The witness of Catholic religious sisters during the American civil rights movement offers a striking example of faith lived publicly and courageously. One such figure was Sister Mary Antona Ebo, a Franciscan sister who stood alongside Martin Luther King Jr. during the pivotal events in Selma, Alabama, in 1965.
According to EWTN News, Ebo was the only Black Catholic nun to march with King during the Selma voting rights demonstrations. She traveled to Alabama just days after the violence of “Bloody Sunday,” when state troopers attacked peaceful demonstrators with clubs and tear gas, injuring hundreds. At a March 10 protest attended by King, Ebo publicly explained why she had come: “I’m here because I’m a Negro, a nun, a Catholic, and because I want to bear witness,” according to EWTN News.
Her decision followed a national call from King for clergy and religious leaders to come to Selma after the attacks. EWTN News reports that Archbishop Joseph E. Ritter of St. Louis asked his archdiocese’s human rights commission to send representatives, and Ebo was invited to join a delegation that included Protestant ministers, rabbis, priests, and religious sisters. Before leaving, she learned that a white minister, James Reeb, had been brutally attacked in Selma and later died. Reflecting on that danger, Ebo later asked, “If they would beat a white minister to death on the streets of Selma, what are they going to do when I show up?” according to EWTN News.
Once in Selma, Ebo gathered with local leaders and injured demonstrators at Brown Chapel African Methodist Episcopal Church. She recalled seeing men and women still bearing the marks of violence. “They had bandages on their heads, teeth were knocked out, crutches, casts on their arms. You could tell that they were freshly injured,” she said, according to EWTN News. Yet, she added, “They had already been through the battleground, and they were still wanting to go back and finish the job.”
As the demonstrators marched toward the courthouse, state troopers in riot gear blocked their path. EWTN News notes that Ebo and others knelt in prayer, reciting the Our Father, before agreeing to turn back. Despite the violence and intimidation, the broader Selma campaign ultimately drew about 25,000 participants and concluded in Montgomery, where King delivered his famous March 25 speech declaring, “How long? Not long, because the arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends toward justice,” according to EWTN News.
Catholic sisters were also present at another defining moment in King’s life and death. After he was assassinated on April 4, 1968, King was taken to St. Joseph Hospital in Memphis, a Catholic institution staffed by Franciscan sisters. According to EWTN News, Sisters Jane Marie Klein and Anna Marie Hofmeyer were among those who prayed with King after doctors pronounced him dead. Klein later described the experience as “indescribable,” saying it was “a privilege to be able to take care of him that night and to pray with him,” according to the report.
Ebo’s ministry continued for decades after Selma. EWTN News reports that she went on to serve as a hospital administrator and chaplain and helped found the National Black Sisters’ Conference in 1968. Once rejected from Catholic nursing schools because of her race, she later served in leadership roles within her Franciscan congregation and as director of social concerns for the Missouri Catholic Conference. She remained active in public prayer and advocacy, including leading a prayer vigil during protests in Ferguson, Missouri.
When Ebo died in 2017 at the age of 93, her legacy was remembered as one rooted firmly in Catholic faith. At her requiem Mass, Archbishop Robert J. Carlson of St. Louis said, “We will miss her living example of working for justice in the context of our Catholic faith,” according to EWTN News.
For Catholics today, the stories of Sister Mary Antona Ebo and the religious sisters who stood beside Martin Luther King Jr. serve as enduring reminders that the call to holiness includes the call to justice—and that bearing witness often means stepping forward when faith demands action.
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