Mother Mathilda Beasley: Fearless Black Educator and Foundress

Episode 36

Mother Mathilda Beasley was born Mathilda Taylor in New Orleans, Louisiana in either 1832 or 1834. Her mother was enslaved, and her father was not known, though he may have been James Taylor, her mother's slave owner. She may have been baptized in the Cathedral of St. Louis in New Orleans, and she was educated as she grew. By 20 years old she was a free woman of color and had moved to Savannah, Georgia. There she worked as a seamstress and took the very risky step of educating the children of slaves.  This was forbidden by George law, and it carried harsh penalties. After the Civil War she married Abraham Beasley, but when he died she donate all of her money to the Catholic Church — perhaps because her husband, though he was black, had made money in the slave trade. She went back to working as a seamstress, but she wanted to educate children and to become a religious sister. She eventually founded one of the first Catholic religious orders for Black women in the US, and it was the first in Georgia. She died in 1903 while praying before a statue of the Blessed Mother. Her funeral was packed with Catholics and Protestants alike.