In March 1965, the nation watched in horror as peaceful civil rights protesters in Selma, Alabama, were brutally attacked on “Bloody Sunday.” In response to Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.’s call for support, six Catholic nuns—including S. Roberta Schmidt (S. Ernest Marie) and S. Rosemary Flanigan (S. Thomas Marguerite) of the Sisters of St. Joseph of Carondelet, St. Louis Province—joined a delegation of 54 activists flying to Selma. Their presence made headlines, sparking both admiration and controversy.
When the sisters returned, KMOX Radio invited them to recount their experiences on Bob Hardy’s Sounding Board. What began as a one-hour segment stretched into a nearly 2-hour broadcast, with the sisters staying until 5:00 PM—The popularity of the program did not wane, and they returned for an 8:00 PM long-distance program. By day’s end, 20,000 callers had weighed in, reflecting the nation’s polarized views on race, religion, and civil rights.
After the 8:00 show, the two sisters returned to their ministry assignments at Fontbonne College’s campus as heroes. Students and faculty lined the dormitories cheering in support for their two sisters. These recordings capture a raw, unfiltered moment in history. Below are highlights from the broadcasts, featuring voices of support, condemnation, and moral questioning.
Some highlights from the radio broadcasts (Full recordings at bottom of page):
3:00-5:00 Interview highlights
Bob Hardy
Here’s our next call. Hello?
Caller 1
Hello Mr. Hardy, I would just like to say to our wonderfully dedicated sisters that I, I feel the civil rights cause is certainly just, but that the tactics are very wrong, Christ himself admonished civil disobedience. Even though it was found at that time, many of the laws were unjust.
How much more blessed from a Christian standpoint for the negro, who has been discriminated against to carry his cross with patience, forbearance, and humility rather than agitate and force their way? How do you justify civil disobedience from a Christian standpoint and, one more.
Bob Hardy
All right.
Caller 1
Are these dangerous marches and agitating tactics really examples of loving those that persecute you as Christ taught? Thank you.
Bob Hardy
OK. Thank you for calling.
S. Thomas Marguerite
If you had been in Brown’s Chapel yesterday and heard the the philosophy of nonviolence explained to us the way it was explained to us by an overall-clad Baptist minister.
I, I think I think you would have a different interpretation of what what civil disobedience, the whole nonviolence movement, what it really entailed. Those men love the people of Selma. They spoke against by name only four people. Governor Wallace and the committeeman, the mayor and the sheriff. But the rest of them, and they kept repeating over and over. “We may not use the priest. The Gospel of Jesus Christ, and use the tactics of Caesar.” I protest again. I did not think it was a case of civil disobedience. I think it was a case of demonstrating against civil disobedience. And I think that we were doing it in the language of love.
Sr. Ernest Marie
We have to remember that man has a dignity of personal value which no one can take from him. He then has to use whatever means are available to impress this upon the conscience of Americans that there are some individuals whose rights as a human being are not being respected.
Sr. Thomas Marguerite
and I think Christ would have been a civil rights-er today.
Bob Hardy
Hello your question or comment please?
Caller 2
Hi Bob, I was just saying I’ve been a Catholic all my life, and I don’t have any respect for these nuns at all. I think they belong in church, in their own place, in the convent. And if they want to do any praying, they should do it over there. I don’t think that’s any of their business to go over there and parade like a bunch of fools. I really don’t care for that. And what are they going to do about that, that there um, boy, that was shot? What are the nuns gonna do about these coloreds that are shooting their teachers and white teachers? I think they belong in their own place.
Bob Hardy
Alright, ma’am. Thank you very much.
S. Thomas Marguerite
I know that what what will happen to the boy that was shot and I know that the, the, the, the machinery is set up in Saint Louis to take care of of things like that. And the aggression of the negro on the white or the white on the negro in Saint Louis. But I know that we can’t sit in our convents and pray nor sit in our chapels and kneel in our chapels and pray and expect that all things will be accomplished by prayer alone. There is such a thing our Lord said as Good Work.
S. Ernest Marie
If we were unconcerned and indifferent in regard to the welfare of our fellow citizens, we would not be Christian.
8:00-10:00 Interview highlights
Bob Hardy
Hello your question please.
Caller 3
Comment, Sir, I’m a senior at Fontbonne College and 1st of all, I’d like to say that I noticed many of the calls this afternoon were concerned with the First Amendment, separation of church and state, which I don’t really think applies to this issue and I’m glad people are interested in the Constitution, but perhaps they would do better to concentrate on the 15th Amendment, which guarantees your voting rights.
And secondly, I would just like to say publicly how proud all the students are of the Sisters of Fontbonne, and that we obviously do not think that they should restrict their activities to the convent or to the Chapel. You know, they teach us personal commitment and personal involvement and by practicing it themselves, I think this is extremely fitting and necessary, just wanting to say that. Thank you.
Bob Hardy
Thank you very much for calling.
S. Thomas Marguerite
We’re proud to have a student from Fontbonne make such a tremendous statement.
S. Ernest Marie
We thank you Sue Sparberg!
Bob Hardy
Somebody you recognized?
S. Ernest Marie
We do.
Bob Hardy
Hello your question please.
Caller 4
I don’t have a question. I just like to try to balance some of the calls that came in this afternoon, that sort of lambasted the sisters. I think they did a wonderful thing, I last night when we saw them on TV, we were so proud of them because they were our sisters, and we’re not Catholic!
S. Thomas Marguerite
That there’s a tremendous spirit that our sisters and we’re not Catholics, this this is. This is the same spirit we had in Selma.
Bob Hardy
Hello your question please.
Caller 5
Mr. Hardy, first I would like to thank the sisters for going to Selma for going to Selma to help us and show sympathy for us that we’ve been trying to get a voting rights for 200 years. I am a negro mother that had a son that served 18 months in Vietnam. And I wonder with his black brothers being beaten and some because they want to vote. I wonder why fight in Vietnam when they can’t vote in Selma. Thank you.
Bob Hardy
Alright, ma’am. Thank you for calling.
Sisters, a comment?
S. Thomas Marguerite
So many of the witnesses yesterday, Mr. Hardy remarked on the same point that the that the negro woman just mentioned on the phone. How, you know, they had fought they themselves, some colored, some white, how they themselves had fought for American rights. And then they saw these very rights being violated. And that’s why we went down there.
S. Ernest Marie
You know, it’s unfortunate that we really are not very rational in all of our actions. We have to admit it.
Bob Hardy
Do you consider your actions in Selma? You’re going there rational?
Sr. Ernest Marie
Yes, I surely do. But would that we could live a 24 hour a day on rational acts?
Bob Hardy
Hello. All right. Yes, Sir. Where are you calling from? Selma, AL. Selma. AL. Yes, Sir. May we have your question or comment please?
Caller 6
Well, I have no question. I do have one question about I do have a comment for Sister Thomas Marguerite and sister Ernest Marie. And I would like to mention this. I’m sure that they came down here in good faith and what they believed in. I’m on the other side of the fence as I am a segregationist and I think that they were completely in the wrong.
We stand for integration and we have integration all over the world. I mean we we are, they’re trying to integrate us here and we stand for segregation. If you have integration It will tend to lead eventually to intermarriages. Then you will have mulattos, misfits and a general degradation of our whole our whole civilization.
We don’t believe that is right and we don’t think it’s the right thing to do. We do believe in rights for whites and negroes, but we believe that these marches and everything are not leading to that. And I would like to ask the sisters to answer the question if they believe in integration and intermarriages and mulatto children, what is our generation and future generations gonna amount to? thank you.
Bob Hardy
Alright, Sir. Thank you very much for calling, Sister Ernest Marie you have an answer?
S. Ernest Marie
I definitely believe in integration. The threat of intermarriage as you posed it is a red herring, and it has always been such. Negro people do not desire intermarriage and if they did fine! There is absolutely nothing wrong with it whatsoever. Our society has put some bad conditions on it, but morally there’s absolutely nothing wrong. I forget the other part of your question right now, Sister Thomas Margaret?
S. Thomas Marguerite
See. But my point is, Sir, and thank you very much for being so very respectful. But what my point is, why doesn’t the integration necessarily lead to intermarriage? I I think I think this is a false effect to cause or cause effect relationship.
Bob Hardy
Sisters, may I ask you, are you at all surprised by the reception of a phone call from Selma AL this evening.
S. Thomas Marguerite
I think I think the gentleman’s tremendous respectfulness towards us considering you know what? Well, the action of the of the troopers, etcetera. I I I was very I was very pleased with that.
S. Ernest Marie
I’m very pleased too. We fear what we do not know. This so-called intermarriage is not a threat. Negro people, white people, whatever race you want to speak of or ethnic group, they’re simply seeking an acknowledgement of rights which are common to all men. Skin pigmentation is an accidental quality. It has nothing to do with the dignity and right belonging to the individual person.
Bob Hardy
And a local call, hello.
Caller 7
Hello, I would like to congratulate the sisters for going to Selma. And I would also like to say to them that they remind me of the Marine first mission in the marine, him first to fight for right and freedom and to keep our honor clean and to the people who cry with the clothes and mind and condos on ill treatments of their fellow citizens. Which law and order do you wish the negroes to obey? They have 4 in southern states: one for the white resident, one for the non-white resident, one for the Negro resident and one for the non-negro resident. Thank you.
Bob Hardy
OK. Thank you very much for calling.
Bob Hardy
1st to fight for right and Gloria.
S. Thomas Marguerite
I, I, I Appreciate being, you know, likened to a Marine, I sort of like that. That’s a good analogy. Thanks very much.
Bob Hardy
I think we ought to point out, though, that.
In all fairness, you were the first nuns to participate in this kind of a demonstration, were you not?
S. Thomas Marguerite
What do you think?
S. Ernest Marie
We were the first nuns in the Selma affair. We think we were the first ones to leave home territory. Sisters have been demonstrating in hometowns for civil rights issue this we know.
Bob Hardy
And another long distance call sisters. May we ask the origin of this call?
Caller 8
Wichita, KS. Yeah.
Bob Hardy
Alright. Sir, may we have your question or comment please?
Caller 8
Yeah, it’s not a question. It’s a little bit of a comment. I think it might help to clear up this race situation to some extent.
I’ve got it written out here I went to school until I was in the 4th grade out here in Kansas where there were more colored kids than white kids till that was back in 1936.
Here in Wichita, I go to a million and a half dollar great big Methodist Church, brand new real. It’s a cathedral they call it.
And we have white and colored and oriental members, and they all look and act alike as far as I can see. And they look more like Methodists than they do race members and I think that’s fine. I hope it is anyway, and we’ve got a member of our choir that is colored and he’s a very fine fellow. And to me, when I go to church on Sunday, it looks more like high school days in Kansas and it does segregation or anything else, see. Looks like America, we have had no intermarriage except in one case, and that those that couple moved to Denver and are able to associate with other mixed marriages.
If you want to get technical about it, I presume they could start a third race on this theme. To eliminate this problem. If you wanted to look at it that way. However, I don’t think you need to get carried away with this race problem as it is, but they happen to be both college graduates, one was a school teacher and one was a colored lawyer.
Bob Hardy
All right, Sir.
Caller 8
I don’t think as groups that we can force individual decisions. I think it’s ridiculous. I think it’s like the man who kissed the cow.
I think it’s individual preference and it may be the left hand of God anyway. Who knows? Because Hitler believed in the super race, you know.
I probably would discourage my children from mixed marriages. Maybe because of emotional feelings and social problems involved. But if they were determined, I don’t see how I could stop them.
We have not had segregation in Kansas schools that I know of ever, and it didn’t hurt any of us at all. I think we got along fine and we got to know each other and love and respect each other as individuals.
And that’s about all I have to say. I think that might help clear up some of the problems that people are worried about because Kansas has never had segregation. We’ve just been a plain old Jane state trying to do our best, see? And I think that maybe is what people should start doing a lot of places. See?
Bob Hardy
Alright, Sir. Thank you very much for the call and the comments.
Caller 8
Yes, Sir. Bye.
Bob Hardy
Bye. Sisters, any comments on the comment from Kansas?
S. Ernest Marie
I would say hurrah for Wichita, KS and the Methodist Cathedral, and then a more serious point. Anthropologists are telling us more and more today. Let’s discard this term. Race is only a mental concept. It’s only a mental category that we use. It’s far more appropriate and meaningful to discuss ethnic groups.
These recordings reveal the sisters’ unwavering conviction while facing those who opposed them and what they stood for. Some listeners saw them as radicals; others, as moral beacons. Their defiance of silence helped shift the narrative on civil rights, proving that faith without action is hollow.
Full KMOX Interview Recordings
Listen and Reflect
What would you have said on that day in 1965?
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