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DU Home > News & Events > Media Releases > February 2007

MEDIA RELEASES

Contact
Jessica Mackinnon
jmack@dom.edu
(708) 524-6289

DU Presents Documentary on Sisters of Selma

Dominican University will present the documentary Sisters of Selma: Bearing Witness for Change on Tuesday, February 20 at 7:30 p.m. in the auditorium of the Priory Campus, 7200 W. Division Street, River Forest. The director of the documentary, Jayasri Hart, will be on hand to introduce the film, and Sister Mary Antona Ebo, who was among the first to march in Selma, will be available to answer questions during a reception immediately following the film.

The one-hour documentary relates the experiences of a group of Midwestern Catholic nuns who were among the first to protest the violence that surrounded Rev. Martin Luther King’s march from Selma to Montgomery, AL on March 7, 1965. During the march, which was organized to protest local laws preventing Blacks from voting, dozens of peaceful protesters were beaten by state troopers and the sheriff’s posse.

The sisters, who had been prevented by the Archbishop of Mobile-Birmingham from participating in the March 7 march, flew from St. Louis to Selma and gathered on March 10 at the Brown Chapel AME Church. As the protest procession began, the sisters found themselves in the front of the group. Before they could get to the end of the first block they were stopped by rows of helmeted policeman standing shoulder to shoulder, three deep. In the midst of the chaos, Sister Mary Antona Ebo, a Black nun, took the microphone to announce, “I am here today because yesterday I voted in St. Louis.”

Many of the sisters, including Sister Antona, came away from the experience with a greater commitment to social activism. The documentary, which includes remarkable archival footage, explores how the sisters, most of whom are now in their 70s, served as agents of change for society and how they, in turn, were changed by the experience.

For more information on this free program, please call Dominican University’s Office of Multicultural Affairs at (708) 524-6831.