Katie Cannon: Premier Womanist Ethicist, Mentor, and Big Sister

It is difficult to believe someone with so much "en-life-ment" as Katie Geneva Cannon has "crossed the chilly Jordan" and is resting in the Eternal Now that commenced at her birth. I have yet to accept that Katie has entered this phase of life's journey. Thus, I find myself writing this tribute to her believing that she hears my thoughts and receives my love.

I first met Katie in fall 1978 when I began my MDiv studies at Union Theological Seminary (UTS) in New York. She was one of three black women PhD students at Union, along with Jacqueline Grant and Delores Williams, who all mentored me like a trinity of wisdom and common sense.

The first of many sagas Katie told me at Union was about what happened when she began theological studies at the Interdenominational Theological Consortium (ITC) in Atlanta. When she matriculated on that campus, there was no separate bathroom or dormitory accommodations for women. Katie was so fiercely determined to attend that seminary in particular that she and her closest friend, Angie, found a living space as well as a "site to relieve themselves" while on campus. Katie received a significant theological education at ITC.

This first story was a genesis for me—the first time I began to realize that black women called to ministry were on trial. The church and its theological seminaries were not expecting or accepting that black women would ever hold the office of pastor, priest, preacher, or prophet. Katie was all of those and more.

The next story I remember was about Katie's experience as a doctoral student in Old Testament at UTS. Katie's first days at Union were challenging in a way different from her initial days at ITC. Instead of needing to find a place to live, relieve herself, and learn with ease, Katie had to fight for acceptance in a land of white, cisgendered, heterosexual, able-bodied men who did not have in their consciousness the possibility that black women would ever be in their classroom pursuing PhD studies in any subject, especially Old Testament. Instead of being encouraged, Katie encountered a systematic attempt to discourage her. The Fund for Theological Education, the premier grantor in theological education for African American students, granted funds in Katie's first year of study, yet her advisor refused to write a positive letter of recommendation even after she passed all her biblical language requirements.

Just as Miriam helped her mother prepare a basket, put baby Moses in it, and guided it down the river to Pharaoh's palace, so Beverly Harrison recognized Katie's gifts and the very present emergency, defied her colleagues by placing Katie in a basket made by Katie's ancestors, and pulled Katie into the field of Christian ethics, perhaps the best place for her to pursue womanist theological ethics with a firm biblical studies foundation. What "man" meant to harm, God used to reveal Her power!

It is uncanny that the end of her physical life concluded at Union Theological Seminary in Richmond, Virginia, where she and others founded and launched the Katie Geneva Cannon Center for Womanist Leadership (KGCCLW). KGCCLW is where she and I had our last dance and picture together. Katie designed pins with various patterns and colors that captured her exquisite view and understanding of womanist theological studies. I miss my "big sister," and her work will shape womanist theology for years to come.