Shannen Dee Williams is Associate Professor of History at the University of Dayton.

Abbreviations ix
Note on Terminology xiii
Preface: Bearing Witness to a Silenced Past xv
Acknowledgments xix
Introduction. America’s Forgotten Black Freedom Fighters 1
1. Our Sole Wish Is to Do the Will of God: The Early Struggles of Black Catholic Sisters in the United States 23
2. Nothing Is Too Good for the Youth of Our Race: The Fight for Black-Administered Catholic Education during Jim Crow 61
3. Is the Order Catholic Enough? The Struggle to Desegregate White Sisterhoods after World War II 103
4. I Was Fired Up to Go to Selma: Black Sisters, the Second Vatican Council, and the Fight for Civil Rights 134
5. Liberation Is Our First Priority: Black Nuns and Black Power 167
6. No Schools, No Churches! The Fight to Save Black Catholic Education in the 1970s 200
7. The Future of the Black Catholic Nun Is Dubious: African American Sisters in the Age of Church Decline 231
Conclusion. The Catholic Church Wouldn't Be Catholic If It Wasn’t for Us 259
Glossary 271
Notes 273
Bibliography 345
Index 371