Martin de Porres Coleman

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Sister Martin de Porres Coleman, SNDdeN was born in El Dorado, Arkansas, and grew up in the Methodist Church, which was a segregated Church. Sunday School and other church activities for children always included music, singing and speaking. “This was teaching and learning about God, and our history,” she recalls. “Children were also taught that what gifts/talents we were given were to be shared with those who had less.”

Her older brother, Edwin, and she learned piano, violin and singing, so they were always in some musical activities in elementary school or church activities.

After her family moved to Alameda, California, she started eighth grade at St. Joseph School, where she met the SNDdeN. “After graduating, it was natural for me to go to Notre Dame Academy, which was ‘next door.’ At Notre Dame Academy, the SNDdeNs were very good to all of us students, and I developed more of my musical talents in piano and in voice.” They urged her to seek a music scholarship to the College of Notre Dame in Belmont, California.

After her freshman year, she entered the novitiate in 1952. As Sister Martin de Porres, she continued her education, earning a bachelor’s in music, specializing in voice.

Sister Martin de Porres Coleman at a concert in Salinas, Calif.

She was assigned to the music department at Notre Dame High School in Belmont, California. When the music department head was unable to return to school for a time, she was asked to fill in for her. “This surprising opportunity was both thrilling and daunting,” she recalls.

She taught music and other subjects at Sacred Heart School, Madonna del Sasso School and Notre Dame High School in Salinas, and at Notre Dame High Schools in San Jose, Alameda and San Francisco.

After 18 years of teaching, she was ready for a change. In 1968, she became a founding member of the National Black Sisters’ Conference (NBSC), an inclusive Catholic organization of vowed Black Catholic Women Religious and Associates from many congregations of religious across the United States. She has served on NBSC’s board of directors, served as treasurer, and led a significant initiative to reach out to Black Catholic Women. She has used my musical gifts at many NBSC gatherings over the years.

In 1970, she was invited by two Redemptorists to join them at Our Lady of Lourdes Parish, in mission to the Community in Hunters Point, which was the poor Black community of San Francisco. “Most of the people had been ‘pushed out’ of the center of the City many years before, and most were unable to afford to live elsewhere,” she recalls. “We formed a ministry team and served the people in their many needs.” She worked with the youth, forming a Gospel Choir, where the teens learned about music, leadership, service and responsibility, and Black Church History. An adult Gospel Choir was also formed, and both choirs helped to prepare the Liturgy for the Sunday Mass. Some aspects of both choirs endure today.

Sister Martin de Porres Coleman, SNDdeN cares for a Sister of Notre Dame de Namur at Mercy Retirement and Care Center.

She began sharing her gifts in eldercare settings in the 1990s. She was assistant to the manager of Senior Housing at Del Norte Apartments in El Cerrito, California, and administrator of the Thea Bowman Manor, a complex for seniors and those eligible for Section 8 housing.

In August 1998, the SNDdeNs of California made the decision to move their Sisters in retirement and those needing more care to Mercy Retirement and Care Center (MRCC) in Oakland, California, rather than maintaining their facility for these Sisters in Saratoga, California. She had been volunteering to help those who needed it because she lived nearby.

By that November, the Province had in place a Health Care Plan, and with Ann Comer, the director of Health Care, she worked as the Health Care Coordinator/Pastoral Coordinator for the Sisters at MRCC. She had begun volunteering to prepare and provide the music for the Liturgies at MRCC.

She is also a member of the SNDdeN U.S. East-West Province Anti-Racism Team and of the SNDdeN U.S. Leadership Anti-Racism Sub-Committee.

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Updated 2025