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Subversive Habits
$109.95
| Title | Range | Discount |
|---|---|---|
| Trade Discount | 5 + | 25% |
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Description
Description
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. Shannen Dee Williams provides a comprehensive history of Black Catholic nuns in the United States, tracing how Black sisters’ struggles were central to the long African American freedom movement. Shannen Dee Williams is Associate Professor of History at the University of Dayton. 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
“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.”
“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.”
"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."
(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."
"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."
"Shannen Williams's book chronicles the bold steps and persistence African-American sisters took to debunk their rejection by white orders that insisted Black women lacked souls and/or virtue suitable to be admitted to them. . . . This outstanding book, Subversive Habits, is well-researched, quite revealing and a set of history and reality lessons of how Black sisters kept the faith and made the Catholic Church change."
"This eye-opening, inspiring and thoroughly researched book unearths a history that few Americans know: the challenges and triumphs of Black Catholic nuns in the United States. It’s one of the most exciting new books in Black women’s history and powerfully captures the interconnections between race, religion and politics."
"Subversive Habits demands a committed reader. However, it will reward the resilient and open-minded reader with apokalupsis—tremendous learning about the scope of racism throughout the American Catholic Church as well as the witness of these Black Catholic women and their contributions to the church and the world. Please take up the reading and stick with it. Draw some perseverance from the women the book depicts and take heart in their commitment to justice."
"Subversive Habits brings a very necessary balance to histories published in recent decades that focus on civil rights work by Catholics. It seems these historians were writing about the exception and not the norm. This is the story of courageous nuns, including those who felt they couldn't remain any longer, who are the true gems of American Catholic history. Every woman religious must read this book."
"In Subversive Habits, historian Williams has given us a remarkable work of scholarship, one that may be distressing for many readers because she clears away any shred of doubt about the U.S. Catholic Church being racist from its very beginnings."
Additional information
Additional information
| Weight | 2 oz |
|---|---|
| Dimensions | 1 × 6 × 9 in |
