ST. LOUIS • An a cappella song filled the high ceilings of St. Alphonsus “Rock†Church on Monday afternoon as hundreds gathered to celebrate the life of one exceptional nun: Sister Mary Antona Ebo.
“Been so busy working for the Kingdom,†sang the Rev. Manuel Williams. “I ain’t got time to die.â€
It was a fitting opening to honor the life of a woman who became a face of the 1965 civil rights marches in Selma, Ala., and continued to work tirelessly on social justice issues into her 90s — including leading a prayer vigil for peace in Ferguson in 2015.
Ebo died Nov. 11 at a retirement home in Bridgeton. She was 93.
Her family and friends described the small but driven nun Monday as a deeply religious, feisty woman with a “wicked sense of humor.â€
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Ebo broke the mold all her life: She become the first African-American graduate of her Catholic high school and was among the first African-Americans to join her order of nuns, the Franciscan Sisters of Mary. She was the first African-American nun to be the director of a U.S. hospital. And, most famously, Ebo made front pages across the country as she walked in her full black-and-white nun’s habit in the 1965 Selma protests with a group that came to be known as the “Sisters of Selma.â€
During a march on March 10, 1965, Ebo was thrust to the microphones before the crowd and cameras.
“I am here because I am a Negro, a nun, a Catholic,†she said. “And because I want to bear witness.â€
A photo of Ebo at the protests in Selma sat on her casket Monday, along with a framed picture of her family, a Bible, a rosary and a cross.
“She was a role model to me, my family and so many people,†said Ebo’s cousin, Yvonne Bratton. “There haven’t been many like her.â€
An unlikely convert
Few would have predicted Ebo would have ended up as a Catholic nun.
She was born the granddaughter of a Baptist minister in Bloomington, Ill., on April 10, 1924. She was known then as Betty Lou.
Ebo’s mother died when Ebo was 4 years old. Ebo and two of her siblings went to live in the McLean County Home for Colored Children in Bloomington.
That’s where she found Catholicism through a young boy she nicknamed “Bish,†who was also living in the home, Ebo told the Post-Dispatch in 2006.
One day, Bish and Ebo sneaked into an empty Catholic church where the boy explained the Catholic belief that “Jesus was in the bread†during each Mass.
Ebo said she was captivated by the description of the ritual and decided then and there that she wanted to become Catholic. She converted when she was 18.
She became an expert at recalling Scripture and always carried around a small copy of the New Testament, said Sister Jeanne Derer, who met Ebo about 57 years ago.
“Tony (Ebo’s nickname among her community of nuns) was always an exceptional woman,†said Derer. “She was always dedicated, but I think for her, Selma was truly the transforming moment in her life.â€
The call to Selma
Ebo was working at St. Mary’s Infirmary, then a Roman Catholic hospital for African-Americans in ºüÀêÊÓƵ, when news of the brutality in Selma reached her.
On March 7, 1965, Alabama state troopers and police beat and tear-gassed 600 civil rights activists marching from Selma to Montgomery. The attack would come to be known as “Bloody Sunday.â€
Ebo spoke about her decision to go to the protests in a 2005 interview with the Post-Dispatch.
“If I didn’t have this habit on, if I wasn’t working, I’d be in Selma,†she remembered telling her co-workers in the infirmary.
Ebo’s supervisor soon asked whether she would be part of a 50-member delegation to join the protests.
“God called my bluff,†she said.
Ebo agreed to board what she called a “rickety plane†to Alabama.
Before she was scheduled to leave, James Reeb, a white minister taking part in the marches, was brutally attacked after leaving a restaurant. He died two days later.
“If they would beat a white minister to death on the streets of Selma, what are they going to do when I show up?†Ebo .
After they arrived, Ebo and a group of nuns was pushed to the front of the march.
“The reason for that was to impress,†Ebo said in an interview with the Missouri History Museum. “Actually, it was shock therapy for them, because nobody expected sisters to be heading up that march.â€
Pictures of the nuns joined in solidarity with the protesters made front page news across the country and are still among the iconic images of the protests.
The nuns were featured in a PBS documentary “Sisters of Selma: Bearing Witness to Change,†and Ebo was also included in the “Voices of Civil Rights†project, a collection of accounts from the civil rights era through the Library of Congress.
‘never stopped challenging’
But Ebo’s work didn’t stop in Selma.
“The one thing I didn’t want to do was to become a sweet little old nun that was passing out holy cards and telling people, ‘I’ll pray for you,’†she said in an interview with the Missouri History Museum.
Instead, she spent her career dedicated to working in health care and advocating for social justice issues.
In her 71 years with the Franciscan Sisters of Mary, she ran hospital administration in three different states, earned two master’s degrees and was certified as a chaplain through the National Association of Catholic Chaplains.
She was also a founding member of the National Black Sisters Conference in 1968 and remained active with the organization for most of her life.
“She never stopped challenging us to be better,†said Sister Anita Baird, vice president with the conference.
“She was always fighting for whatever issues were current. She’d call you up and want to talk about what was going on at the time all the way through Ferguson and today.â€
Speakers at Ebo’s funeral described the nun as a mentor for many in her family as well as in religious life.
“She kept plenty of us in the seminary when we were ready to go home,†said the Rev. Williams during his homily.
Williams shared a story of speaking with Ebo at the 50th anniversary of “Bloody Sunday†in Selma. She was surrounded by people who remembered her role in the march.
“I said, ‘Sister, how does it feel to be in this place, in this moment, 50 years later knowing that all that you did … helped to make this country more humane, more just and more free?†Williams said.
She looked at him, shook her head and responded: “We have so much more to do.â€