Sister Antona Ebo, FSM, likes to start her day worshiping the Lord. But the 85-year-old retired health-care expert with the Franciscan Sisters of Mary can no longer drive to church. Instead, she watches daily Mass on television. “My first line of defense is the Spirit and the Eucharist,” says Sister Antona, who lives in a one-bedroom apartment on the north side of St. Louis, Missouri. “Yes, I would prefer a live Mass. Then I could receive Communion and be in the physical presence of the Lord.…But as the old folks say, ‘make do with what you got.’…I’ve got television Mass.”

Just as she watches televised services to replace live Masses, Sister Antona has always found a way to address her concerns. And there was a time when she was on the other side of the television screen. In 1965, while working in a St. Louis hospital, Sister Antona heard about the bloodshed that occurred during a voting-rights march in Selma, ­Alabama. So, in response to a call from the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., she and five other religious sisters joined a second protest there.

Sister Antona acknowledges she didn’t know what to expect in the demonstration. She did know the march from Selma to Montgomery might be dangerous, but she relied on her faith through prayer.

With protection from the National Guard and under the spotlight of television cameras, the protest eventually succeeded. March 2010 marks the forty-fifth anniversary of the controversial event, which attracted national attention and even inspired a PBS movie.

Although Sister Antona achieved far more than her allotted fifteen minutes of fame from the march, it is certainly not the single defining moment of her life. Nor was it a complete change of character for this feisty black lady who has spent her life bucking the status quo.

Since the march, she has become the first black Catholic sister to head a Catholic hospital in the U.S., and she helped found the National Black Sisters Conference—eventually serving as its president. She has also battled cancer and recently survived a flood. Through it all, she says the same strong trust in God that carried her through the march from Selma has encouraged her to face all her challenges.

She has shared her experiences with thousands on the speakers’ circuit—particularly with young people. She has been recognized for her efforts with numerous awards and has received three special doctoral degrees from various colleges, including Loyola University in Chicago, Illinois, and Aquinas Institute of Theology in St. Louis. A room is named in her honor at the Cardinal Rigali Pastoral Center in the Archdiocese of St. Louis—the only one named after a black woman at the site.

“She is an example of what social justice is all about,” said Gwendolyn Crimm, 59, a long-time friend who worked with Sister Antona in the former St. Louis Archdiocesan National Black Catholic Congress. “She comes up with a solution to the challenge. I always say, ‘When I grow up, I’m going to be like her.’?”