Sisters of Selma: Bearing Witness for Change
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1833
Mary Frances Clarke and her four
companions, immigrants from Dublin, founded the Sisters of Charity of the Blessed
Virgin Mary (BVMs) in Philadelphia. Ten years later, at the
invitation of Matthias Loras, Bishop of Dubuque, the sisters moved to the Iowa
Territory as teachers for the rapidly growing immigrant population. In 1893 their home and school on St. Joseph’s Prairie southwest of Dubuque
gave birth to Mount Carmel, the BVM Motherhouse in Dubuque, Iowa. Their
educational mission expanded to parishes and private schools throughout the
United States.
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March 11-16, 1965
Sister Mary Raynold (Gloria Wilhelm), a
teacher at St. Agatha's in Chicago, responds to the request from Chicago’s
Catholic Council on Interracial Justice to support the campaign in Selma,
Alabama.
Being the tallest among the sisters, she is often their spokesperson
in
their confrontations with the Selma authorities.
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March 25
A
busload of students, six
BVM and two lay faculty from Mundelein College in Chicago, meet the
marchers at the City of St. Jude for the final lap of the march into
Montgomery. Sister
Mary Leoline, below, helps with crowd control.
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March 21
When
Dr. King receives permission to march to the state capital in order to petition
Governor George C. Wallace for the voting rights of the state's Negro citizens,
Sister Mary Leoline (Mary Ann Sommer), a teacher at Christ the
King school in Kansas City, joins
two priests in a 3-member Kansas City Catholic Interracial Council delegation to
Selma. She is the only sister who is present throughout the entire 50-mile march
to Montgomery.
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March
26
The
300 marchers from Selma, with the protection of the National Guard, arrive at
the capitol in Montgomery.
From the steps of the capitol building Martin Luther King addresses the
marchers and the crowds of their supporters.
March
28
Congressman
Dickenson of Alabama brings charges of “drunkenness and immorality” against
the protesters before the House of Representatives in Washington. Sister Mary
Leoline and nine clergy and seminarians who completed the 50-mile march travel
to Washington to refute before Congress the charges of disorderly conduct made
against the marchers by Congressman Dickenson.
They present a signed “Statement of Morality during the Selma Crisis”
to Congressmen Ryan and Resnick of New York.
At the request of John McCormick Speaker of the House, Ryan and Resnick
introduce the Statement of Morality for debate by the members of the House and
for inclusion in the Congressional Records of the House and Senate.
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April
28
National
television networks interview the group of clergy
who had refuted the charges made before Congress by Representative Dickenson
regarding morality during the march.
Sister
Mary Leoline's testimony at the press conference
lead BVM participants in Selma to probe
its implications for the BVM community and their participation in the civil
rights movement.
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Addressing the congregation, the president, Mother
Mary Consolatrice, writes: “Since
problems of racial discrimination are far from solution, we must prepare
ourselves by intelligent reading and discussion of the issues at stake, by
prayer and sacrifice for the cause involving the rights of
humanity and by forming a correct understanding and appreciation of true
moral values . . .”
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Racial
injustice emerges as a congregational issue for BVMs. The Chicago meeting
of BVM provincial superiors and delegates is called The Problems that Unite
Us. Parents of students from the BVM staffed elementary school in the
African-American parish of St. Dorothy's on Chicago’s south side, lead a
vigorous, unscheduled discussion about racism in Catholic school classrooms.
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40 Years Later...
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The impact of the Selma events has been deep
and long lasting. Three members of the Mundelein delegation to Selma left
the BVMs to continue their ministries of advocacy and teaching as involved lay
women.
A new “collective consciousness” has
formed among BVMs. Beginning with an exhaustive congregational self-study,
followed by a long Chapter of Renewal, the creation of a Commission on Minority
Affairs to study the personal and educational needs of members serving minority
groups in BVM schools, the BVM congregation arrived at a decision in 1970 to
encourage each individual sisters to choose her own “mission assignment.”
The result has been a series of initiatives to develop new BVM ministries in the
Unites States and abroad: working with women, the poor, the disadvantaged;
confronting racism and gender discrimination in the schools and in the
workplace; attempting to further the “mission of freedom expressed in the
ministries of education, justice and peace” in the United States, Ecuador,
Guatemala, and Ghana.
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Mary Ann Sommer (Sister Mary Leoline) chose to redirect her
commitment to the cause of freedom and equality as a diocesan nun in Detroit. As
an involved teacher in Michigan and California, she participated in Dr. King’s
Poor People’s Campaign in Washington, DC, attended the Mexican American
Culture Center in San Antonio, helped Caesar Chavez set up the farm workers
clinic in Salinas, California, and continued her advocacy roll as a
contemplative “free-lance nun” during her retirement in Salt Lake City.
Canon law
is set up so that if people do something which proves to be the
right thing to do and it proves to be the religious thing to
do--then the law changes.
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Sources:
Sister Mary Ann Sommer, BVM
Sister Mary De Cock, BVM
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