeley)

SERVANT OF GOD FATHER MARTIN MARIA DE PORRES WARD, OFM Conv. (March 20, 1918 – June 22, 1999) was born in Boston, Massachusetts, in a time when Black Catholics were often marginalized within both society and the Church. 

Despite systemic barriers, Father Ward broke through racial exclusion to become the first African American Conventual Franciscan friar in North America. Yet, the racism he faced in the United States prevented him from fully living out his priestly vocation. He was sent to Brazil, where he ministered for over four decades as a teacher, pastor and spiritual guide. His life is a beautiful demonstration of the enduring faith of Black Catholics and the painful reality of racial injustice within the Church.

Father Ward’s legacy calls on the Church to work and pray for a sincere conversion of hearts, minds and structures that allow racism to continue in the U.S. today, while also confronting its own history of exclusion, repenting of the ways it has silenced and sidelined Black voices, and embracing the healing work of reconciliation.

VENERABLE MOTHER MARY LANGE (circa 1784 – Feb. 3, 1882) left Cuba as a young woman and settled in Baltimore as a free Black woman living in a slave state. Her cause for canonization opened in 1991, and she was declared venerable on June 22, 2023.

Mother Mary Lange educated children of color and founded the first religious order for African American women, the Oblate Sisters of Providence.

The order, which my late aunt, Sister Mary Regina, joined in her late teens and served for life, became an invaluable spiritual and social resource to the Black community. (Read Mother Lange’s story at mothermarylange.org/mother-lange.)

VENERABLE HENRIETTE DELILLE (March 11, 1812 – Nov. 16, 1862) was born to a mixed-race couple in New Orleans in the 1800s. As an adult and a free woman of color (also called Louisiana Creole), she founded the Sisters of the Holy Family, now the second-oldest African American religious order in the U.S.

As the order’s first mother superior, DeLille dedicated her life to serving the sick, poor and elderly of New Orleans and its surrounding parishes. She is especially remembered for her dedication to educating enslaved people.

Pope Benedict XVI declared her venerable in 2010. She was the first U.S.-born African American whose cause for canonization was officially opened by the Roman Catholic Church. (For more facts about her, visit en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Henriette_DeLille)

VENERABLE PIERRE TOUSSAINT (June 27, 1766 – June 30, 1853) was born into slavery in Haiti, then the French colony of Saint-Domingue. He was freed upon the death of his enslaver and became a renowned hairdresser and generous philanthropist in New York.

Toussaint used the wealth from his successful hairdressing career to help finance construction of Old St. Patrick’s Cathedral.

Pope John Paul II declared him venerable in 1996.

He is the only layperson buried in the crypt beneath the main altar of the current St. Patrick’s Cathedral on Fifth Avenue. For more on Toussaint and the causes he generously supported, visit en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pierre_Toussaint.

VENERABLE FATHER AUGUSTUS TOLTON (April 1, 1854 – July 9, 1897) was only 43 when he died. Personally, I believe he was worn down by a life of oppression, despite the many gifts and successes he brought to the church.

Born into slavery in Ralls County, Missouri, Tolton escaped with his family to Quincy, Illinois, where his freedom allowed him to teach religion classes to the community’s Black children.

That freedom did not, however, win him admission to a single seminary in the United States where he could study for the priesthood. With help from Bishop Peter Joseph Baltes, Tolton was finally admitted to the Pontifical Urban University in Rome, where he completed six years of required study.

Tolton was ordained a priest with his class on April 24, 1886, at the Archbasilica of St. John Lateran in Rome. To fully appreciate the legacy of this saintly man, dead more than 100 years, read (among nearly 70 other sources) “Pope declares heroic virtue of eight prospective saints,” Vatican News, June 12, 2019.