Sister patricia barrett, rscj (1914-1987)

Sister Patricia Barrett was born in Gary, Indiana, on July 28, 1914 and entered the Society of the Sacred Heart at the age of 21 in 1935.

Sr. Barrett spent her life as an educator:

“…I taught grade school, high school and college: girls and boys, adults, including policemen, convicts and ex-convicts – people from every avenue and alley of life. All profited by the substance of the subject matter, whether conveyed in a classroom, police station, or jail cell.”

She received her PhD from Saint Louis University in 1950, all the while teaching courses in Economics, Sociology, and Government at Maryville College in St. Louis (now Maryville University).

Sr. Barrett was Professor of Political Science at Maryville when she made the choice to participate in the Selma demonstrations.

In the 1960’s and 1970’s, new opportunities opened up for Sr. Barrett due to the shifts in cloister regulations, and she was able to join social action to her full time college teaching.

She says of this time,

“These were active years, teaching, ministering to every kind of need whether the victims were social outcasts, homeless, suffering street people, or troubled members of the more affluent segments of society. I made good friends among them and was constantly amazed at the virtue and generosity which emerged in the most adverse circumstances.”

At Maryville, she designed a class for law enforcement personnel which helped prepare policemen for the social unrest of the times and she worked with young African American men who were imprisoned for civil rights demonstrations, helping them earn their high school equivalency certificates.

The Road to Selma

It’s not clear whether Sr. Barrett received an invitation to join the demonstrations in Selma or if she learned of the situation on her own and made the choice to go.

Sr. Barrett was acompanied by Sr. Anne Webster, Academic Dean of Maryville, and seven students: Judith Burns, Pat Cannon, Roxanne Egan, Joanne Muller, Theresa Riley, Kay Schickel, and Kate Soll.

When interviewed for the college newspaper, The Gong, the following week she explained her actions as deeply motivated by her association of social justice with her religious profession:

“I went in order to give personal and public witness to my belief in the dignity of man and the unity of the human race. I saw it as an opportunity to demonstrate, as well as declare, my commitment to a social order founded on truth, justic, love and freedom.”

Of her role in the Selma marches, Sr. Barrett writes,

“I can say, in summary, that my work with the poor had its roots in a youthful attraction to the “under-dog” (read marginalized). I simply took advantage of the opportunities that presented themselves without much thought of changing the system. I did what I could to help those in need without alienating the powers-that-be. The strongest expression of sympathy with the poor blacks took place in the Selma-Montgomery March in 1965. Thousands of people from all over the United States and Canada poured into Montgomery, Alabama on the morning of March 25th where they linked up with the smaller original group which had made the trek from Selma. The entire group gathered at the mansion of Governor George Wallace and registered their protest against his segregationist policies in songs and speeches. It was for me a unique experience of what it feels like to be a despised and persecuted minority.”

Sources Consulted