Mother Mary Elizabeth Lange died on Feb 3 1882. An emancipated Haitian slave who arrived in Baltimore in 1791, she founded the Oblate Sisters of Providence—the first religious congregation for women of African descent. They operated schools, orphanages, homes for the elderly.
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Aside from their poverty and everyday hardship, the sisters also endured various expressions of overt racism—even from fellow Catholics, who did not believe black women should be clothed in religious habits. Her cause for canonization is in process.
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