February 5, 2007VOL. 45, NO. 3Oakland, CA

BLACK HISTORY MONTH

KQED to air story of six nuns who marched in Selma

Catholic nuns and clergy participate in a voting rights march on March 10, 1965. They were responding to a call by the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. to join in the civil rights demonstration.
CNS PHOTO/AP/WIDE WORLD PHOTOS/PBS

By David DiCerto
Catholic News Service

Sister Mary Antona Ebo, a member of the Sisters of St. Mary in St. Louis, gives witness for black voting rights in Selma, Ala., March 10, 1965. CNS PHOTO/BETTMAN/CORBIS/PBS

NEW YORK (CNS) -- In March 1965, hundreds of civil rights marchers, risking imprisonment and injury, led a peaceful procession from Selma, Ala., to the state capital in Montgomery, protesting infringement of voting rights against African-Americans in Selma and the brutal murder of a demonstrator by a state trooper.

Among their number were six Midwestern Catholic nuns. Their participation -- as well as the service of other women religious who ministered to Selma’s black community -- is remembered in the edifying documentary “Sisters of Selma: Bearing Witness for Change.”

It will air in February on public television stations as part of PBS’ Black History Month programming. KQED will air the program on Feb. 25 at 5 p.m.

Several of the nuns interviewed credit the Second Vatican Council with inspiring them to become involved in the civil rights movement.

Sister Mary Leoline of the Sisters of the Blessed Virgin Mary remembers how she was responding to Pope John XXIII’s encouragement to “go where the need is.”

That need led her and the other Sisters to Selma, where the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. was organizing the Montgomery march after an earlier attempt had ended in the “Bloody Sunday” tragedy, when demonstrators were turned back at the Edmund Pettus Bridge by mounted police with batons and tear gas.

“All the people who’d been hurt that day, they were the body and blood of Christ,” recalls Father Maurice Ouellet, who as a pastor of one of Selma’s black parishes at the time, allowed civil rights workers to use the parish house as their base. “They had walked the Stations of the Cross ... and they had been crucified.”

Memories still brings tears to the eyes of the women, who watch the violence on grainy film.

A still-plucky Sister Mary Antona Ebo of the Franciscan Sisters of Mary -- the first black nun to march -- didn’t think she was martyr material, but felt it was time to “put up or shut up.”

Other orders represented in the Selma-to-Montgomery caravan included Sisters of St. Joseph of Carondelet and Sisters of Loretto.

The Sisters of St. Joseph, who worked in Selma’s Catholic hospitals and schools, were forbidden by their bishop to march, but nonetheless provided board and medical care to the protesters.

Born Baptist, Sister Antona -- who experienced discrimination in her religious community which had segregated novices when she entered in the 1940s -- found herself in the national spotlight, but many of the others chose to remain, as Father Ouellet puts it, “silent witnesses,” standing in solidarity with those suffering injustice.

Active involvement didn’t win favor with some Catholics or their local bishops. Archbishop Thomas Toolen of Mobile, Ala., is said to have discouraged participation by nuns in his diocese, fearing Ku Klux Klan reprisals against the area’s Catholic minority.

Produced and directed by Jayasri Hart, the program contains some remarkable archival footage, including a confrontation between a snarling policeman and a young protester whose offer that they pray together is flintily rebuffed.

Those who argue against the role of religion as a positive force in effecting political change are reminded that the civil rights movement was “religious from beginning to end.”

Partially funded by the U.S. bishops’ Catholic Communication Campaign, this important documentary is a compelling testament to taking the Gospel’s message seriously and courageously putting one’s faith into action.

This is ideal viewing for parents to watch and discuss with older children.

(DiCerto is on the staff of the Office for Film & Broadcasting of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops. More reviews are available online at www.usccb.org/movies.)

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