Remembering the life of a beloved Black nun, leader and friend January 3, 2022By Shannen Dee Williams Catholic News Service Filed Under: Commentary, Guest Commentary, Obituaries, Social Justice 2021 saw the passing of some of the nation’s most important leaders, thinkers, writers and freedom fighters of the modern era.
My Advent pilgrimage to the gravesite of Sister Thea Bowman December 9, 2021By Shannen Dee Williams Catholic News Service Filed Under: Commentary, Guest Commentary, Racial Justice In these trying times, one can only wonder what Sister Thea, an unapologetic champion of Black life, mothers, families and social equality, might say about the current state of our bitterly divided nation and church.
A song for Mother Tolton March 18, 2021By Shannen Dee Williams Catholic News Service Filed Under: Commentary, Guest Commentary, Racial Justice This March, as we celebrate Women’s History Month, let us pledge to rediscover and remember the lives and labors of the Black women, like Mother Tolton, who in the face of unyielding discrimination fought to make the church in the United States truly Catholic.
Names for public spaces matter January 26, 2021By Shannen Dee Williams Catholic News Service Filed Under: Commentary, Guest Commentary, Racial Justice As our nation and church continue to suffer the lethal effects of their ongoing failures to fully acknowledge and atone for centuries of slavery and segregation, the new Norman Francis Parkway is an important beacon of hope.
A final requiem for an extraordinary nun and champion of Black Catholic history January 5, 2021By Shannen Dee Williams Catholic News Service Filed Under: Commentary, Guest Commentary, Racial Justice In a racially and economically tumultuous year that saw a significant rise in calls for the church to acknowledge and make reparations for its largely unreconciled practices of slavery and segregation, the loss of Sister Reginald, and her expertise in African American Catholic history, was especially wrenching.
The black Catholic nun every American should know March 9, 2020By Shannen Dee Williams Filed Under: Commentary, Guest Commentary As we celebrate women’s history month this March, I encourage every person to commit the name of Anne Marie Becraft and her revolutionary fight against slavery and racism in the American Catholic Church and nation at large to memory.
Black history is Catholic history February 6, 2020By Shannen Dee Williams Filed Under: Commentary, Guest Commentary As we mark this 94th annual celebration of black history during February, I encourage all Catholics interested in justice, reconciliation and peace to commit to learning about the central place of black people in the church’s long and complex history.
