The woman in the bed was pale. Not just her ashen skin but her presence, her being, seemed translucent. As we approached the bed, her eyes opened to reveal the child she had been once, expectant but uncomprehending.
In 1974, Katie Geneva Cannon was the first Black woman to be ordained as a minister of Word and Sacrament in the United Presbyterian Church in the United States of America, an antecedent denomination of the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.).
I come from a family of hard-working, God-fearing women. Several of my grandmother’s sisters were domestic workers — daytime housekeepers and caregivers..