By Chris Starr

The national Black Sisters Conference (NBSC), an organization of Black Catholic nuns meting in Atlanta was urged to hold as their first priority the enlightenment and education of Black youth.

Ms. Ida Lewis, editor and publisher of ENCORE, a monthly newsmagazine, told the 40 sisters present that only an educational approach geared to creating better citizens of America and the world will bring blacks to full citizenship.

“Enlightenment of our people is the life preserving principle,” she said, “and the role of the Black women today should be as champion of quality education.” The nuns, applauding the presentation, were told Black Americans have reached a turning point in their history, and they, along with other Black women, should continue their active role in society.

The convention, with all business sessions barred to the press, is part of a continuing effort by the NBSC to provide opportunities for active leadership by Black, Catholic nuns. The organization, in their seventh year, has a membership of 200. There are 700 black nuns in the United States.

“I believe that the kind of world we have tomorrow will depend on the quality of leadership now emerging among Black women,” she said, “and that at our turning point in history, where we see blacks as congressmen and mayors, we also see killings and destructiveness among our own people. We must internalize ‘Black is beautiful.’

Sister Mary Shawn Copeland, O.P., executive director of the NBSC, called the organization’s seventh year a healthy sign of stabilization. She was glad to see the development of an agenda and a renewed identity about the meaning of being both Black and Catholic.

The soft spoken Sister Copeland, 26, became executive director of the NBSC in August, 1973, when Sister Martin de Porres Grey, R.S.M., who founded the organization in 1968, stepped down to allow for new leadership.

“The past year and a half has provided us with a chance to develop the organization,” she said, “and we are now operating institutes, summer work in the rural areas of Louisiana and vocation workshops with young, Black college women and other programs to aid the Church and Black Catholics.”