Henriette Díaz Delille, a free woman of color before the Civil War in New Orleans, became a religious sister who founded Sisters of the Holy Family. They brought care and dignity to poor African and American-born slaves, orphans, elderly, and disabled. Their work continues today.
St. Augustine Church in New Orleans
First U.S. Black Catholic Church Has Persevered Since 1841
Just north of New Orleans’ French Quarter — on soil once worked by slaves — stands a Catholic church believed to be the oldest black parish in the U.S. St. Augustine Church, established in 1841, has been a sanctuary in the turbulence of emancipation, Jim Crow laws, the civil rights movement, and Hurricane Katrina.