"It was March 7, 1965. The Southern Christian Leadership Conference, led by Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., had been invited to Selma, Alabama, by the local black community and members of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC). Selma, seat of Dallas County, became the focus for civil-rights protests that year (though there were various actions across the South). Dallas County was in the heart of Alabama’s “black belt” of former plantation communities (named for both its rich soil and its consequent majority black population). It had been home to a rash of lynchings at the turn of the 20th century.
"Racial oppression had settled into what was called “Jim Crow” (similar to South Africa’s apartheid). Police brutality, public-building designations of “colored” and “white” sections, voter registration—all of these became justice targets of the “Dallas County Improvement Association,” a civil-rights group formed in 1963.
"At an impromptu march in nearby Marion in late February 1965, protester Jimmie Lee Jackson had been killed. He was seeking shelter for his mother from the violence after a 200-man-strong phalanx of local and state police, along with local vigilantes, attacked the marchers. The Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC), headed by Dr. King, called for a peaceful protest march on Sunday, March 7, from Selma to Montgomery to draw attention to what was happening.
"That “Bloody Sunday” march was attacked by the same police and vigilantes who had stopped the Marion protest. One vocal white-supremacist leader was Sheriff Jim Clark, openly backed by Alabama Governor George C. Wallace. The relatively new medium of TV, as well as newspapers, brought vivid images from Bloody Sunday across the world. Peaceful marchers were clubbed, beaten, bitten by police dogs and horsewhipped by Sheriff Clark and his horse-mounted posse." (John Feister, in an article on Ebo for "St. Anthony Messenger" magazine.)
"Bloody Sunday" happened only a little over fifty years ago. I personally remember sitting in front of my television set in my twenties, open-mouthed in horror at the sight of those peaceful marchers being viciously attacked by those in authority and bitten by horrific dogs.
Sr. Ebo had also watched footage of Bloody Sunday, and told black women employees at St. Mary's (Colored) Infirmary in St. Louis where she worked as director of medical records, "I would go to Selma if I wasn't wearing this habit." God took her at her word. Her superiors chose her as one of the two sisters who would be part of the St. Louis delegation to Selma. And, fearing that she might be attacked there for being a black nun, she hesitated at first but ultimately said "yes." "I didn't want to be a martyr, but it was either put up or shut up," she said later. (from Sister Ebo's oral testimony collected by Professor Shannen Dee Williams, and quoted in her article on Ebo in the January 8, 2017 edition of "America" magazine.)
John Feister adds more of Sister's recollections of that time:
"Word of her pending trip swept through the hospital and a friend called her, offering advice. 'Now, Sister, if you go down there, you don’t know the deep South. Stay with the group and keep your mouth shut.' Then she heard on the news that night that a protester, Rev. James Reeb, from Boston, had been beaten to death. 'And I’m thinking to myself, 'Are you outta your mind?'
”There were no other black women going from St. Louis—she knew she would be alone in that sense. But Cardinal Joseph Ritter and her superior had come up with the plan. They chartered two small planes (that had been 'mothballed,' she remembers, speaking of their poor condition) and the St. Louis contingent of sisters went to Selma. 'That’s when it hit me, when we got off of that plane.' She thought, 'I hope you realize that, no matter how you try to stay with the group, if you get arrested, you ain’t gonna be with the group of sisters.'”
On March 10, as everyone feared, there were more confrontations between the peaceful marchers and the local police force. The press asked for statements from the St. Louis delegation, and the black ministers ushered Sr. Ebo to the front because of her black habit and black heritage. Sister Ebo told the reporters, in words that would travel across the country, "I am here because I am a Negro, a nun, a Catholic, and because I want to bear witness....I'm here today because yesterday (in St. Louis) I voted."
The crowd asked her questions about her racial heritage. She calmly answered, in words that would ignite pride across generations of African Americans, "Yes, I am a Negro, and I am very proud of it."
How could such a young black woman demonstrate such courage in the midst of an angry mob? Mary Antona Ebo's life up until that point had been forged in a furnace of poverty, personal tragedy, and virulent anti-black racism.
When he was emancipated, Antona's ex-slave grandfather took the surname "Ebo" of his known African ancestors. Antona grew up Betty Louise Ebo, the much-loved child of Daniel and Louise Ebo, in Bloomington, Illinois. Her mother died during pregnancy when Betty was four years old, and, when her father lost his job and was unable to support his children, he placed Betty and her two siblings in the McLean County Home for Colored Children, where she lived on and off for twelve years.
When Betty was around nine, still living at the Home, and a Baptist, she was drawn to one of her childhood friends nicknamed "Bish" for "Bishop" because he wore his rosary around his neck. One day, he "convinced her to go with him inside St. Mary’s Church (staffed by Franciscan friars of St. John the Baptist Province).
"The young girl was fascinated and felt drawn to the Blessed Sacrament. Little could she imagine that, decades later, she would receive Communion directly from Pope John Paul II, during his 1999 visit to St. Louis. That’s getting ahead of the story, but it shows what a gift her friend Bish was in her life. While she was waiting to receive Communion from the pope, she says, 'I could only think, Bish brought me to this.'” (Feister).
She was also drawn to Catholicism by the spirituality of the kind lay workers who cared for her at St. Joseph Hospital in Bloomington, Illinois, and later she asked for religious instruction from a visiting priest when she was hospitalized for tuberculosis at the Fairview Sanatorium in Normal, Illinois.
Later she would become the first African-American admitted to Holy Trinity High School in Bloomington. Rejected because of her race when she wanted to enter a Catholic Nursing School she entered St. Mary's (Colored) Infirmary Training School in St. Louis, the nation's first and only black Catholic nursing school, administered by the Sisters of St. Mary. Later, feeling called to religious life, Betty decided to enter the Sisters of St. Mary when she found out that they were finally lifting their ban on black members. She became one of the first three African American women to enter the historically German Order.
But, racism was still alive and well in the American Catholic Church. The Sisters built a separate novitiate for these first black candidates "to ensure segregation in the dining, training, and social interactions of the White community. The white superiors also initially barred their black members from entering the Motherhouse. On June 9, 1947, Ebo and the other black candidates professed their first vows in a segregated ceremony at which the archbishop of St. Louis officiated." (Williams)
The most horrendous act of discrimination occurred when a white sister refused to allow her dying father to be admitted to the all-white hospital where Sister Antona was working, even though she had been given permission to nurse him. He eventually died in a different hospital. The white sister was never reprimanded. Other African-American women left their religious orders, disgusted and disheartened by the racism of their so-called "sisters." Ebo remained, determined to fight systemic racism inside and outside her Order.
"In mid-August of 1968, Ebo joined 154 black sisters from across the country for a weeklong gathering at Mount Mercy College in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania (now Carlow University) to discuss their place in the burgeoning black revolution and to confront longstanding racism in their church, especially in female religious life. During this first meeting of the National Black Sisters' Conference, Ebo, who was elected to the organization's first executive board, joined with the members of the nation's historically black and white sisterhoods in recounting their often horrific experiences of racism in the church....
"Like many black Catholics, Ebo knew all too well that many in the church - like those who led the anti-segregation protests in New Orleans and those who protested open housing across the North and Midwest - were just as responsible for fomenting the racial hatred that killed Dr. Martin Luther King (in 1968) as anyone else." (Williams)
Sr. Ebo served as President of the N.B.S.C. from 1980 - 1982 and received the organization's Harriet Tubman Award for outstanding service and leadership in 1989. "With a master’s degree from Aquinas Institute of Theology, she spent six years, in the 1980s, working as a chaplain at the University of Mississippi Medical Center.
"Eventually, Sister Antona moved back to St. Louis to serve as a Councilor leader of her community. The State of Alabama, in 2000, awarded her a state senate commendation for her civil-rights work." (Feister)
Sister Mary Antona Ebo died at the age of 97 on November 11, 2017. In her obituary, the St. Louis Review noted that "Besides her (six) honorary doctorates, Sister Antona has received many awards and recognition for her courage and her insight on civil rights issues. She received Communion from Pope John Paul II and gave President Obama a hug after she offered an invocation at a dinner honoring him. A seminar room at the Cardinal Rigali Center in St. Louis, is named in her honor. She was featured prominently in the "Voices of Civil Rights" exhibit at the Library of Congress in 2005; despite age and frailty she continued to speak on her experiences on national and international levels well into her 90s, challenging listeners to live out the truth that all God's creatures are equal in the eyes and heart of God."
A close friend, Fr. Manuel Williams, gave the homily at Sr. Ebo's funeral. "Father Manuel Williams, a priest of the Congregation of the Resurrection and longtime friend of Sister Antona, began the homily by singing several lines from an old Negro spiritual, "Ain't Got Time to Die.""I've been so busy working for the kingdom ... I ain't got time to die..."
"Sister Antona, he said, modeled that spiritual as a disciple of Jesus, working for His kingdom throughout her life. Advocating for justice and mercy was always at the forefront, including in her work for racial equality and in other areas, including nursing and health care administration, hospital chaplain, spiritual director and pastoral associate. With a signature twinkle in her eye, and with a desire to "tell the true truth," as many recalled, Sister Antona lived to best of her ability the Lord's command to love others.
"When you read her biography, you think is there anything in the Church she could not do?" Father Williams said. "She did it all with the grace that came from a heart centered on love — a vine attached to Jesus."
"Father Williams recalled talking to Sister Antona in 2015 when they were in Selma for the 50th anniversary of the march. He asked her how it felt to be there 50 years later "knowing that all that you did and thousands of others did, helped to make this country more humane, more just, more free."
"She looked at me and she began to shake her head, gently. She said, 'Oh Manny, we have so much more to do.'"
Yes, Sister Mary Antona Ebo, we ALL have so much more to do. To tell the truth as you did. To courageously work for equality for ALL God's children in this still fragmented and segregated country of ours.
A statement from
The National Black Catholic Congress
in response to remarks made
by President Donald Trump
The National Black Catholic Congress strongly condemns the remarks by President Donald Trump regarding our sisters and brothers from Haiti, El Salvador and the nations of Africa. As people of Faith, concerned with the dignity of all of God’s people, we deplore such racist and hateful speech. At our Congress gathering in Orlando this past July, we committed ourselves to living our Faith and working toward social justice. As we celebrate the life and legacy of Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. this weekend, his words have never rung truer:
“Along the way of life, someone must have the sense enough and the morality enough to cut off the chain
of hate. This can only be done by projecting the ethics
of love to the center of our lives."
We will continue to act justly, love goodness and walk humbly with our God and all of God’s people.