The Nun Hit by a Brick: Sister Angelica Schultz and the Struggle for Civil Rights in Chicago

Abstract

In 1966, Sister Angelica Schultz, OSF suffered a head wound when hit by a brick thrown by a member of an angry mob of white Catholics during Martin Luther King Jr.’s Chicago Freedom Movement. The incident made her possibly the first American religious to be injured by a member of her own faith in a civil rights march. We examine what motivated her to step into the street as a “white ally” for racial justice (to use today’s term), her own analysis of the events, and how it impacted her life by drawing on newspaper articles, Sister Angelica’s own writings, interviews with civil rights leaders and other members of her order, and information from family members. We also examine the power that Sister Angelica possessed as a white Catholic sister, how she put that power to use for racial justice, and how that power was limited in differing contexts.