In seventy-four, seventy-five, I worked at the [Presbyterian] Church of the Master with Gene Callender [Callender, Eugene S.] on his staff. I taught a catechism class. I created my own curriculum.

I used all my studies. I had started a Ph.D. in the Hebrew Scriptures at Union. But, be

fore I was writing. I put the catechism. Not catechism,

confirmation class. I wrote the confirmation curriculum so it related to black inner city kids about what it meant to be a person of faith

In nineteen. In

the spring of that year, I was

invited to come and talk to Spring 75. I was

invited to come and talk to the members of the session of Pepson Church in East Harlem. And,

I went over there, and I explained to them I didn't speak Spanish. i did not know

there were thousands of black people in East Harlem. Thousands! I thought East Harlem was Spanish and Central Harlem was black! .

There are thousands of black people in East Harlem, And, I was back there talking with.

And so they called and asked me would I be a supply pastor, and I'd preach every Sunday, starting that September.

And I think my income was.

I was supposed to work ten hours a week, and get two thousand dollars. No other supply pastor in the presbytery of New York City got that, lower than me. Two thousand a year?  Two thousand for the year?

Okay. Now, it is in perspective. Two thousand per year.

and all I'm supposed to do is preach every other Sunday and do the three youth groups.

But, one cannot pastor a

church just preaching and doing the youth group. So

I ended up putting on 40 hours a week there on two thousand dollars.

But I didn't care because I had no

role models. I had no sense of out of my black theological training, what a black clergywoman was entitled to. What. Even how to negotiate it. I wouldn't moderate

my own session. I refused to moderate the session. Why? Because you

were paid stated supply? No. I'd never moderated a session. I'd never been at a session meeting before. Well.  You

were working at the other church and never sat in on session? When I was down the street, I had a Saturday program,

where some of the young people would come, but it was a very. But it was a

at the church in Atlanta where I did my field work, there was a Saturday program. At the church in New

York, I never went to session. Or, I went to session meetings, but it was usually about

whether we going to use this space or something. I didn't moderate. I had not. The field job  didn't strike my identity as

the pastor. I had an identity as a preacher but not as a pastor

And so I accepted this job, but I was not the pastor. I was just to preach there. That was my understanding. You know, I was twenty-five,

I preached there. That was the church where I go preach. It was not until January, one of my members' son died of an overdose of heroin. And,

the session came and they told me that Mrs. Stevenson's son had died. And, I said, "Who's going to do the funeral?" And, they said, "You are, Rev. Cannon." I said, No. This is serious." I'm not okay with that.

You need a real minister.

And, they said, well you could do it. And they said I was scared. They didn't know I had no

idea that I was their pastor. Like oh you know

because I know if they wanted me to do the funeral, I was really their pastor.  Because I knew. The

funeral is the sound. It's real department. Right. Right.

And so they. The congregation was wonderful. They were there at the house every time I went to get, because I did

n't know the young man.  And, he and I were the same age. So, doing the funeral, my

first funeral. Somebody my same age really helped me to understand my identity as a pastor, because the mother

They all were waiting for

words of encouragement from me. And, the elders were and the trustees, the deacons. They were just so full. And,

I think a lot of it was because of the

preaching. See, what Dr. Clark [Clark, Isaac R.] taught us was If you feed the people spiritually,

you have the people. They will cooperate with you. But if you don't feed them, there will be so much bickering, fighting, and small stuff going on. This will disrupt the church. And so,

that did help. That helped

them understand I was their pastor. But it had not. The death of Ms. Washington Stevenson's son helped me understand I was their pastor. So, I was at that congregation stated supply pastor for two years seventy-five to seventy-seven.

And it was at that point, when I decided to leave the

parish altogether and possibly I'd never go back. Because. What was

happening. My adviser told me. I was pastoring 40 hours a

week, I was still keeping up my work in Hebrew studies. I was. Mind-boggling! I

didn't have any social life. I basically did not interact with people. I was typical, and it is typical of

biblical snobs. If you didn't speak Hebrew, Greek, or Aramaic, you weren't worth talking to. At

the same time, I had grown up in a tradition that anything I had, I owed to other people,

so I was relating to pastoring this church, doing this Biblical studies, and had. And, part

of it was they had never. When I entered the Ph.D. program in

Hebrew studies, Hebrew Scriptures. Never in the history of the world had a black woman gotten a Ph.D. in Old Testament. A

nd to this day, there is no black woman with a Ph.D. in Old Testament. Good for you!  I started my whole Ph.D. over in essence. Oh! Did you!

So here I was and then see the politics of it. When I left I.T.C.,  I left with so

much support and so much affirmation. Then, when I

walked into Union Seminary, I did not know the hierarchy of studies. I didn't know

the Old Testament was the holy of holies. The New Testament was next. The patristic system is. I have

no analysis of this institutional powers. I thought if you were smart enough, you

got a degree. I did not know that. I did not

understand what it would mean for a black woman to be able to interpret scriptures in her own original pen.

I do not know that. So, I lacked that part of the conversation  to assess what was going on.

I couldn't get into the study group. And

so, meaning that a lot of those cliques formed because a lot of the white students were doing biblical studies, or people who had done the M.Div. at Union. And so, here I am,

a black

woman, southerner, been in black schools all my life, walking into this very prestigious white seminary, and I did not know white folks. I was twenty-four year old.

I had never been in a white institution. I had not acculturated. I didn't know that white people do things were so

different from black people. I imagined it, but I didn't know what the difference was. I had not experienced

class in legal. All the contexts where I have been basically

black people were the same and straightforward so we both all all.

I remember during orientation one of those women asked me what book my father had written, assuming

as a black person, I would not be there if I was not from that field and that class and that strata.

And I said my father doesn't read or write. It was like, well,  we must have made a mistake. You know. it was like, How did you get in

here? And so I did. I had to run

but I remember during orientation. You know hindsight is always twenty-twenty.

This is something the. During

orientation, we were sitting around, and people were to talk about, introduce ourselves and what will be doing ten years from now. And people were lying, but

they were being all pontificating and erudite

and I was offended by these lies. You know I was going to write this. I'm going

to do this and the next person would add  and would be more impressive the last and the next. And, I come out of

a black folk people. It's like when they got to me, I said, "My name is

Katie Cannon. And ten years from now, I'd like to be partying on the West coast."

I'd like my life to be so relaxed and have such a good time. And, like WHOA! Every white

person was gone.

It aways was powerful and lighten things up

so well I just kind of sit back and say you know like when I was really tempted to cut the bullshit you know let's

get down to we are real people. We are here. We are nervous. We're anxious. Let's try to build some

community. You know and be real. That is what I was asking for. But it was not interpreted that

way. It was interpreted that I was light weight. I was trivial. I wasn't serious. Somebody had made a

mistake in admissions. And, I did not know.

I did not know my cohort. I did not know. So

it was devastating. I. I remember raising my hand in class sharing my

sense of what the reading assignment had been. And, I remember one professor saying, "And, what book have you written?" The

whites didn't know, knew that they were indicators before Paul Townsend. They were empty. They just took copious notes.

I thought if I had. I mean, in the black context, my teachers always said to

me from the time I was in kindergarten up to. Everything that we have, we are going to give to you because we

want you to be better. And that my job is to give everything I have to the next generation

so they can carry it. And so, in my context, that was not the case. And so, I did not know

that, so I raised my. Well I think. And, it was like, you are not supposed to think.

So I kept doing it all wrong. Everything you weren't supposed to do, is what I did.

I got tired of going to receptions and teas and opening events, where I'd be the only black person. And,

if any white person, if any black person around the continent of North America, Katie did

you know and its like I just couldn't take it any more. I did not know

that one is judged by the company you know. And so I got

get me started communicated among the people with the power places that I wasn't serious

because I wasn't showing up for these things, not realizing how hard it is when you are the

outsider, when you are other all the time. but you can believe, and I changed discipline. I have a place in

my wardrobe to this day a reception dress forever. I've made my

peers out of the same policies out of the same power and what my therapist happened to realize that there were

white people there who didn't want to be there either. And I had to find them. I had find people of like mind.

because I wouldn't have been able to do it. I could not run this race by myself. But I did not know. I thought all the white people were enjoying that.  I though they were having a fun time because they were just chiming in.

And I was like, "What have I got myself into?" and

it was so artificial. It was like all this pomp and circumstance.

And the people are not real. People's marriages are breaking up.  People find out they had

cancer. People's children are on drugs.  This one was committing suicide, but it was never talked about. This

affair was going on and that's like. This is

really surreal exprience. And what is going?

I did not know how to handle it because, coming from the work No one had prepared

me for this world of  middle strata and upwardly

mobile upper class white people. I mean I worked as a domestic. I was trained as a

domestic but even when you're domestic, you don't sit down and have a conversation with the very people you're serving.

People say to me you know we so. So there I was

in Old Testament doing this, trying to keep up with all my studies with all the study group, pastoring a

church and I think there is

I've never had a nervous breakdown because I had a nurturing community. I had the church, which said

you are somebody. No matter what you say we love you and you are. I was affirmed.

And then in

1977 I had a Ford grant, where they paid my tuition and they gave me

a stipend to live on. And my advisor refused to sign the grant. All he had to do was sign. And, he said, "No." I think you are not right. And I said What? He said,

you can be a Biblical scholar or you can be a pastor, but you can't be both. I've never

I've never heard that. of this division in the academy. and I didn't know the difference

between those who do and those who teach. you know I did not know

that. I have been told everything that I am older back to the community college. I'm accountable to

the black church community and in essence I was, in his mind,  I was throwing pearls to the swine. He was teaching me to be a biblical scholar.

And I'm running out here every Sunday, putting it out in

plain language for the people to live to get through the next week.

And I remember sitting there in his office. And, I kept telling myself, Don't cry. don't cry, whatever you. Don't let this white man see you cry. Don't

let him see you cry. And, he says he

would not sign the paper.

And, I could not go to school after that. And he said, why can't you live on three thousand dollars. Who can live in New York City on three thousand dollars? So be default, I was through. So it was Maundy Thursday of 1977.

I had to go preach the Maundy Thursday service. And, I remember I didn't want to preach. I had. The sermon was done and everything. And I go over to East Harlem, and I was sitting

there and these people. most of my congregation, were people who struggle, struggled day in and day out to provide

for their children, lived in apartment most of them. And, as we sat there, they started to sing "There Is A Balm in Gilead." It was talking to me.

How can you not you. You are over at Union, a privileged institution working on a doctorate. These people. How can you not.

how can you not provide? How can you not preach? And, I got up and I preached.

And it was like because they ministered to me in their song and testimony, then I could go

forth and realize I had to do something else. So, I resigned from the church and joined the faculty of New York Theological Seminary. I resigned with no job. A

nd, they blamed themselves for me.

And I said, "No. You kept me sane." You know. You did not.

It's all our fault. We love you too much. We demanded too much of you.

No it wasn't meant to be. It was just not meant to be. And, in the

process in terms of being, in learning how to acculturate, I had. In nineteen seventy-five, I

hit a level of just

trying to understand the white world I was in that I had to start therapy.

I decided one morning I wasn't getting up in the morning. And, my roommate said, "Katie, it sounds like you in trouble."

So I started therapy and what therapy has done for me is to learn how to get to my white self:

how to act white; how to think white. how to be white. You know and that's what I do in therapy. I

learn how not to be black. And that's the only way

I could cope. It's the only way I could take what they were offering me at Union because I had to open up a part of my mind and

think white.  To be able to engage in these superfluous

conversations and not matter. And, to talk. I had to learn

this whole way of being that was not me. And, that's what. And, what allowed

me to finish because in the nine years I was at Union there were ten black women

who were applying because they had been acculturated since the first grade.

They'd been in white. So they didn't know who they were. The reason I could take it was because I

had 24 years of solid blackness so that when I had to learn whiteness, it

would never be gray.

It always be black. And so, I could have white in my life the rest of my life and

I'm still going to be black. I'm just black. People.

Black bourgeoisie always trying to get me to pass, You know. Can't do it. And then

she can't pass. It's like a dead man's genes; I'm mechanically black. What do

you say to me. I went to Botswana Africa, Pan-Africa, very nationalist, black nationalist, everything.  I came home in my dashiki and my chakra sandals.

And my black power outfits and my Angela Davis button, "Free Angela." My mother say to me, "Kate, there were no black people. Kate also black. So she pickup the sandals. There were no black people before Kate.  There will never be black people after Kate. S

he is also black. She is the only black person in the world,

learning how to move into the white world was a traumatic experience.

But I knew that in order to do what I needed to do, I had to learn

those skills. I had to learn the social skills. I had to learn them. I paid my therapist to teach me

how to be white. And, how to do it and maintain my own integrity.. So

I left the church. And, they had a fabulous dinner for me.

It was. The people put in. And, it was. My family came up from North Carolina, and it was incredible. It was so, so powerful

. I will always love that congregation. I will always love the church. I will always

miss pastoring. But my love is teaching. My greatest love and my gift. Because I realize I'd

like to help see more people trained, who can do good ministry, and who understand the pathos, the ethos people.

So after. I took a year leave of absence in seventy-eight. I was already on the faculty in New York Theological Seminary, working with storefront clergy, black and Hispanic, who had some of the most effective congregations

in the city. But, who had never had theological training. And so, they became my church. So. See. All I did was move my

church the other way.

And I changed at that point to start working in ethics at Union. They accepted most of my coursework, everything in the traditional core group.

My dilemma at that point was whether I was going to work with Bev Harrison [Harrison, Beverly Wildung] or Jim

Cone [Cone, James Hal] . I knew Jim Cone was a black theologian. Bev Harrison was a feminist activist. I knew who I was as a black theological person, but

I did not know myself as a woman.

I thought that going into activist work with Bev. Basically I was going into a white store. And, the gift from God in working with Bev was that Bev is committed to anti-racism. I know when she was trying to get me to call her Beverly. Dr. Harrison,

I just. And in the black

tradition you don't call professors on a first name. That is the rudest thing you can do.

Hey Doc! Call her by her first name. Well. No!  That's just

respect. And, Bev was not only willing to

be my friend. But she just said, "Kate. Be yourself." And so

every time I try to bring in Kant and all these white male theologians and things, she'd say, "Keep it out. We

know that already. We know what white male normative thought is. We want to know what it is you

bring to us this morning. And, I'll be giving you the tools to put it out in a way. And so, to this day, I'll. I'm influenced. I'm indebted to her. She's so formative in my thinking.  And, really the permission giving. Just like the black men in seminary gave me permission to be a preacher. Bev Harrison gave me permission to be a faith giver in my own terms and my own organic sense.

And,

did not ask me to be preached down and out. What you have to

offer. You teach me. We are co-learners in this process. So then I chose professor and started working with Bev Harrison. P

eople have said to me, the black men in the Society of Christian Ethics, that they You have the

only place, of all the seminaries in the world, the only place you are able to do what you are doing is here at Union. And

now, Delores Williams [Williams, Delores S.]  I mean the first black woman to be a systematic theologian is Jackie Grant [Grant, Jacquelyn], who graduated from Union. Delores WIlliams is coming out next year. S

o what I learned how to get in touch with my white self, it started me to. How

to take this opportunity and maximize it to do what I wanted to do. Teaching

is my ministry.  I struggle with my children not understanding why I

Well, I think, I could have. I could have opted at one point to be a parish minister. to work for the because the congregation

really want me to stay on. But I. It was too lonely. I mean, I knew

the only colleagues I had were white

clergywomen and black male clergy and neither one of them were role models for the kind of experience I was having in the black church

So therefore

every. As I tell my students all the time, every clergy person needs a support community.  And I did not have it.  I did not have that cloud of witnesses where I could go and cry, where I could go and scream, where I could go and say, "This is not making sense!"

This old spiritual is like me, not what do I do.

But out of that, one could not sustain doing effective ministry in the congregation.

There has to be a support group where there is trust, confidentiality, honesty.  And,

I've found that more in the academy with a few groups, with the few black women in the academy. And, a number of my white women friends who are also academics. You. And so, you were on the faculty at New York Theological Seminary for three years.  Three years. While you were preaching? No. while I was finished

No. And then, I to quit that job to go fulltime to finish my degree.

from eighty to eighty-three.  I tutored with Bev and took my master's. And

I worked with Otto Hays in professional development one year. What did you do your dissertation on? My dissertation is "Resources for a Constructive Ethic for Black Women with Special Attention to the Life and Work of Zora Neale Hurston."

I was looking at how black women are moral agents in a situation of oppression. How

they form moral/ethical decisions when one does not have a lot of options or choices. And, in order to do that, I knew it was

recorded in

black women's literature. And, I had to decide one black woman. woman conservative had what I was talking about. And Zora Neale Hurston was the most prolific black woman in the United States from nineteen twenty to nineteen fifty. And, she died in poverty.  And, it is like, so what happens to black women who speak the truth? Zora Neale Hurston was a southern black woman from Florida who believed in what she called the Negro fathers down. She believed in black folk culture. She believed in black people. And, she believed that being black

was not something that you sat around and make woes about. That we had a rich culture. And

that we were powerful people and if we didn't

we weren't always. She was totally against desgregation.  She was totally.  She was not. She said, What do white people have

that I want to be so close to them that they have to force them to let me be close to them?" You know.  And so

and the more I read about her, the more I could identify with her, with her life and saw the parallels for my own and black women in the literary tradition,

of black

women who are trying to be spokespersons wherever we are.

The first woman Jonas forefront. The one I'm working on now basically. This new book I'm writing, including the sermons of black women  nineteen thirty-four, and she wrote another

one Sarah

and autobiography she will She wrote and published about fifty short stories. Well, you finished in eighty

three. I finished in eighty-three. And, I had

interviewed for several jobs. One at I.T.C. [Interdenominational Theological Center, Atlanta] One at. No. That's when I had. I had interviewed for a job at Pittsburgh Theological Seminary, and

liked it very much what they were talking about. And,

this was back in the fall of eighty-two. I knew I was going to finish in eighty-three. And,

I applied for the Women in Religion visiting professorship at Harvard Divinity, they had five positions. And,

I got accepted. And, I wasn't going to

accept it because I had never been to Harvard.

Harvard meant nothing to me. You know. I mean if you knew it was my first experience and hanging out on the

Columbia Heights on Morningside Heights at Columbia University and Union. That was enough. I mean I didn't have. Coming into New

England in Boston and all around Boston and races in Boston

and New Yorkers are fond that they never want to travel anyway.  It's time to get back to a warm climate. Even

though Pittsburgh was not really a warm climate. I did not want to come

to Harvard for one year. I wanted a job that was at least three years to get myself established. I wanted to get  give M.Div somebody was

very. And my

therapist also said you can't go to Harvard. So I went to Harvard for one year. I don't want to go for one year. I

want something more long term than that. And, she said, "Kate. Just go to Harvard."

Why? Why should I go to Harvard? You know. it was like. I didn't want to live in Cambridge. I didn't go to

Harvard. Harvard doesn't mean anything to me.  I had no

idea of Harvard basically, you know, as  being "the." I was not. essence of black Hollywood piece.

It was not intimidating to me. It was not. like Harvard you know. In my context, Howard

University in Washington DC is the place. Or Morehouse or Spellman or Fisk or Tuskegee.  But Harvard?  I mean, it is like. And, my friends, said "Katie. Did you ever

read about these great

writers at Harvard?" i said, "No." Not that it remind me of race. There was

no mistake about Harvard. So, I came. And

I accepted it. The dean called me because I still was like I tell them that as the

deadline was December first.  And, I did not know in my application. This is my own. I never did.

And the fact that you know the case. After

they called me. after they said I was accepted, I still was not pleased. I said no. That

the students were calling me, the dean was callingl me. And, I said, "OK." I talked with Bev then. She's going. She's going. And, so I came. Then, I could

see I'm glad I didn't know what I was up against. You know. I would have been

totally overwhelmed by the place. I had never been to a school that had thirty-nine libraries.  And, my goal for that year was to be

to put my foot in my feet in each one of those libraries. Oh. ignorance

It has saved me a lot, not knowing what I was up against. It reduces some of the heartache. Because I had no idea what Harvard meant.

So therefore I went in. I proposed

a course which was to teach my dissertation, but to teach a course on black women's literature as a resource on Christian ethics.

And I had about 50 students in that class. I

got some of my articles published. And, that was good for that year. And in the process of ending that year, E.D.S. [Episcopal Divinity School] had a search. They had

just finished doing a racism audit. And, they found out that

the racism in E.D. S. was so prevalent that it was not mentally healthy for students to go there. It

is true for most all the other seminariies in Boston, probably with all the seminaries in North America

but at least E.D.S. was willing to do the audit. And to then put forth a search for black faculty, black administrators, black support staff,

and to try to recruit more black students. And so, Carter Heyward [Heyward, Isabel Carter] called me

and asked me would I put my name in. So, I officially came over for the interview. I was interviewed. I interviewed for a job that I could actually see

at that point. And, I interviewed for

several other jobs.

I was about ready to go to I.T.C. because my whole point of getting a Ph.D. was to

go back and train black clergy for the black churches. And, one day Bev got

on the phone and said, "Kate. Go to E.D.S.  You gotta w

rite. You gotta write. No matter how much you might train clergy, the

legacy you need to leave will be in print. Y

ou got to write. You can do that at E.D.S. And that's true because the teaching load at I.T.C., on top of everything else. E.D.S. has the support staff,

as well as the money, as well as the

tradition. You teach for six semesters, you get six months off as a sabbatical. And

to be in Cambridge is and you know is. Basically to be in Cambridge And, I did my year in Cambridge, when I go to Pittsburgh or Atlanta or somewhere,

because Pittsburgh was still interested at that point. Pittsburgh was like Pittsburgh. Pittsburgh?  Whoever lives in Pittsburgh? It was like.

Oh. Well, what's wrong with Pittsburgh? You know, I going to be coming back to it. So they kept telling me

I need to be in a strategic places where people can contend with

these pioneering ideas that I have been working on. If I put myself off in a place that people

do not reckon with in a serious way. But I wanted to be in a Presbyterian school. I never

thought that I would be training priests for the Episcopal church. But, that too was a

godsend because of me because the Anglicans were very privileged financially. They had

been some to the best schools in the country. They can wrestle with the material I've given them. Therefore, I'm working on sharp minds, which sharpened my mind.

So I love it. I love it. And still I got. Florida met us the other day about

student things. I mean this is so hard because now we

can't rest in peace. Everything we do we have to raise that flag of consciousness of race. And the congregation

never want to move. And, the congregation looks like. You've got to move them, that's all. If you love them, you preach, you preach

little things of love, it is amazing what you can do. they've got a powerful force

that message out to all these people about it.

It's not easy out here.

The students talk to me. Of

all the courses they have taken. taken in seminary, mine has made the most formative change in their and

transformative changes in their beliefs

because most of us have never had to wrestle with that theology, have never had the sense that their world view was not the world view.

And not, since none of these courses are required, students don't take my courses unless they want to.

And, they know we are going to do a lot of soul-searching, rigorous soul-searching.

We don't use racist language in my class. And,

it has been there long enough that I don't have to do that work. The students do that for others. They prepare

the students to come take my classes so now we get on with the real work. So, like

she doesn't allow that either. So I love that.

And I just sit interview, and I see some issue of Ladies Home Journal and they just have a small

staff and they start off like teaching is the greatest joy of my life. And, that is true.  I'm wondering. Last year was the first year I'd come. And I remember hearing. And you seem so much more at home in what you're in this year. And, I'm wondering if anything in particular has happened this year. Or whether it is just a cumulative effect. Or, am I seeing something that isn't really there? Were you visiting home last year? I

was on sabbatical. If I were teaching, that

means that this next week I'd be having to read. I wouldn't be here basically today  because I'd probably be in class and it would be the last or

be missing class and still, I'd

have to go back to that class and I

always got the flu. Every A.A.R. meeting I've been to, basically I've always had the flu

because I've worked all semester, and I've come to the A.A.R., present my paper. In Chicago

I collapse. I got to read my paper, and I went down like that.

i was so exhausted. Because that year was my first year at E.D.S. and I do twenty-six speaking engagements that year. I didn't even

know that people don't do that. I had. I still not accepted a lot of

them, but twenty-six. and I knew the third time I was going to have a stroke or heart attack

because I had to cancel for the first time. I had trips scheduled for Cuba

and I cancelled. And, I had to cancel for them for Duke at a women's meeting. And I had been scheduled for that for a long time.

I am. Been so radical. I know how people just. Because the writing is hard. But, I am so alive.

I'm

reading things I've wanted to read for so long.

I mean every book like the "Black Orpheus" means. Kate What time does your class meet? Because everything that is on the

market, I've read it. But still. It's like Derek. Oh,yeah,  I read that. but love it. "Beloved," I've

memorized that. Wow. Because I got it.

320.

I got three grants. I got a grant from the Episcopal church. I got a grant from the Association of Theological Schools.

They have a grant for young scholars to move us from doing scholars to teaching scholars. And then I got a

grant from the bucket to be a radical among the think tank of women. And that's such a great

community of fun, to be around. Be among. Because like right now I'm supposed to up there for a lecture. And, i couldn't run backup there now. But, it is just. It's so

competitive. So therefore when you put your argument out

I got to get my calendar and go. And so I have much more. And, being forced to do two papers that are not. One is

the paperwork has been done, I had to work on these papers all fall and I didn't know what the book was

about until last week when I finished the paper on Saturday. The conclusion of seven o'clock think of something. That's the book. But it is all part of

my life. part of my life. Right into that. My love of preaching, my love of

black women's literature. My sense of black culture,

my love for Zora Neale Hurston. All right there. My life's

so but Now, I got to go  back and finish this paper because I didn't this morning on the slaves and the hours of Christian right.

And, I was telling, it was so painful. I hate reading it. I hate reading

how white Christian apologists support. The argument they used to support slavery. That

people say and I remember hearing Toni Morrison on NPR talking about how she wrote "Beloved," and she says she writes two or three sentences, and then she has to walk the beach the rest of the day.  There would be so much pain in it.  And, that is the way this article has been.

I've been trying to get out of it for two years. Hold me to it!  No. No. is.

You should

get it done and that's it. Then I can go write that book.

I can go write the book right. It has to be done by December twenty-third. So that I won't be back

into my a A.A.R. until it starts. I hope to take a day of rest and then start writing. finishing up writing. So. I am very much more relaxed.

I don't know how people teach after that, I really don't, because not only am I

getting writing done, but I'm excited about going back to teaching.

And, I've already warned the students when they see me in the library. You thought I work too hard. Well. we're not on sabbatical

Oh, I have so much energy now!  Well, I hear, I think that you have a modest man's because you are a rather rare breed still

Would you talk a bit about that?

Well I think a part of it is, part of the dilemma, because right now, I think we have are

a little more than twenty black clergywomen in the Presbyterian church

Very few come from the same class strata as I do. And, most

of them have been incorporated into the white community much earlier than twenty-four, when I was in college.

And so I think there might be others like me but I think

I represent a strata of the black church community within Presbyterianism that's

not, that represents a mass of Presbyterians, But voice isn't that strong.

And they hold me accountable, their black woman in North Carolina, will call me and I won't. I

keep my answering machine on all the time, and they say, Kate, you better call me.

You know just hold me accountable. you know. And then they would sustain me when I would get so weary in the doctoral process.

Kate, you are there for us; you aren't there for you. You can't quit you know. And I

call my mother [Cannon, Corine] she said Pray. I come work in the mill You got to go.

She always holds that over? said oh you get the mill times and she said, "Kate, they hire people at the mill

every day. You don't want to do it, you don't have to do it. You don't have to go crazy. But if you--they hire people in the mill."

So as long as you remind me. And the other things it's OK. Don't force it.

So

even though she. My mother and I have struggled a lot. She has been definitely a spiritual force

throughout my, thoughout life. And, the way she's been important to me. I had to fight about it. If

she says it's right, I'm going to say it's wrong. I don't know why

Partly, its people say it's because you look so much alike.

And I do. I get a lot of my charisma from her and people who know me and know my mom, my family, say my mother has been preparing me for the life I now live all my life. S

he did not want me to go to Harvard. She did not want me to. She does not want me to be in Cambridge at E.D.S.

She said that the black church community. I need to be training black folks.

And, she thinks I have sold out. She's made it very clear when we've had this conversation. Then

I said," Mom, just give me five years." She says, "Kate, you're not coming back. I know you're not coming back." And

it's like. And, in a sense, I understand that she could see what I couldn't see. and that is I have to

be where I am. I have to be the bridge that I am because

maybe in teaching people who are going to move into powerful churches, and people who have clout in our society. If their

minds and souls can change, it can make life. They can be a

ripple effect for black people. And, I've already seen it happen with my

students at Harvard and at E.D.S. I mean, one of my students in particular went down to Jordan Marsh.

And, "Nigger" and all kinds of racist epithets were written in the dressing room. She came out, and she said to the black woman at the, to the salesclerk, I'd like to speak to the manager. And, she said, "Why?"  She said, "There is

racist

language and I found that." And, I need two black women to run the cash register, while I clean this place.  Here is this blond, beautiful, like a model woman, standing there saying this

And, they're like. My goodness. She must be changing or something.

So they go to the

manager. The manager's white. And this white woman obviously. says I find this language very offensive. The white manager says it must have just happened.

And, the student says, "No." Because there are

comments and more comments and I just find it very offensive, and I want it removed. And, the manager assured her it would be removed. And, I told her to go back and check on it and

see if it happened, but it's that kind of difference that those black women down at Jordan Marsh who worked there will never know Katie Cannon.

But that their life will be that much easier, just that much. And, that's

where I know I am making a difference. The pressure is on

in the sense of trying to make it

possible, not only for more black women and racial-ethnic women to come in the Presbyterian church, and get places,

but also more black women, racial-ethnic women to move within the Academy of Religion and the Society of Biblical Literature.

I mean, I haven't any business in my own opinion on that panel this morning for the Society of Biblical Literature. It is almost like

what we need a Wings and a Clarice  Martin [Martin, Clarice J.] Anita Jack-Davies. They need to be taught, introduced as serious Biblical scholars. Vincent Winbush, Cheryl and I.  Cheryl is a sociologist.  We've done a lot

of things but here we got a whole new generation  of women scholars. So, I am wearing both hats, always tried

to get the cloud of witnesses

larger as I can. But, what the Presbyterian Church has heard in this

process is that of the twenty black women ordained in the Presbyterian church, they often

get the same as Katie Cannon. I have got calls and accolades for

places that I have never been, sermons that I never delivered.

So then if it dismisses the other black

women who are doing things because. It's like Kate isn't the only person who's out here. So then, they often get angry

with me because when the white constituency in the Presbyterian church says that we

all look like basically, and the name of only one of us is Katie Cannon. It breaks up our collaborative community in a way that.  It is not necessary. It really is not necessary. Do the twenty of you keep in contact? Or, most of you? Or, any of you?

Well. I don't know what's happening now with this move to Louisville. But Ann DeVorts and

Jim Foster Reese [Reese, James Foster]

have been very supportive and every year for the past 10 years. we have had racial-ethnic clergywomen meet

once a year. And, that has saved a lot of lives. A lot of ministry. A lot of people

we get together for two days and we talk

about the career issues that we need to talk about. We set the agenda. W

e. It is church for me. It's the

only time I've ever cried in worship was at one of those services. Only time. And, I wouldn't even. I told

them. I couldn't even. Most of the time I stop myself. I couldn't even stop myself, you know. They did a laying on hands service for me.

And I was in the process of trying to adopt a little girl a couple of years ago.

And they just. They did it for themselves it. I

don't know if I would have gotten that anywhere else. I was love being with that group. I often

miss the meetings because of the time that they schedule it. They schedule it so clergywomen can come.

And so those of us who are in the academy often can't meet with them. You bring up one last thing. Would you talk

a little bit about being single?

You're mentioning trying to adopt made me think of that. Well. That's the reason. The little girl I was trying to adopt

was not available. Then a little boy

became available. The social worker came and said they. They. The supervisor

assured me that the child was going to be placed with me. And, after,  the social worker talked to me. She said she didn't think a

black single woman could raise a black child. So I don't know who she thinks

raises a lot of black children. And what caught me up short was that

I always always move from a hermeneutical position, being both black, female, and basically poor.

But this time I live in seminary housing. i have wall to wall carpets,

everything painted, job, everything. I just didn't dawn on me that being a black single woman was a, was liability

It did not dawn on me. And so I was. But

each time I was prone to tell it didn't go through, I felt like a death had happened, some kind of miscarriage or something

So I. I don't

know how one can do ministry and be married because it

requires so much time to do what one needs to do.

Married in the traditional sense.

Dr Clark [Clark, Isaac Rufus] always said to me, "Kate, any person in your life

would have to be somebody who loves you enough to let you do what you need to do." And, at one point,

I was flying around the country a lot for the Presbyterians, so I needed freedom to do that.

Now, I need freedom to write.

I like to tell people I'm an old maid because, see, I like that word. It gives me freedom to be

fussy and finicky and persnickity. And, it's like, now why is that chair moved out of place?

And, why? If I put something down, it stays there! you know. When I go visit my

sisters and their families and my brother and them, nothing stays in place. And, it is like, I am spoiled rotten!

I am so spoiledl. l and when I

turn my computer off, my computer stays off until

I turn it back on. And, it's like. And, even though I have a roommate. It's very clear

that my space is my space and my timing is my timing. And I do what I need to do. And, she does what she needs to do.