In Subversive Habits, Shannen Dee Williams provides the first full history of Black Catholic nuns in the United States, hailing them as the forgotten prophets of Catholicism and democracy. Drawing on oral histories and previously sealed Church records, Williams demonstrates how master narratives of women's religious life and Catholic commitments to racial and gender justice fundamentally change when the lives and experiences of African American nuns are taken seriously. For Black Catholic women and girls, embracing the celibate religious state constituted a radical act of resistance to white supremacy and the sexual terrorism built into chattel slavery and segregation. Williams shows how Black sisters-such as Sister Mary Antona Ebo, who was the only Black member of the inaugural delegation of Catholic sisters to travel to Selma, Alabama, and join the Black voting rights marches of 1965-were pioneering religious leaders, educators, healthcare professionals, desegregation foot soldiers, Black Power activists, and womanist theologians. In the process, Williams calls attention to Catholic women's religious life as a stronghold of white supremacy and racial segregation-and thus an important battleground in the long African American freedom struggle.
By:
Shannen Dee Williams
Imprint: Duke University Press
Country of Publication: United States
Dimensions:
Height: 229mm,
Width: 152mm,
Weight: 567g
ISBN: 9781478018209
ISBN 10: 1478018208
Pages: 424
Publication Date: 17 May 2022
Audience:
Professional and scholarly
,
Undergraduate
Format: Paperback
Publisher's Status: Active
Abbreviations ix Note on Terminology xiii Preface: Bearing Witness to a Silenced Past xv Acknowledgments xix Introduction. America’s Forgotten Black Freedom Fighters 1 1. Our Sole Wish Is to Do the Will of God: The Early Struggles of Black Catholic Sisters in the United States 23 2. Nothing Is Too Good for the Youth of Our Race: The Fight for Black-Administered Catholic Education during Jim Crow 61 3. Is the Order Catholic Enough? The Struggle to Desegregate White Sisterhoods after World War II 103 4. I Was Fired Up to Go to Selma: Black Sisters, the Second Vatican Council, and the Fight for Civil Rights 134 5. Liberation Is Our First Priority: Black Nuns and Black Power 167 6. No Schools, No Churches! The Fight to Save Black Catholic Education in the 1970s 200 7. The Future of the Black Catholic Nun Is Dubious: African American Sisters in the Age of Church Decline 231 Conclusion. The Catholic Church Wouldn't Be Catholic If It Wasn’t for Us 259 Glossary 271 Notes 273 Bibliography 345 Index 371
Shannen Dee Williams is Associate Professor of History at the University of Dayton.
Reviews for Subversive Habits: Black Catholic Nuns in the Long African American Freedom Struggle
Deeply researched, elegantly written, and boldly argued, Subversive Habits is a brilliant excavation of the long political history of Black nuns. This is extraordinary scholarship that is as accessible as it is groundbreaking and illuminating. This timely and essential book widens the frames of Black women's history, of religion and activism, and of Black Catholicism. -- Barbara D. Savage, author of * Your Spirits Walk beside Us: The Politics of Black Religion * Sweeping in its scope, exhaustively researched, and balanced in presentation,Subversive Habits is a seminal history of Black Catholic Nuns and their struggle for equality and justice in the Catholic Church. -- Bettye Collier-Thomas, author of * Jesus, Jobs, and Justice: African American Women and Religion * An awe-inspiring history book about Black nuns who fought for freedom and equality. . . . Subversive Habits is a stirring history text about the remarkable faith and conviction of Black nuns in America. -- Melissa Wuske * Foreword * (Starred Review) Informative and often surprising, this should be required reading for scholars of Catholic and African American religious history and will undoubtedly become the standard text on its subject. * Publishers Weekly * The 'uncommon faithfulness' of the nuns in Subversive Habits-taking the church at its word when it teaches that we are all one body-is a model of discipleship from which all Catholics can learn. -- Kathleen Manning * U.S. Catholic *