Ten Sisters of St. Joseph of Rochester in front of their old convent in Selma.
They traveled to Selma to commemorate the 75th anniversary of their mission in Selma and the 50th anniversary of the Bloody Sunday march.
Sister Josepha Twomey and Sister Mary Weaver taught at St. Elizabeth School in Selma in the 1960s.
The school was founded by Sisters of St. Joseph of Rochester to educate African American children who were excluded from white schools.
They traveled to Selma to commemorate the 75th anniversary of their mission in Selma and the 50th anniversary of the Bloody Sunday march.
Sister Josepha Twomey and Sister Mary Weaver taught at St. Elizabeth School in Selma in the 1960s.
The school was founded by Sisters of St. Joseph of Rochester to educate African American children who were excluded from white schools.
Photos of the Sisters of St. Joseph working in 1960s Selma:
http://www.
http://www.
Sisters of Saint Joseph
Alan: The Sisters of St. Joseph taught my mother, Mildred Mary (Noll) Archibald, at Nazareth Academy in Rochester, New York. Thirty years ago, prompted by economic necessity, Nazareth's all-female student body merged with my all-male high school, Aquinas Institute, located several blocks away. Since the merger, Aquinas -- always a fine school -- has become a school of surpassing excellence
Nazareth Academy
Aquinas Institute
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aquinas_Institute
Thanks to nephew Bill Archibald, a graduate of McQuaid Jesuit High School - and a friend of author, Erica Bryant - for making me aware of this story.
McQuaid Jesuit High School
McQuaid Jesuit High School
SISTERS OF ST. JOSEPH RETURN TO SELMA
Women who were stationed in Selma in 1960s return for commemoration of historic voters rights march
Erica Bryant, Columnist
Photos of the Sisters of St. Joseph working in 1960s Selma:
http://www.
Before the Voting Rights Act passed, Sister Josepha Twomey rode through Alabama on a road thick with trees. She was on her way to teach at a school for black children. The "Welcome to Selma" sign that greeted her at the city border had been placed there by the KKK.
http://www.
Before the Voting Rights Act passed, Sister Josepha Twomey rode through Alabama on a road thick with trees. She was on her way to teach at a school for black children. The "Welcome to Selma" sign that greeted her at the city border had been placed there by the KKK.
Sister Barbara Lum made the journey down from Rochester to Selma during the same era. She was to work as a nurse at Good Samaritan Hospital, the only hospital in nine counties that would treat African-Americans.
Their students and patients probably never dreamed that the two nuns, who are now in their eighties and living in Rochester, would return to Selma 50 years later, wearing pants instead of their flowing white habits. Or that the women would join a march across the Edmund Pettus Bridge, led by a president of the United States with a dark complexion that matched theirs.
For much of the 20th century, dark skin meant severe restriction in America. In 1940, the Sisters of St. Joseph in Rochester started a mission in Selma, Alabama, to help African-Americans suffering under segregation and extreme poverty. Meanwhile, many blacks were organizing to improve their own lot, especially around the issue of voting rights. Southern states including Alabama kept blacks from voting with intimidation, violence and unfair poll taxes and tests. Sister Barbara once waited in line for six hours to register to vote with a group of African-Americans. When she finally received a registration form it had a rooster on the top with a banner that read "white supremacy."
Sister Barbara recalls watching from the Sisters of St. Joseph of Rochester convent in Selma as men with billy clubs waited outside a voter registration meeting at the nearby Tabernacle Baptist Church. "The people walked out of the church with such dignity and courage," she said. "It was one of the most courageous things I have ever seen."
They escaped violence that day, but civil rights activists who participated in a voters rights march on March 7, 1965, did not. Before that march, organizers had asked Sister Barbara to prepare a first-aid kit for them to carry along as they marched over the Edmund Petttus Bridge. "That was probably one of the first things to be dropped on the bridge when the troopers attacked," she said.
Alabama state troopers and local police met the non-violent marchers with tear gas and brutal blows. Many people were seriously wounded and showed up at Good Samaritan Hospital, the only hospital that would treat them. "Everybody was saturated with tear gas. They were exhaling it from their lungs," said Sister Barbara. She recalled her eyes and nose burning like she was peeling onions while she tried to treat the many people who had been struck by trampling horses and swinging clubs.
As more injured people flooded the hospital, Sister Barbara called the Sisters of St. Joseph convent for assistance. Sister Josepha was among those who rushed over.
"It was our people that were crossing that bridge," Sister Josepha said, the 50-year-old memory bringing fresh tears to her eyes. "It still breaks my heart." She was assigned to carry towels and supplies to the emergency room. Injured people were sitting wherever they could find space, crying, choking and reeking of tear gas. John Lewis, an important leader of that march and the voting rights movement, suffered a fractured skull and was treated at Good Samaritan.
Images of the brutality shocked the world and drew people from all over the country to support the civil rights movement. Though the archbishop of Selma forbade the Sisters of St. Joseph from marching, the sisters provided food, shelter and support to the people who came from around the country, turning their hospital into a makeshift dormitory.
The strong current of energy that ran through Selma in 1965 reached even the children at St. Elizabeth School, where Sister Josepha taught. One day some of her students asked to bring Jonathan Daniels, an Episcopalian seminarian, for show and tell. He had come from Massachusetts to work on voter registration and was staying with a St. Elizabeth School family. Daniels came to Sister Josepha's class and led the children in singing the theme song from Lilies of the Field. "They shouted out 'Amen, Amen,' " she recalled. Not long after that Daniels was shot and killed by a white supremacist.
Last week tens of thousands of people went to Selma to retrace the steps of the Bloody Sunday marchers and to remember the people who suffered and died to make America live up to the ideals set forth in its Declaration of Independence and Constitution. Ten Sisters of St. Joseph of Rochester were in the crowd, including Sister Barbara and Sister Josepha. The sisters visited their old convent in Selma and celebrated a Mass to mark the 75th anniversary of the establishment of their mission in that city. They reunited with John Lewis, who is now a Georgia congressman and traveled to Rochester last year to speak at the graduation ceremony for the Rochester Educational Opportunity Center, where Sister Barbara now teaches.
Both Sister Barbara and Sister Josepha, who are now in their eighties, were saddened to see that Selma remains so poor. "It is so much like 1940," said Sister Josepha. "There are shacks with broken porches and broken railings. There is 25 percent unemployment. You see one section of town and it is white and flowered and lovely. Then you cross over to the black area and it is falling down and dilapidated."
Sister Barbara said that some at the commemoration were carrying signs that said "hands up, don't shoot" and "I can't breathe," referring to recent cases in which unarmed black men were killed by police. "It is very sad to see how people are still feeling oppression," she said. Watching a parade from her old convent, she could not help but notice that almost all of the participating children were black. "That surprised me. I thought there was some integration," she said. "It is a sorrow that we have not progressed in our country in terms of race relations."
Both sisters say it was a wonderful trip and that it was an honor to treat the people who walked across the Edmund Pettus Bridge that day in 1965, fighting to make America better than it was.
"It was a privilege to be there and to see people with so much courage," Sister Barbara said. "I still get the chills."
To learn more
The Sisters of St. Joseph of Rochester will host "Catholics in Selma," a presentation by Paul Murray on Monday, March 16. Murray is a Siena College professor who was actively involved in the civil rights movement. The presentation will take place at the Sisters of St. Joseph Motherhouse at 150 French Road from 3 to 4 p.m.
"Pope Francis Links"
"Pope Francis Links"
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