Herstory

“Womanist thought takes as its primary focus the life-world of African American women.  One could say that it takes the ‘best’ of at least two socio-political and intellectual movements to construct viable ways of analyzing the work of African American women.” 

-Dr. Jacquelyn Grant

While articulated under the leadership of Bennett College President Johnnetta B. Cole, Ph.D., the origins and support for a Womanist Religious Studies Program at Bennett College did not just begin in the 21^st century.  Bennett College was founded in 1873 as a co-educational institution, through the inspiration of newly emancipated slaves.  Its first sessions were held in the basement of St. Matthews Methodist Episcopal Church in Greensboro, NC.  The Freedman’s Aid and Southern Education Society of the Methodist Episcopal Church assumed responsibility for the support of the school.  Lyman Bennett, a Methodist minister from Troy, NY, gave the first thousand dollars for purchase of land and the erection of a building large enough to house the classrooms and also serve as a dormitory. Shortly thereafter he died of pneumonia while seeking funds for the purchase of the school bell. The institution was named Bennett Seminary in his memory, and its first building was named Bennett Hall.  Achieving college status in l889, Bennett as a co-educational institution graduated men and women who assumed positions of leadership in all walks of life. Two of the first African American bishops in the Methodist Episcopal church were graduates of Bennett College.

Early in the twentieth century the Women’s Home Missionary Society decided to build a college for the education of black women. The Board of Education of the Methodist Church offered the Bennett College site for the project. The college was to be operated jointly by the Missionary Society and the Board of Education. The reorganization of Bennett College was effected in 1926 when it became a senior college for women. By 1930, the College had a population of 138 women. Bennett was one of the first colleges to be accredited by, and to become a member of the Southern Association of Colleges and Universities. The College is also a member of the University Senate of the United Methodist Church.

Over the years Bennett College has continued its connection to the United Methodist Church by participating in conference activities and by continuing its teaching of religion and religion-related courses.  In the early 1970s, religion courses were taught by the College Chaplain and Dr. Helen Trobian, a graduate of Union Theological Seminary in New York. From 1973 to the present, religion courses have been taught by Bennett College Chaplains, Methodist ministers, and Dr. Ruth Lucier, a very active United Methodist Church layperson and Professor of Philosophy and Religion at Bennett College.  In 2002, Dr. Lucier and the current Bennett College Chaplain attended the United Methodist Church’s General Board of Global Ministries Conference for Chaplains and Teachers of Religion.

Bennett College for Women has already played a major part in black religious scholarship through its connection to womanist theology.  In her 1983 collection of essays, Alice Walker coined the term “womanist” as an alternate word for “black feminist.”  Her lyrical description of the word encompasses the diversity of black women’s spiritual, political, cultural, emotional and sexual lives.  In White Women’s Christ, Black Women’s Jesus: Feminist Christology and Womanist Response, Bennett College alumna Jacquelyn Grant is the first scholar to directly advocate that religious scholars borrow and adapt Walker’s term.  Throughout the academic world, Jacquelyn Grant is known as the mother of womanist theology.  As a historically black college for women, and the nurturing ground for Jacquelyn Grant, Bennett College for Women is an ideal place for developing a Womanist Religious Studies program.  On August 9, 2004, Bennett College for Women welcomed Dr. Monica A. Coleman as its first Director of Womanist Religious Studies to campus. 

By offering Womanist Religious Studies at Bennett College for Women, we believe that we can make a contribution to scholarship in historically black colleges and universities where very little is being done in this discipline at the undergraduate level.  This program also allows us to broaden the scope of black feminist and womanist thought within the academy, where the voices of young black women, such as our students, are often not heard.