"Thomy-Lafon" [1810- December 22,1893]

Born a free person of color in New Orleans,Thomy was the son of a Frenchman & a free woman Haitian descent who had been born in Louisiana to a slave mama.Thomy daddy deserted the family when Thomy was a young boy.Thomy was self-educated.By 1842,he was listed in the New Orleans City Directory as a merchant.
He started out selling cakes to workers,opened a small store,was a school teacher for a time and became successful at money lending and rel estate investment.He was
an opponent of slavery and supported racial integration in schools.He is mostly known for his large donations to the American Anti-Slavery Society,the Underground Railroad,the Catholics School for Indigent Orphans,the Louisiana Association for the Benefit of Colored Orphans and other charities for both African Americans and whites.He was also active in politics during the Civil War.Thomy help found the friends of Universal Suffrage,an interracial organization committed to securing the vote for African American males.In his will he gave funds to local charities and the Charity Hospital,Lafon OldsFolk Home,Dillard University,and the Sisters of the Holy Family,an order of African American nuns.The Thomy Lafon school was called "the best Negro Schoolhouse in Louisiana," it got burned down by a white mob during the New Orleans Race Riot of 1900.Thomy also supported Tribune,the first African American owned newspaper in the south after the Civil War.Thomy never married or had children.