Womanist Ethics for All
The Katie Geneva Cannon Digital Collection
“The pulling together of this archive has been a librarian’s dream.” Matthew C. Baker, Head, The Burke Library at Union Theological Seminary, NYC, according to President Serene Jones, (video) Katie Geneva Cannon Digital Collection Launch, Presbyterian Historical Society, Philadelphia, 12 October 2023. The open access collection url is https://tinyurl.com/phscannon
If you’ve never heard of ‘womanism’ or ‘womanist theology’ don’t feel bad. Some years ago, I was unfamiliar with them too.
Discovering Womanism and Womanist Theology
Womanism was coined by Alice Walker in her 1982 book In Search of Our Mothers' Gardens: Womanist Prose. Walker's book brought womanism to prominence and provided a more structured framework for the movement whose ideas had been percolating for some time. Womanism was a response from African American women primarily, addressing the limitations of mainstream feminism, which was predominantly European American. Womanism’s origins and focus is in the empowerment and liberation of African American women. It did so by recognizing and affirming their unique intersection of race, gender, and economic disparities (triple oppression). It is also more encompassing than just feminism as Walker has poetically described, “Womanist is to feminist as purple is to lavender.”
Womanist theology also emerged in the 1980s and 1990s, as a method and response to the limitations of traditional feminist theology and African American theology. These theologies had themselves risen in opposition to mainstream “Theology” criticized for reflecting white, male perspectives only. Neither theology, however, it was felt adequately addressed the unique struggles and suffering of African American women. Grounded in African American feminism and liberation theology, early womanist theology, focused on their lived, intersectional experiences, and spirituality.
The “Mother” of Womanist Theology and the Celebration of the Katie Geneva Cannon Digital Collection
Katie Geneva Cannon (1950-2018) is considered the "mother" of womanist theology and one of the foremost and foundational womanist ethicists. Womanist ethics is a moral and ethical framework that uses African American women perspectives and lived intersectional (“black,” woman, poor) experiences to question prevailing ethics and theology. It’s a valuable tool for empowerment and promoting justice and equity.