In an interview for 60 Minutes in 1987, Sister Thea Bowman, FSPA, told Mike Wallace, “I think the difference between me and some other people is that I am content to do my little bit. Sometimes people think they have to do big things in order to make change. If each one of us would light the candle, we’ve got a tremendous light.”

Remaining true to those words, Sister Thea Bowman crowded a lot of “little bit” into her fifty-two years. In retrospect, much of what she did transcended the adjective little. She made decisions and faced situations that required a great deal of courage and influenced thousands. Part of her “little bit” philosophy was “to try.” Before she died in 1990, she said she hoped her tombstone inscription would read “She tried.” Her wish was later granted.

Known as Bertha during her childhood, Sister Thea was born in Yazoo City, Mississippi, in 1937 and subsequently spent most of her childhood in nearby Canton. Her physician father, Theon, cared for many of Canton’s Black citizens. Her mother, Esther, was a teacher who instilled in Thea a love for learning and an appreciation of the arts and culture. She also hoped her daughter would be a proper, sophisticated, and sweet young lady. Thea, however, had a penchant to be bold, loud, and exuberant. At a very young age, she exhibited her tendency to search for meaning in life and to hold fast to what she believed. At the age of ten, this only child of Protestant parents decided to be baptized into the Catholic Church.

Both Theon and Esther realized the importance of a good education for their daughter, but the educational system for Black children in Canton was very poor. A year after Thea’s baptism, her mother enrolled her in the newly opened Holy Child Jesus School, founded by the Franciscan Sisters of Perpetual Adoration in a salvaged army barracks.

“After six years of public schooling, it was perfect joy,” Thea wrote during her novitiate. “When Sister Mildred Burger became my teacher, she put me through eight levels of Think and Do books in one year.…My friends and I were challenged every day to learn and help someone else. I was poor in math, so someone had to coach me. I was good in reading, so I had to help someone else.”

The welcoming, positive experience at Holy Child Jesus School contrasted with the rest of society’s attitude toward people of color. Thea witnessed the disrespect, rejection, and oppression inflicted on her people. But despite the prejudice she encountered, her mother cautioned her never to retaliate. “Returning insults makes you small like they are,” Esther said. Thea realized years later that she had been called to be a bridge of understanding and a peacemaker among various cultures.