African American clergywomen have shaped church and society in the face of formidable odds.  Sociologists have documented that both historically and at the present time, black women have either been excluded or thwarted in their pursuit for positions involving church leadership, including the preaching and pastoring ministry in the black church.  Moreover, black clergywomen’s stories have been hidden and marginalized in church gender politics-- a reality that will only be changed as these stories are told and made public. The National African American Clergywomen Oral History Project seeks to right this wrongful silencing of women’s stories by unapologetically revealing the truth about gender relations in the black church. It seeks to reveal the role of womanist/feminist gender politics in the advancement of black clergywomen in the church and to contribute meaningfully to the amelioration of sexist gender practices in church communities.

Phase One of the “Barrier Breakers and Bridge Builders” oral history project collected oral histories of selected national black clergywomen who were the first ordained or elected to the episcopacy in mainline Protestant or historically black denominations. Phase Two of this project involves transcribing and editing a book-length project of the collected oral histories to make available to present and future clergywomen, seminarians, the religious community, and the general public stories of how these remarkable clergywomen broke new ground, mothered a womanist/feminist consciousness, nurtured gifts of faith, and introduced fresh insights, not only into the articulation of black religious history, but into the history of women shaping church, culture and society. This project’s goal is to empower clergy and lay women through the experiences of their religious predecessors to defy gender, religious and racial cultural obstacles in order to transform them, and in the process to embolden women to seek occupational leadership in the pulpits that were once spaces of gender exclusion and racial segregation.