“Deeply researched, elegantly written, and boldly argued, Subversive Habits is a brilliant excavation of the long political history of Black nuns. This is extraordinary scholarship that is as accessible as it is groundbreaking and illuminating. This timely and essential book widens the frames of Black women’s history, of religion and activism, and of Black Catholicism.”
~Barbara D. Savage, author of, Your Spirits Walk beside Us: The Politics of Black Religion
“Sweeping in its scope, exhaustively researched, and balanced in presentation,Subversive Habits is a seminal history of Black Catholic Nuns and their struggle for equality and justice in the Catholic Church.”
~Bettye Collier-Thomas, author of, Jesus, Jobs, and Justice: African American Women and Religion
"An awe-inspiring history book about Black nuns who fought for freedom and equality. . . . Subversive Habits is a stirring history text about the remarkable faith and conviction of Black nuns in America."
~Melissa Wuske, Foreword
(Starred Review) "Informative and often surprising, this should be required reading for scholars of Catholic and African American religious history and will undoubtedly become the standard text on its subject."
~Publishers Weekly
"The 'uncommon faithfulness' of the nuns in Subversive Habits—taking the church at its word when it teaches that we are all one body—is a model of discipleship from which all Catholics can learn."
~Kathleen Manning, U.S. Catholic
"Shannen Williams's book chronicles the bold steps and persistence African-American sisters took to debunk their rejection by white orders that insisted Black women lacked souls and/or virtue suitable to be admitted to them. . . . This outstanding book, Subversive Habits, is well-researched, quite revealing and a set of history and reality lessons of how Black sisters kept the faith and made the Catholic Church change."
~Ralph E. Moore, Jr., The AFRO
