Sister Thea Bowman; Worked on Behalf of Blacks, Women

Sister Thea Bowman, the Roman Catholic nun who was sometimes called “a black American Mother Teresa” for her efforts on behalf of blacks and women, has died after a long struggle with cancer. She was 52.

She died Friday at her home in Canton, Miss., near Jackson. The lecturer, evangelist, poet and singer had first suffered breast cancer several years ago and had been confined to a wheelchair since the disease spread to her bones.

The granddaughter of a slave, Sister Bowman was the only black member of the Franciscan Sisters of Perpetual Adoration.

She had won national recognition for her work with children as director of the Office of Intercultural Awareness in the Jackson diocese.

Sister Bowman was also on the faculty of the Institute of Black Catholic Studies at Xavier University in New Orleans and lectured widely, spreading her message that “people are gifted, that black is beautiful, and that cross-cultural collaboration enriches both education and living.”

Education, she said last year when the Sister Thea Bowman Black Catholic Educational Foundation was established to aid minority youth, “is the way out of homelessness, out of helplessness, out of fear and ignorance. It is the way out of crime and out of hunger.”

Popular at conventions and seminars as well as in her own office and classroom, Sister Bowman often sang her messages. In 1983, she enhanced her national reputation when she recorded an album of black spirituals, “Sister Thea: Songs of My People.”

Sister Bowman was to receive the Laetare Medal, the oldest and most prestigious award given to U.S. Catholics, May 20 at the commencement program of Notre Dame University. The award will be given posthumously, the university announced Friday.

As a child in Canton, a small rural town in central Mississippi, Sister Bowman attended Holy Child Jesus School, run by the Franciscan order she later joined. She converted to Catholicism and entered the convent in 10th grade because she was so impressed by the sisters’ efforts to change racist attitudes.

The recipient of several honorary degrees, Sister Bowman earned her bachelor’s degree at Viterbo College and her master’s and doctoral degrees at the Catholic University of America.