Dr. Williams' lecture will celebrate America's real "Sister Act" — three Black nuns from the U.S. who are currently on the road to sainthood.
Shannen Dee Williams, PhD, will present “Celebrating America’s Real Sister Act: The Saintly Lives of Mary Lange, Henriette Delille, and Thea Bowman,” at Fairfield University’s second annual "Faith Leaders for Racial Justice" lecture, hosted by the Office of Mission & Ministry and the Center for Catholic Studies.
Free and open to the public, this event will take place in the Barone Campus Center's Dogwood Room on Thursday, Oct. 12, at 5:30 p.m.
On the heels of Fairfield's newly built residence hall named in honor of Sister Thea Bowman, the lecture will explore how throughout the history of American Catholicism, Black religious sisters have served as pioneering leaders, educators, healthcare professionals, desegregation foot soldiers, activists, and theologians — working against the sins of racism, sexism, and exclusion, and leaving a righteous historical legacy of love, hope, and political struggle.
In her presentation, Dr. Williams will examine the lives and legacies of Venerable Mary Lange, Venerable Henriette Delille, and Servant of God Thea Bowman — three Black nuns from the U.S. who are currently on the road to sainthood in the Roman Catholic Church.
(L-R): Venerable Mother Mary Lange, Venerable Mother Henriette Delille, and Servant of God Sr. Thea Bowman.
Dr. Williams is an associate professor of history at the University of Dayton. A historian of the African American experience with research and teaching in the history of American Catholicism and Black history, she is the author of Subversive Habits: Black Catholic Nuns in the Long African American Freedom Struggle (Duke University Press, May 2022).
Subversive Habits was named a top-five book published in religion by Publishers' Weekly in 2022. It also received the 2022 Letitia Woods Brown Award for Best Book in African American Women's History, from the Association of Black Women Historians.
Dr. Williams' research has been supported by a host of fellowships, grants and awards, including a Scholar-in-Residence Fellowship at the Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture in New York City, a Charlotte W. Newcombe Doctoral Fellowship in Religion and Ethics from the Woodrow Wilson National Foundation, an Albert J. Beveridge Grant from the American Historical Association, and the John Tracy Ellis Dissertation Award from the American Catholic Historical Association. Her work has been published in the Journal of African American History, American Catholic Studies, The Washington Post, America magazine, and the National Catholic Reporter.
A Distinguished Lecturer for the Organization of American Historians, Dr. Williams also authored the award-winning column, “The Griot’s Cross,” published by the Catholic News Service.
