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America's Real Sister Act: The Hidden History of Black Catholic Nuns in the United States

A lecture with Shannen Dee Williams (University of Dayton).
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For most people, Whoopi Goldberg's performance as Sister Mary Clarence in Sister Act is the dominant interpretation of an African American nun and the desegregation of white Catholic sisterhood in the United States. In this presentation, Dr. Shannen Dee Williams will explore the story of America's real sister act: the story of how generations of Black women and girls called to the sacred vows of poverty, chastity, and obedience fought against racism, sexism, and exclusion to become and minster as consecrated women of God in the Roman Catholic Church. In so doing, she will turn attention to 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.
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Co-presented by the Lumen Christi Institute and the Martin Marty Center for the Public Understanding of Religion at the University of Chicago Divinity School.
Co-sponsored by: America Media, the Center for the Study of Race, Politics, and Culture at the University of Chicago, the Center for Gender Studies, and the Catholic Theological Union.

Apr 27, 2023 05:00 PM in Central Time (US and Canada)