The Real Sister Act: Black Catholic Nuns and the Long Struggle to Desegregate U.S. Religious Life
The Religion Department at Barnard College is thrilled to host a lecture with Shannen Dee Williams, Assistant Professor of History at the University of Tennessee at Knoxville, on the epic journey of Black Catholic sisters in the United States from their fiercely contested beginnings in the 19th century to the present day. In this lecture, Williams will unearth the largely hidden history of Black sisters in the fight to dismantle racial and gender barriers in the U.S. church and wider American society.
Dr. Shannen Dee Williams is a historian of the United States and the black Catholic diaspora. She teaches courses in U.S., African-American, women’s, religious, and civil rights history. Dr. Williams is currently working on the manuscript for a book entitled Subversive Habits: Black Nuns and the Long Struggle to Desegregate Catholic America. Her groundbreaking study chronicles the epic journey of black Catholic sisters in the United States from their fiercely contested beginnings in the nineteenth century to the present day. It also unearths the largely hidden history of black sisters in the fight to dismantle racial and gender barriers in the U.S. Church and wider American society.