On the Road to Black Caucus
In preparation for the 48th gathering of the National Black Presbyterian Caucus, the Presbyterian Historical Society offers stories from the Black Presbyterian Archive. Click here to learn how PHS is collecting records of the Black Presbyterian experience through the African American Leaders and Congregations Initiative.
On her way to a conference of Black women clergy in midtown Manhattan in the late 1970s, in a hotel near Grand Central station, “putting one foot in front of the other,” wearing her clerical collar, Katie Cannon was body-slammed against a wall by a person in hotel livery, who sneered in her face, “How dare you defy Christ?”
Years later Cannon would reflect on that injury, and the insult that followed – others’ disbelief in her account – in the brief essay, “Ain’t I A Leader?” At PHS’s request, her friend, colleague, and sister alumna from Johnson C. Smith Seminary, Gloria Tate has reflected on Katie Cannon’s text.
Tate begins by narrating a similar series of diminutions – male seminarians asking whose wife she was; invitations to preach, only outside the pulpit; people refusing to call her Reverend – and continues:
“All the persons involved in these events, in their own way, expressed what that hotel worker who assaulted Kate had put into words: ‘you defy Jesus Christ. Or rather, you defy my concept of Christianity, my concept of authority, my image of leadership in the faith. You, as a woman, and especially as a black woman (who society defines by gender-assigned roles), have limited and male-defined qualifications as a spokesperson for our Lord and Savior.”
“Recalling my experiences led me to wonder whether ALL black clergywomen, especially in the first five years of our existence in the Presbyterian Church (1974-1979), had gone through similar experiences. I also wondered, ‘Did we miss the opportunity, as we confronted our challenges individually, valiantly and sometimes silently, to empower each other by sharing what was happening to us and discussing ways to combat our challenges and challengers?’”
Part of the answer, for Tate, lies in how Black women of the era grew up, socialized with the understanding that they would be their own advocates and defenders.
“In my day, it was understood that you addressed any situation the best way you knew how, with the tools you had in your arsenal. Decades ago, many of us were not encouraged to complain, lean on others, or look to people outside our immediate circle, be that family or friends, to take care of personal matters.”
“The concept of ‘handling your business’ was also part of the legacy that strong black women passed on to black girls as a means of survival. That lesson could be displayed by a woman either resisting and tackling or ignoring (temporarily or permanently) whatever situation she had to confront.”
Cannon continues with another episode “wherein the truth of our lives appeared stranger than fiction.” A president and a provost of an institution interviewing Cannon early in her career asked her during the interview, “how I, a thirty-three year old Black woman, got my libido needs met,” calling it “an undressing question, this under-my-clothes talk.”
Tate echoes Cannon’s sense of assaulted personhood. Early in her own ministry, she dealt with others’ prurient interests in her sexuality, among them the presumption that Black women are uniquely promiscuous. Once, she directly addressed her congregation at the end of worship: “I love you all, but single guys, I don’t want any of you. Married women, you can keep your husbands; I don’t want any of them either.” She goes on to relate being grilled about her personal life by members of a national committee that she chaired: “Would I only date another clergy? Did they have to be Presbyterian? Do I invite my dates to church events or introduce them to church members? How much personal information would I share with my congregation?”
Tate continues: “There is a repeated inability to see a clergywoman outside of a gender and/or race-related definition. Isn’t that what the professors who interviewed Kate did? She wasn’t a professional or the recipient of a Ph.D., she was a woman and needed to be examined in terms of her sexual identity. Isn’t that what my committee did? I wasn’t the chair of a national committee that deserved a level of respect. I was a woman and needed to be viewed in terms of my social activities and identity.”
Cannon concludes, “As African American women in church and society, our ministry is often a ministry of struggle. In fact, because of preconceived images and cultural stereotypes, far too often, our experience as clergywomen is one of being ‘exoticized, eroticized, anomalized, masculinized, and demonized,’” quoting the Black feminist scholar Ann duCille.
Tate ends with pained understanding that the struggle continues and a hope that it will be won, “How do we get those with whom we interact to recognize the legitimacy of who we are and the legitimacy of what we experience and what we do, whether in the religious or secular realms?”
“Hopefully, this dilemma will be resolved for and by the current sisterhood and those in the immediate future.”
Learn more
Katie Cannon, "Ain't I A Leader?"
Ann duCille, "The Occult of True Black Womanhood: Critical Demeanor and Black Feminist Studies." Signs, Vol. 19, No. 3 (Spring, 1994).
You may freely reuse and distribute this article in its entirety for non-commercial purposes in any medium. Please include author attribution, photography credits, and a link to the original article. This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDeratives 4.0 International License.
