Last year at a diocesan-sponsored talk by living civil rights legend Franciscan Sister Antona Ebo in honor of Black History Month, Bishop John M. Smith made a promise.

So moved was the bishop by the personal witness of Sister Antona and the PBS documentary film “Sisters of Selma” of which she was a part, that he pledged to do his best to see that every Catholic school in the diocese be sent a copy of the film that chronicled the 1965 march for voter’s rights in the racial battleground of Selma, Alabama.

During this year’s observance of Black History Month, the bishop is not only delivering on that promise, but the diocese has gone even further. The Office of Radio and Television has, through its programs “The Catholic Corner” and “Black Catholics Yes” told the story of Sister Antona and her fellow religious who played an historic role in the civil rights movement of the 1960s.

Thanks to the generosity of an anonymous donor, the bishop is sending each of the Catholic schools in Burlington, Mercer, Monmouth and Ocean Counties a copy of both the PBS documentary, “Sisters of Selma”, as well as the two-part series of “The Catholic Corner” which explores this time in history and features Sister Antona’s reflections on the march.

“The Catholic Corner” series will be featured beginning Feb. 8 on local cable stations throughout the area, and later in the month, will be heard in its radio format on select stations. Program host Msgr. Walter Nolan and studio guest Ellieen Ancrum, director of the Office of Black Apostolate, will discuss the lasting impact of the Selma event and Sister Antona, one of the persons at its forefront.

The series will feature excerpts from an interview of Sister Antona that preceded her remarks to the 2008 gathering in St. Anthony of Padua Parish Center, Hightstown. In the interview, Sister Antona refers to her participation in the Selma march as “God calling my bluff.” She explains that she had always supported equal rights, but when the opportunity came to lay her personal safety on the line for that cause, she had to pray through her fear and ask for God’s help. The interview was heard in its entirety on the diocese’s “Black Catholics Yes” radio program in November.

Elizabeth Louise Ebo was raised a Baptist but was inspired by a childhood friend to learn about the Catholic faith. She took religious classes while isolated in a tuberculosis sanatorium and was baptized a Catholic at age 18 after her graduation from a Catholic high school. After entering the United States Cadet Nurse program in the segregated Catholic School of Nursing in St. Louis, Missouri, Sister Antona answered the call to religious life and was one of the first three young Black women to be considered by the Order of the Sisters of Mary in 1946.The new Sister Mary Antona earned a master of science degree in medical record administration and became the first African American woman religious administrator of a Catholic hospital in the United States.

On March 7, 1965, a march from Selma to Montgomery, Alabama, by Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. and his followers quickly and tragically turned violent when the peaceful protestors were savagely attacked by local police in full view of television cameras. The violence of that “Bloody Sunday” galvanized civil rights supporters from across the country. By the following Wednesday, civil rights supporters streamed into Selma to protest the attacks and voting laws which prevented Black Alabama residents from casting ballots. Six religious women of the Sisters of Mary Order in St. Louis traveled south to join the protestors and found themselves at the head of the phalanx. Sister Antona, the only Black nun in attendance, was one of the group halted a block later by club-wielding, Confederate flag-waving law enforcement officers. She bravely defied the authorities and addressed the reporters in attendance: “I’m here because I’m a Negro, a nun, a Catholic and because I want to bear witness.”

The now 82-year-old nun has frequently commented, “I don’t have many more days. I don’t have time to be resting,” which is why she continues to speak throughout the country about the American journey toward racial equality and civil rights.

For a full listing of diocesan radio and television programming visit www.dioceseoftrenton.org.

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