Sisters for Justice

Catherine Higgs is a professor of history at the University of British Columbia. She is the author of The Ghost of Equality: The Public Lives of D. D. T. Jabavu of South Africa, 1885–1959 and Chocolate Islands: Cocoa, Slavery, and Colonial Africa and the coeditor of Stepping Forward: Black Women in Africa and the Americas.

“This is a pathbreaking account of how Catholic sisters’ essential work in education and health care under apartheid politicized them, leading women to set the pace for growing Catholic opposition to apartheid.” - Meghan Healy-Clancy, author of A World of Their Own: A History of South African Women's Education“Higgs brings to the fore the heretofore underrepresented story of the role that Catholic sisters played in South Africa’s struggle for liberation. This work is a major contribution, appropriate to audiences studying women's history, not just African or South African history, and issues of resistance, religion, and activism.” - Dawne Y. Curry, author of Social Justice at Apartheid's Dawn: African Women Intellectuals and the Quest to Save the Nation

• List of Illustrations Acknowledgments List of Abbreviations Introduction 1 Catholic Sisters in Southern Africa, 1849–1961 2 Embracing Change, 1962–1969 3 Education, White Sisters, and Black Sisters, 1970–1972 4 “Opening” Schools, 1973–1976 5 Embracing Risk, 1977–1984 6 Turning Point, 1985 7 Years of Fear and Resilience, 1986–1989 8 Transition to a New South Africa, 1990–1994 Conclusion Note on Method Notes Bibliography Index