Almost ready!
In order to save audiobooks to your Wish List you must be signed in to your account.
Log in Create accountGet a free audiobook when you make the switch!
When you start a new membership in support of African American Literature Book Club with the promo code SWITCH, you’ll get a bonus audiobook credit at sign-up.
Make the switchGift audiobook credit bundles
You pick the number of credits, your recipient picks the audiobooks, and African American Literature Book Club is supported by your purchase.
Start giftingSubversive Habits
In Subversive Habits, Shannen Dee Williams provides the first full history of Black Catholic nuns in the United States, hailing them as the forgotten prophets of Catholicism and democracy. Drawing on oral histories and previously sealed Church records, Williams demonstrates how master narratives of women's religious life and Catholic commitments to racial and gender justice fundamentally change when the lives and experiences of African American nuns are taken seriously. For Black Catholic women and girls, embracing the celibate religious state constituted a radical act of resistance to white supremacy and the sexual terrorism built into chattel slavery and segregation. Williams shows how Black sisters—such as Sister Mary Antona Ebo, who was the only Black member of the inaugural delegation of Catholic sisters to travel to Selma, Alabama, and join the Black voting rights marches of 1965—were pioneering religious leaders, educators, healthcare professionals, desegregation foot soldiers, Black Power activists, and womanist theologians. In the process, Williams calls attention to Catholic women's religious life as a stronghold of white supremacy and racial segregation—and thus an important battleground in the long African American freedom struggle.
Shannen Dee Williams is associate professor of history at the University of Dayton.
Machelle Williams has crafted an easy storytelling style from twenty-three years as a corporate trainer and keynote diversity speaker. Since 2016 she has successfully produced over twenty-eight audiobook projects. Machelle's voice is nuanced, ranging from soft and soothing to dramatic and smoky. She specializes in mysteries and thrillers; her bespoke repertoire also includes cozy mysteries and nonfiction, as well as titles in the religious, urban, and noire genres. When you need a narrator to take your listener to the edge of their seat and their breath away, trust the telling to Machelle.
Want the printed book?
Get the print edition from African American Literature Book Club.
Get the print edition