In grateful recognition of her decades of service to the Diocese of Mississippi and the Episcopal Church in the United States, Dr. Anita Parrott George was named as an honorary canon to the Cathedral Church of St. Andrew in Jackson, Mississippi, at the 192nd Annual Council which convened in Hattiesburg, Mississippi, January 25-27, 2019.
Dr. George is a lifelong Episcopalian and a Mississippi native who co-chairs the Task Force on Racial Reconciliation in the Diocese of Mississippi. She also was an advisory board vice chair for the William Winter Institute for Racial Reconciliation at the University of Mississippi.
She was elected to serve as a deputy to General Convention seven times, and was the national chair of the Anti-Racism Task Force. Dr. George also served two terms on the Executive Council of the Episcopal Church.
Holding degrees from Alcorn State University, the University of Florida, and Mississippi State University, as well as undertaking numerous post-doctoral courses, Dr. George devoted forty-one years of her life teaching young men and women in the field of education. She was designated professor emerita of education at Mississippi State University in 2002.
All of Dr. George’s work is grounded in an effort to live her Christian confession in a culture where racism’s deep roots affected her life and the lives of all people of color. Halting racism’s societal and individual wounds became a life’s work through education.
In a recent reflection, Dr. George wrote that much progress has been made. “Yes, we have been busy with efforts toward racial reconciliation and eliminating racism, and much has changed, many have been transformed. Yet, glaring statistics point to alarming trends, suggestive of the resurgence of our troubled racial past… We must go beyond the very necessary outer work of training and enactment of laws and programs to the solitude of our inner work of formation, transformation, and re-formation.”
The work that Dr. George has done in the Episcopal Church and beyond has helped pave the way for the necessary interior work of soul-searching to be accomplished. Her efforts to present racial reconciliation events throughout the nation are all couched in the understanding that the elimination of racism can only be reached when the work begins in a journey within.
Family and friends were present at the counsel’s closing Eucharist from throughout the diocese and the nation. Tears of joy were shed by many during the presentation, which included a video-taped greeting from Presiding Bishop Michael Curry.
“We celebrate the life’s work of Dr. Anita George in appreciation of her faith and devotion to help make Christ’s work of reconciliation be felt more deeply in this world. Anita, your ministry is a blessing to us all.” said the Rt. Rev. Brian Seage, Bishop of Mississippi.
The Rev. Scott Lenoir is the editor of the Mississippi Episcopalian.
