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.
Upcoming Events in the Community
October 20 5:00 – 8:00 pm Spend an evening at the Missouri History Museum with acclaimed St. Louis journalist and broadcaster Mike Claiborne and Bob Kendrick, president of the Negro Leagues Baseball Museum, as they explore how Black baseball changed the game and helped change America. For more information, go to: mohistory.org/events/beyond-the-diamond
November 1 1:00 – 3:30 pm All are invited to participate in a tour of Calvary Cemetery. We will visit the burial sites of figures notable for their roles in the racial history of the St. Louis Archdiocese, the Jesuit order, and our civil society. This program is sponsored by the History Committee of the College Church Antiracism Commission and the STL Catholic Worker Community. Following the tour, all are welcome at the STL Catholic Worker Community house, located near the cemetery at 8617 Mora Ln. for soup and post-tour discussion. Please register here for this free event. tinyurl.com/Calvary2026
November 2 7:30 pm CT Catholic TV (EWTN) will premier a new series: Black Catholics: Footsteps to Sainthood. The six-part documentary will be hosted by Dr. Ansel Augustine and will chronicle the lives of Black Catholics whose causes for canonization are being pursued.
November 5–15 The 35th annual St. Louis International Film Festival will screen the work of independent artists at venues throughout the area. These films offer an opportunity to encounter some of the concealed stories of our human experience. Many of the 226 films in this year’s festival focus on topics of racial, social, and environmental justice. For ticket information and a listing of film titles by category, go to: festivals.cinemastlouis.org/sliff2026/film-categories/
November 6 - 8 9:00 am – 5:00 pm Celebrate Native American Heritage Month at the Missouri Botanical Garden with performances, demonstrations, and talks honoring Indigenous knowledge and culture. This year's event welcomes Indigenous artisans from across the country, demonstrating traditional crafts. For more information go to: missouribotanicalgarden.org/indigenous-peoples-celebration-3420
November 13 10:00 am – 1:00 pm Engage with the voices, art, and stories of Indigenous peoples of Missouri–past and present. This event at The Missouri History Museum is part of their Early Childhood and Family Programs. See tinyurl.com/HistoryExploration for more information.
November 13 4:00 – 5:00 pm Nicholas Boggs will deliver this year’s James Baldwin Lecture in the Emerson Auditorium at Washington University. Boggs is the author of the bestselling biography, Baldwin: A Love Story (2025), and the coeditor of Baldwin’s collaboration with French artist Yoran Cazac, Little Man, Little Man: A Story of Childhood (2018). For more information and to register for this free event, go to: tinyurl.com/BaldwinLecture
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 Cynthia Enghauser at cynthia@sfxstl.org if you are interested in being a part of this impassioned ministry.
Past Events
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