At College Church, antiracism is an expression of our recognition that all are created in the image of God. As such, we respond—personally and collectively— to the call to identify, and to actively challenge, structures and systems that devalue people on the basis of race, and to practice restoration in the pursuit of justice.
Read our SFX Parish Racial Equity Review Preliminary Report
Upcoming Events in the Community
Through July 2026 Mill Creek: Black Metropolis is a special exhibit now open at the Missouri History Museum. It explores the rich history of a St. Louis neighborhood that historians have likened to Harlem, New York. This city within a city, which lay just beyond the steps of College Church, was home of St. Louis’s major Black newspapers, the offices of numerous Black professionals, a center of social activism, and the birthplace of ragtime. Learn about the stories of this Black metropolis as well as its intentional erasure from the St. Louis landscape. For more information, go to: mohistory.org/exhibits/mill-creek
December 26 The St. Louis Art Museum will host its annual Kwaanza celebration in partnership with the Delta Sigma Theta Sorority. It will include a full day of activities for all ages, including live performances, workshops, art activities, and more. For further details, go to: slam.org/event/kwanzaa-celebration-2025/
January 8 5:00– 8:00 pm Join local experts at the Missouri History Museum for short presentations that explore the ways in which Black St. Louisans found family, created family, and built community after emancipation. You will also learn how people continue to find their ancestors, honor their legacies, and use these stories to strengthen community today. For more information, see: mohistory.org/events/missouri-emancipation-day
January 8 5:00– 8:00 pm Join local experts at the Missouri History Museum for short presentations that explore the ways in which Black St. Louisans found family, created family, and built community after emancipation. You will also learn how people continue to find their ancestors, honor their legacies, and use these stories to strengthen community today. For more information, see: mohistory.org/events/missouri-emancipation-day
January 16 and 17 10:00 am – 1:00 pm The Missouri History Museum will celebrate the life and legacy of the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. and explore how the civil rights movements in St. Louis and across the nation worked to ensure all people realize the promise of American ideals. For more information, go to: mohistory.org/mlk-celebration/
January 18 2:00 – 3:30 pm The St. Louis Art Museum will host the 2026 Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. celebration The Dream Reimagined: Youth Voices Uplifted. St. Louis Poet Laureate Pacia Elaine Anderson will lead a poetic journey influenced by Moneta Sleet Jr.’s photographs of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. and the Civil Rights Movement, in conjunction with performances by young people from multiple local schools and performing arts institutions. The program’s artistic director, Kathryn Bentley, will host this inspiring celebration featuring music, theater, and dance performed by some of the area’s most gifted youth. This free event will be held in the Farrell Auditorium at SLAM. For more information and to reserve tickets, go to: slam.org/event/2026-rev-dr-martin-luther-king-jr-celebration-the-dream-reimagined-youth-voices-uplifted/
For information about additional community programs, see the calendar of events at Seeds of Justice Network: seedsofjusticenetwork.org/
For more information about antiracism at College Church or to suggest upcoming events, please contact Lisa Burks at lmburks60@gmail.com or Winnie Sullivan at penultim@swbell.net.
Learn more about our Parish Racial History
The Love of Christ Impels Us:
Becoming an Anti-Racist Parish
Click here to learn more about our parish Racism and Reconciliation committee.
What is anti-racism? Racial prejudice usually means a belief that some racial groups are better or worse than others. Structural racism describes the ways in which our institutions and structures create and maintain racial inequalities. Anti-racism goes beyond simply avoiding racism, and is an effort to oppose and dismantle racism and to promote racial equity.
Why is College Church talking about anti-racism? College Church has a long history of ongoing commitment to justice and racial equity. More recently, since 2014 and the Ferguson uprising, we as a parish have been asking ourselves some hard questions about our role in racial inequality. How have we ignored it? How have we supported it? How have we worked to change it? In addition, the USCCB recently released its pastoral letter against racism, which explains how the work of anti-racism is deeply rooted in our Catholic faith.
What anti-racism work has College Church been doing? Since June of 2018, parishioners and staff representatives who had been working in various ways on racial equity efforts within our parish have been meeting monthly as the College Church Anti-Racism Leadership Team. We hope to create a focused vision and mission for our parish to become an anti-racist institution. That means we want to be working purposefully to oppose racism and create racial equity: within ourselves as individuals, within our parish as a community, and within our city. We are asking: How can College Church increase our commitment to dismantle racism? How can we grow in our understanding of racism and inequality? What would College Church look and feel like if our intentional identity was that of a truly anti-racist institution?
How are we doing this work? We have connected with Crossroads, an organization based in the Midwest that helps religious communities and secular organizations learn how to do the work of anti-racism. Their vision is that Racism dehumanizes us all —Dismantling racism heals us all. Their method is to help organizations transform themselves, thereby transforming their communities. The Leadership Team attended a full-day training with Crossroads and has been using their tools to conduct focus groups within already established commissions and ministries within our Parish.
Want to be involved? Our team has been evolving and is still very much in the beginning stages of this work. We value the experiences and gifts of all of our parishioners and want to enrich the makeup of our leadership team. Please contact Christine Dragonette at christine@sfxstl.org if you are interested in being a part of this impassioned ministry.
Undoing Our Knots
The webinar, Undoing Our Knots, presented by Dr. Maureen O’Connell was presented on March 30 , 2023. In this talk, Dr. O’Connell Maureen O’Connell tells the stories of her Irish Catholic family’s history, sharing some of the choices her relatives made that reinforced racial segregation and inequity, often with the encouragement of a complicit church hierarchy. She further explores some of the spiritual practices of our Catholic faith that help us to undo our own knots and free us to create more inclusive Catholic communities. You can view the webinar at the following link: youtube.com/watch?v=h_A3-njwx40
Our Parish vision: antiracism
Our Parish Racial History
As part of the ongoing Parish Racial Equity Review under way at College Church, the History Committee has been discovering and sharing some of the concealed stories of race that are part of the formation of our city, the archdiocese, and our parish, including its relationship to St. Louis University, and the Society of Jesus. Sharing these stories is part of our work to interrupt the systemic racism that persists within our institutions. Highlights of our findings may be seen in a printed brochure available through this link.
In 2022, a series of presentations was held to provide a more complete understanding of the story of race that continues to impact us today. Recordings of those presentations may be viewed through the following links:
Slavery, Faith, and the Pursuit of Freedom – September 18, 2022
Jesuit Ministry to African American Catholics – October 16, 2022
Voices of Resistance, Advocacy, and Activism – November 20, 2022
If you have questions or would like more information about these presentations or the work of Antiracism at College Church, please contact Winnie Sullivan at penultim@swbell.net or Lisa Burks lmburks60@gmail.com.
We shall not cease from exploration
And the end of all our exploring
Will be to arrive where we started
And to know the place for the first time.
T.S. Eliot, Four Quartets