Father Augustine Tolton

Venerable Augustus Tolton (April 1, 1854-July 9, 1897), baptized Augustine Tolton, was the first black Roman Catholic priest in the United States. He was ordained in 1886. A former slave who was baptized and reared Catholic, Tolton studied formally in Rome.

He was ordained in Rome on Easter Sunday of 1886 at the Archbasilica of St. John Lateran. Assigned to the diocese of Alton (now the Diocese of Springfield), Totton first ministered to his home parish in Quincy, Illinois. Later assigned to Chicago, Totton led the development and construction of St. Monica's Catholic Church as a black "national parish church", completed in 1893 at 36th and Dearborn Streets on Chicago's South Side.