Sister Antona Ebo, who fought for civil rights in Selma, Ala., was one of the first African-American women to join what was then the Sisters of St. Mary, now the Franciscan Sisters of Mary.

Sister Ebo died Saturday (Nov. 11, 2017) at the Sarah Community, a retirement home in Bridgeton. She was 93.

Sister Ebo, a civil rights leader and hospital administrator during her life as a Franciscan nun, was recently honored at the Missouri History Museum for her civil rights activism.

She and more than 50 St. Louisans flew to Selma three days after the infamous “Bloody Sunday” when civil rights marchers were attacked on the Edmund Pettus Bridge.

Sister Ebo also led a prayer vigil for peace in Ferguson in 2015.

According to an article in the Archdiocese publication St. Louis Review, Elizabeth Louise Ebo was born April 10, 1924, in Bloomington, Ill., one of three children born to Daniel and Louise Teal Ebo. She was known as Betty when she was younger.

When she was 4, her mother died suddenly at age 29 during pregnancy. During the following two years in the height of the Depression, her father lost his job and their home.