Katie Geneva Cannon Center for Womanist Leadership

The Katie Geneva Cannon Center for Womanist Leadership at Union Presbyterian Seminary recognizes the significance of centering Black women’s scholarship as viable sources and resources for theological education. The center serves as a site of participatory learning for scholars, students, clergy, laity, and community leaders.

Drawing from the Black Southern colloquial expression (you actin’ womanish), the word “womanist” is a dynamic term that describes a growing field of study and social movement that takes seriously the historical and contemporary experiences of Black women while advocating for the wholeness and wellbeing of all humanity.

Union Presbyterian Seminary has developed the Center for Womanist Leadership “to inspire, equip, connect and support Black women divinely motivated to serve as change makers in their community.”

The mission statement reflects the visionary insight of the late Dr. Katie Geneva Cannon, Annie Scales Rogers Professor of Christian Social Ethics at Union, who, in 1974, became the first African-American woman to be ordained in the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.).

Cannon named womanism as a powerful approach to recognizing the human dignity and amplifying the long-ignored voice of Black women in a hostile world. She wrote that “…one’s soul has work that is …vital not only to the health and strength of the community but is integral to our fulfillment as individuals.

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Mission & Programs

In her seminal work, Katie’s Canon, Dr. Cannon wrote “Black women are the most vulnerable and the most exploited members of the American society. The structure of the capitalist political economy in which Black people are commodities, combined with patriarchal contempt for women, has caused the Black woman to experience oppression that knows no ethical or physical bounds.”

Cannon’s clear-eyed and uncompromising position on the status of Black women sets the tone for the work of the Center for Womanist Leadership. In 2019, Union Presbyterian Seminary Trustees named the Center in memory of Dr. Katie Geneva Cannon.

In its mission statement, the Center is described as “committed to convening Black women around common issues for wisdom sharing, networking, problem solving, and mobilization, and to giving Black women thinkers, activists and artists opportunities to expand existing efforts and connect them for sustainable collaboration.”

“However,” she continued, “this work is often stifled by the confining powers of patriarchy and racism that flourish in the subordination of Black women.”

Cannon’s New York Times obituary on Aug. 14, 2018, described her view of “womanism,” one that helped set the direction for the center:

“Womanism” — a term generally attributed to the novelist and poet Alice Walker — examines the intersection of feminism, racial identity and more, finding points of both commonality and conflict. In just one example of how Dr. Cannon applied a womanist approach to theology, she wrote of how the Christian idea of suffering was usually defined from the perspective of a white and male-dominant class, which, with a comfortable existence, could view it as a choice.

“‘In dominant ethics a person is free to make suffering a desirable moral norm,’ she wrote in “Black Womanist Ethics.” ‘This is not so for blacks. For the masses of black people, suffering is the normal state of affairs.’”

Such a piercing reality requires a sustained, systemic response. The center is a response to, and bearer of, that message.

The Center is organized around three core values:

It is rooted in sisterhood, recognizing that the experience of Black womanhood is an isolating experience of overwhelming responsibility and persistent oppression.

It is unapologetically committed to the wholeness, liberation, justice, and self-sustainability of Black and marginalized communities.

It is in tune with the Spirit and the Folk, not isolated in academia, but anchored and grounded in the priorities and desires of those it serves and in the work of the Spirit that inspires these women.

In July 2019, Rev. Melanie C. Jones joined the Katie Geneva Cannon Center for Womanist Leadership as its newest director and next visionary leader. Jones maintains, “Building on an enduring legacy of womanism in theological education with Dr. Katie Geneva Cannon as its leading trailblazer and foremother, The Future is Womanist. The compounding moral assaults facing Black women and marginalized populations in a contemporary world require a wisdom-bearing platform that cultivates freedom and flourishing and a justice-seeking program that enlivens the liberating reign of God in word and deed. This is the future of the Katie Geneva Cannon Center for Womanist Leadership, the premier center for womanist theory and practice in the nation.”

Brian K. Blount, former president of Union Presbyterian Seminary, affirmed the prophetic leadership of Rev. Jones. Blount asserts, “In her teaching, scholarship and direction of the Katie Geneva Cannon Center for Womanist Leadership, she brings sharp theological insight and an engaging ethical perspective. She will be a great resource for our seminary as we strive to be a witness to and for the Church and the world.”

In her own words, Katie Geneva Cannon captured the spirit of the Center. She said, “What we need to be free is right here in this religion. It just hasn’t been unleashed, and that’s our job.”

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Meet our Team

Director

Melanie Jones Quarles

Assistant Professor of Ethics, Theology and Culture, Director of the Katie Geneva Cannon Center for Womanist Leadership

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Program Associate

Dwylene Butler

Program Associate

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Meet our Advisory Council

Brianna Burton

Alum

C.O.O. of The Doula's Garden

Perinatal Wellness Specialist

Rev. Dr. Renee Alston

Minister of Congregational Care, First Baptist Church of Highland Park

Rev. Gail Henderson Belsito

Alum

Freelance Pastor

Bridgett Cannon

The Katie Geneva Cannon Estate Representative

Resource Support Senior Specialist for Wealth Management Client Care, Bank of America/Merrill

Rev. A Elaine Crawford, Ph.D.

Alum

Adjunct Professor of Theology at Samuel Dewitt Procter School of Theology

Visiting Scholar for the Center for Christian Women

Stacey Floyd-Thomas, Ph.D.

E. Rhodes and Leona B. Carpenter Professor of Ethics and Society, Vanderbilt University

Executive Director, Black Religious Scholars Group (BRSG, Inc.)

Bishop Leah D. Daughtry

National Presiding Prelate, The House of the Lord Churches

President & CEO of On These Things, LLC

Co-Convener, Power Rising

C.E.O. of Democratic National Convention, 2016, 2008

Shonda Jones, Ed.D.

Executive Director, Academic Programs
School of Professional Studies, Wake Forest University

Lakisha R. Lockhart, Ph.D.

Assistant Professor of Christian Education, Union Presbyterian Seminary

Aimee Laramore

Owner, ALlyd Solutions

Director of Learning Services, Grand Valley State University

Rev. Dr. Diane Moffett

Former President & Executive Director, Presbyterian Mission Agency

Valerie Hill Rawls

Alum

Co-Creator, The EcoWomanist Institute

Rev. Ebony Speakes-Hall, Ed.D., LISW-S

Assistant Dean of Diversity, Equity, & Inclusion
Allied Health Sciences, University of Cincinnati

Rev. Renita J. Weems, Ph.D.

Chief Academic Officer, Gammon Theological Seminary

Rev. Michele Watkins, Ph.D.

Assistant Professor of Theology, St. John’s College of Liberal Arts and Sciences

Rev. Audrey Akins Williamson

Director, The Collaborative for Faith Leadership

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The Center further outlines a set of high-priority “initiatives,” which include:

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Womanist Well

a healing and hospitality programming arm

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Womanist Witness

programming designed to identify, inspire, equip and support emerging Black women leaders

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Womanist Worship

connectional programming with churches and religious communities to nurture and affirm Black women’s religious leadership

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Womanist Wisdom

a publishing and cataloguing component for the Center

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Womanist Wares

a social entrepreneurship effort, aimed at helping Black women and marginalized communities to become self-sustainable

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Womanist Works

programming that values the divinely-inspired creative productions of Black women while interrogating possibilities for cultivating whole communities

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Past Events

Giving

Support the Katie Geneva Cannon Center for Womanist Leadership Endowment Campaign to secure the future and perpetuity of this work

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Want more information?

Please send all inquiries to: cwl@upsem.edu

The Katie Geneva Cannon Center for Womanist Leadership

Union Presbyterian Seminary (Richmond campus)
3401 Brook Road – Watts 402
Richmond, VA 23227
804-278-4277