Lafon, Thomy was born a free person of
color in New Orleans on 28 December, 1810; died in New Orleans 22 December 1893.
His mother was Modest Foucher Lafon, a free woman of color born in Louisiana of
a slave mother. His father was Pierre Laralde Lafon, a Frenchman who deserted
the family when Thomy was still a boy. A bachelor, Thomy shared his home with
his widowed sister, Alice Bodin.
Thomy was largely self-educated. In 1842, he was listed
in the New Orleans City Directory as a merchant, on 387 Rampart Street. From
1868 until his death in 1893, he was a highly regarded, successful real estate
broker who lived in a very unpretentious house at 242 Ursulines Street. Thomy
Lafon is primarily known not for the fortune he amassed during his lifetime, but
for his open-hands, color-blind philanthropies.
During his life, Lafon established the Lafon Orphan
Boys' Asylum and the Home for Aged Colored Men and Women. He gave liberally to
other charitable and religious organizations and to numerous destitute
individuals. Mr. Lafon made large contributions to the American Anti-Slavery
Society, the Underground Railroad, the Catholic Institute for the Care of
Orphans, the Louisiana Asylum, the Eye/Ear/Nose/and Throat Hospital, New Orleans
University, Southern University, Straight University, the Shakespeare Alms Home,
the Societé des Jeunes Amis, Charity Hospital (for the benefit of the ambulance
service), the Religious Order of the Holy Family, the Little Sisters of the Poor
and the Lafon Old Folks Home.
Thomy Lafon died on December 22, 1893 in New Orleans and
was buried in St. Louis Cemetery No. 3. Right after his death the Louisiana
State Legislature voted to honor him in memoriam despite the racial
discrimination that was so virulent at the time. He was the first black person
to be so honored by any State in the Union.
Fifteen months before Thomy Lafon died, a local
newspaper contained the following statement about him: “To the glory of his
memory and the enrichment of society the ‘wealthy old colored man’ gave with
love and affection several major gifts and numerous minor ones to care for the
poor of all races.” Mr. Lafon lived in his own world rid of color lines, and his
vision of serving the needs of his native New Orleans lives on through Odyssey
House Louisiana.
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