By Chris Starr

ATLANTA – The national Black Sister’s Conference (NBSC), a coalition of Black nuns, convened here to discuss the emerging role of black women in the Catholic Church and the problems encountered by poor Blacks in the United States.

Sister Mary Shawn Copeland, O. P., executive director of the NBSC, spoke about the new attempts at “self determination for Black Catholics and the organizations’ efforts to help educated the Black nun about the issue of being Black and Catholic.

“Over-all,” she said, “religious women are protected from the reality of women who are in oppressive situations and the amount of emotional and psychic pressure they undergo.”

The conference, whose membership includes nuns dispensed from their vows, began in August, 1968, with a membership of 164 Black sisters. Concentrating on the uniqueness of being BPlack, Catholic and American the conference helped promote Black vocations to the religious life and urged the redistribution of Black sisters to black schools, communities and other institutions of the Church.

Dr. Mazetta Klanigan, a research analyst working on prison reform, spoke to the 30 women present at Atlanta’s Sheraton Biltmore on the “explosive situation” in U. S. prisons. She emphasized that the waiting process for people awaiting trial in prison is “a crucial period” that can drag on for months and urged the sisters to work for speedy and fair trials.

The NBSC, representing over 200 Black sisters in the United States, is currently studying ways for their organization to develop regional programs that will investigate and help alleviate conditions of injustice for the imprisoned and those on welfare.

Dr. Klanigan said she hasn’t seen “a happy person in prison yet,” and asked the sisters, who the prison system “could have gotten so bad, if we still have Christian men and women populating this country.”