A Devout Catholic
Alice Martin West was a lifelong, devout Catholic. Her faith was not a private matter separate from her public life — it was the foundation of everything she did. Her activism, her hospitality, her work registering voters, her care for underprivileged children, her willingness to shelter civil rights workers at personal risk: all of these flowed from a Catholic faith that understood love of God as inseparable from love of neighbor.
She was a member of Our Lady Queen of Peace Catholic Church in Selma, Alabama — a parish with a history as rich and as significant as her own. The church was served by the Society of St. Edmund (the Edmundites), a religious order that had been present in Selma since the early twentieth century and that took a clear and courageous stand in support of the civil rights movement in 1965.
The Alice Martin West "Saints in Action" Scholarship, created by her family in her memory, describes her as "a proud Selma native, devoted Catholic, and fearless civil rights activist" — a formulation that deliberately places her Catholic identity alongside her civil rights identity, because for Alice West, these were not two separate things. They were one.
"We have come a long way. But maybe we can continue to move forward to make this a better world for all people."— Alice Martin West, 2020
Alice Martin West — devout Catholic and civil rights activist
Randall Miller Funeral Service, 2023
Alice Martin West's Celebration of Life was held on March 11, 2023, at Our Lady Queen of Peace Catholic Church in Selma — the same church where she had worshipped for decades and where her faith had been formed.
Our Lady Queen of Peace Catholic Church — 309 Washington St., Selma, AL 36703 — Alice West's parish for decades
Family photograph
Our Lady Queen of Peace Catholic Church
Our Lady Queen of Peace Catholic Church, located at 309 Washington Street, Selma, Alabama 36703, is one of the most historically significant Black Catholic parishes in the American South. Founded and served by the Society of St. Edmund (Edmundites), the parish has been a center of Black Catholic life in Selma for generations. It was the church where Alice West worshipped, where she was formed in her faith, and where her Celebration of Life was held on March 11, 2023.
The Edmundites came to Selma in the early twentieth century as part of their mission to serve Black Catholics in the American South. Their parish was a gathering place for the Black Catholic community that Alice West belonged to, and their institutions — including Good Samaritan Hospital — provided care to marchers injured during the 1965 demonstrations.
Brown Chapel AME Church
Brown Chapel African Methodist Episcopal Church, located directly adjacent to the George Washington Carver Homes where Alice West raised her eleven children, served as the command center and spiritual home of the 1965 Selma Voting Rights Campaign. It was from Brown Chapel that marchers departed for the Edmund Pettus Bridge on Bloody Sunday, March 7, 1965.
Though Alice West was a devout Catholic who worshipped at Our Lady Queen of Peace, Brown Chapel was the church of her neighbors, her community, and the movement itself. The West family's apartment was so close to Brown Chapel that, as Rachel West Nelson recalled, movement leaders would walk directly from the church to the West home. Alice and Lonzy West are listed on the Civil Rights Freedom Wall at Brown Chapel AME Church, recognizing their contributions to the 1965 campaign.
Brown Chapel AME Church, Selma — command center of the 1965 Voting Rights Campaign, adjacent to the West family home
Historical photograph
The Society of St. Edmund in Selma
The Society of St. Edmund (Edmundites) has served the Black Catholic community of Selma, Alabama since the early twentieth century. Their Southern Mission, headquartered in Selma, operated schools, a hospital (Good Samaritan Hospital), and parishes for Black Catholics in the Black Belt region of Alabama.
During the civil rights movement of 1965, the Edmundites took a public stand in support of voting rights. The Catholic News Archive records their backing of the Selma campaign as early as February 1965. Their historical records, held at the Amistad Research Center at Tulane University and at Saint Michael's College in Vermont, document the movement and the community that Alice West was part of.
The Josephite Mission in Selma maintains a historical database of papers and records that document this history, including materials related to the West family and the broader Black Catholic community of Selma. This archive is an important resource for understanding Alice West's faith community and its role in the civil rights movement.
- Amistad Research Center, Tulane University
Society of St. Edmund Selma Alabama Records — the primary institutional archive of the Edmundites' work in Selma
- Saint Michael's College, Vermont
Edmundite Southern Missions Digital Collection — digitized records of the Edmundite mission in Selma
- Sisters of St. Joseph Archive, Rochester, NY
Selma Alabama Collection — records of the Sisters of St. Joseph's service in Selma during 1965
Faith as the Foundation of Justice
For Alice West, Catholic faith and civil rights activism were not in tension — they were expressions of the same commitment. The Catholic social teaching tradition, with its emphasis on the dignity of every human person, the preferential option for the poor, and the call to work for justice in the world, provided the theological framework for her activism.
Jonathan Daniels, the Episcopal seminary student who lived with the West family, was himself a man of deep faith who understood his civil rights work as a religious vocation. Alice West's description of him — "He taught my family all about the wonders of God's love" — suggests that the West home was a place where faith and activism were discussed together, where the theological dimensions of the struggle for justice were taken seriously.
Alice West's willingness to shelter civil rights workers, including white activists like Daniels, in a city where such hospitality was dangerous, reflects a Catholic understanding of the universal dignity of the human person that transcended the racial categories of Jim Crow Alabama. Her home was a living refutation of segregation — a place where Black and white people ate together, slept under the same roof, and worked together for justice.
Alice and Lonzy West — faith and action united
Family photograph, 1965
The Selma-to-Montgomery March, 1965 — Catholic clergy and laity marched alongside Black Alabamians
Good Samaritan Hospital & the Catholic Community
Good Samaritan Hospital, operated by the Edmundite Sisters, was one of the few hospitals in Selma that would treat Black patients. During the events of Bloody Sunday and the subsequent marches, it provided medical care to injured marchers. The hospital was a tangible expression of the Catholic commitment to human dignity that Alice West embodied in her own life.
The Sisters of St. Joseph also operated a school and provided care to the Black community in Selma. Their records, now held at the Sisters of St. Joseph Archive in Rochester, New York, document their service during 1965 and the broader context of Catholic engagement with the civil rights movement in Selma.
The 60th anniversary of the Selma marches in 2025 prompted renewed attention to the Catholic Church's role in the civil rights movement, with the Catholic Extension Society documenting the contributions of Catholic clergy, religious, and laypeople — including the lay Catholics like Alice West who were the backbone of the movement in Selma.