Father Augustus Tolton: The Slave Who Became the First African-American Priest

In these fascinating pages, popular author and speaker Deacon Harold Burke-Sivers tells the gripping story of Augustine Tolton, who valiantly overcame a series of seemingly insurmountable challenges — birth into slavery, his father's death, abject poverty, and even being denied acceptance by every Catholic seminary in America — to become the first black American priest.

Despite the hardships placed on Fr. Tolton by a culture rooted in racial hatred, he became a tireless messenger of the Gosp...