- October 7, 2019 Social Justice
The keynote speaker at the 2019 Province Assembly was Dr. Shannen Dee Williams, a historian of the United States with research and teaching specializations in African American, women's, religious and civil rights history. She is at work on her first book, Subversive Habits: The Untold Story of Black Catholic Nuns in the United States, which is under contract with Duke University Press.
Dr. Williams spoke about her extensive research on the history of African American women religious and the impacts of racism on the women, their congregations and the church. We asked her to share her key points with us.
How do you characterize the story of African American women religious?
It is a story of grace, of perseverance and uncommon faithfulness in the face of unholy discrimination. You know, I tend to tell people that it is the story of America's real "Sister Act”—generations of African American women who were called to religious life and fought against slavery and segregation to answer God's call in their lives and serve in the church, in their church.
Why is it important to tell the story?
Because the story has been suppressed. There are documented examples of sisters and others who have sought to erase this story from our understanding of the American-Catholic experience. And so one of the central arguments of my book is that the story of Black sisters is the story of the American-Catholic experience.
What would surprise people to know?
I think most people are unaware of the existence of these anti-Black admissions policies, that there were formal written policies barring Black women, African-descended women from going into religious life, particularly entering into white communities. I think because "Catholic" means universal it stands against everything that the church teaches us in Catholic social teaching.
And I think what's really important to remember is that canon law never upheld segregation, so these laws were actually in violation of church law. And so for a lot of people, because we know of the church's creative, universal brotherhood, it makes no sense, right? It doesn't make sense that there will be policies excluding people of color and especially African-descended people.
What’s one takeaway you want people to know?
I would hope that people see that the Catholic Church has within it a beautiful, vibrant, and a central tradition of confronting and rejecting racial discrimination and segregation. And that the church has left us a powerful blueprint to be able to confront the challenges that we face today. But critically, if we want to face and find that blueprint, we have to tell the stories of Black Catholics. And so I think that is the biggest takeaway: that the church has within it everything that it needs to confront the challenges that we are facing with regard to racism, with regards to discrimination, with regards to becoming the true beloved community. And I think one way to do it is to tell the stories.