Saturday, June 11 • 6:30PM
Duquesne University Power Center
Virtual option available
The Sisters of St. Joseph and Duquesne University
invite you for an evening with the author of:
Subversive Habits:
Black Catholic Nuns in the Long
African American Freedom Struggle
A book signing will follow the program.
Please register by May 27 to join us at Duquesne or June 3 to attend virtually. Use the form below or call Joan at 724-869-6563.
Directions: Park at the Forbes Garage. From there, take an elevator to the 8th floor where there is a skyway that leads to the Power Center.
Honored guests
National Black Sisters Conference
Oblate Sisters of Providence (Baltimore)
Sisters of the Holy Family (New Orleans)
Franciscan Handmaids of the Most Pure Heart of Mary (Harlem)
Featured speaker
Dr. Shannen Dee Williams
A Conversation of Forgiveness
and Reconciliation
Dr. Patricia Grey
Sally Witt, CSJ
Mary Pellegrino, CSJ
Dr. Williams
Register to Attend
Sponsored by
Sisters of St. Joseph, whose history revealed racism in the congregation
Duquesne University: Mission & Identity, Catholic Studies, History, Theology
About the book - From Duke University Press Summary
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.
About the Author - Dr. Shannen Dee Williams
Dr. Shannen Dee Williams is Associate Professor of History at the University of Dayton. A historian of the African American experience with research and teaching specializations in women’s, religious, and Black freedom movement history, Williams is the author of the forthcoming book, Subversive Habits: Black Catholic Nuns in the Long African American Freedom Struggle, which will be published by Duke University Press on May 6, 2022.
Dr. Williams’s research has been supported by a host of fellowships, grants and awards, including a Scholar-in-Residence Fellowship at the Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture in New York City, a Charlotte W. Newcombe Doctoral Fellowship in Religion and Ethics from the Woodrow Wilson National Foundation, an Albert J. Beveridge Grant from the American Historical Association and the John Tracy Ellis Dissertation Award from the American Catholic Historical Association. Her work has been published in the Journal of African American History, American Catholic Studies, the Washington Post, America Magazine, and the National Catholic Reporter.
A Distinguished Lecturer for the Organization of American Historians, Dr. Williams also authors the award-winning column, “The Griot’s Cross,” published by the Catholic News Service.