Programs

Black Nuns in a Slave Society: First Sisterhood of African-Americans

Soon after her arrival in Baltimore, Elizabeth Lange, a free mulatto woman from Saint Domingue (now Haiti), realized the lack of educational opportunities for people of color and started her own school in Fells Point in 1828. Sister Mary Reginald Gerdes discusses how Lange and her free black companions started a religious order of nuns, the Oblate Sisters of Providence, the world's first Roman Catholic order of women of African descent. Adult and high school audiences

Sister Mary Reginald Gerdes is an Instructor in the Continuing Education Division at the Community College of Baltimore County, Catonsville. She is also a member of the adjunct staff of the Josephite archives and is in the process of restructuring the archives at the Oblate Sisters of Providence. Sister Reginald received her M.S. in Botany from Duke University and her B.S. in Biology from Marillac College.