The Oblate Sisters of Providence is founded in Baltimore as the first community of Black Roman Catholic sisters in the U.S. The Order’s first mission is the education of girls of African descent. The Oblate Sisters are founded by French-born Sulpician priest James Nicholas Joubert (1777-1834) who flees from Haiti during its revolution, and Mary Elizabeth Lange (1789-1882), the Order’s first Mother Superior.

Isaac Myers forms a trade union for Black workers
Isaac Myers purchases a dockyard to employ Black workers and forms them into a caulker’s union in 1866. He is invited to the National Labor Convention in 1869. Ultimately, discrimination forces his union out of the national union.



