Page 24 - 2019-20-AnnualReport

FEATURE: #CHARGEON
The Sr. Mary Antona
Ebo Scholarship
Cor Jesu Academy is committed
to continually promoting an
inclusive environment in which
each student feels welcome and
is encouraged to become the
best version of herself. As such,
we embrace and celebrate the
cultural and ethnic diversity
within our community and seek
to educate ourselves more fully
about the richness of diversity
within our Catholic tradition
and our global society.
This commitment resonates with many
in our community. One CJA family, in
particular, contributed to Cor Jesu’s
efforts to step forward in terms of
inclusion and equity by creating the
Sr. Mary Antona Ebo Scholarship
in 2018. The Sr. Mary Antona Ebo
Scholarship is an endowed scholarship
awarded annually to a Cor Jesu student
of color who exemplifies the values
and characteristics of Sr. Mary Antona
Ebo – a Franciscan Sister of Mary, who
courageously stood up against racism
and injustice until her death in 2017.
Sr. Mary Antona was born April 10, 1924,
in Bloomington, Ill. When she was 4,
her mother died, and not long after, her
father lost his job. As a result, Sr. Mary
Antona – Elizabeth Louise, at the time –
and her two siblings lived in the McLean
County Home for Colored Children in
Bloomington from 1930 to 1942. At 9
years old, Elizabeth Louise’s childhood
friend sparked her interest in Catholicism
22 | FY 2019-20 DATES: JULY 1, 2019-JUNE 30, 2020
by convincing her to go inside St. Mary’s
Church. Once inside, she was fascinated
and felt drawn to the Blessed Sacrament.
Elizabeth Louise was baptized into the
Catholic faith on December 19, 1942.
Elizabeth Louise desired to become a
nurse. After many rejections from
schools because of race, she found
St. Mary’s Infirmary School of Nursing in
St. Louis, which was run by the Sisters
of St. Mary. Elizabeth Louise moved to
St. Louis, enrolled in school in 1944, and
in 1946 became one of the first three
African-American women to enter the
Sisters of St. Mary. She took the name
Sr. Mary Antona and professed final
vows in 1954. In 1987, the Sisters of
St. Mary merged with the Sisters of
St. Francis of Maryville, Mo., and
became the Franciscan Sisters of Mary.
Throughout her life, Sr. Mary Antona
dedicated herself to the Civil Rights
Movement. She was the only African-
American Sister to march with the
Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr., on
March 10, 1965, in Selma, Ala., at the
historical protest for voting rights.
She said to the crowd, “I’m here because
I’m a Negro, a nun, a Catholic, and
because I want to bear witness.”
Her educational background speaks
for itself. Sr. Mary Antona earned a
bachelor’s degree in medical records
and a master’s in hospital executive
development, both from Saint Louis
University. She then studied clinical
pastoral education and earned a master’s
degree in theology of health care
from Aquinas Institute of Theology.