August 12 was one of the darkest days I’ve seen since I became dean of HDS.
White nationalists marched in Charlottesville, Virginia to protest the removal of a statue of Robert E. Lee, a confederate general during the American Civil War. The group, which included neo-Nazis, members of the Ku Klux Klan, and other white supremacists, was met by counterdemonstrators. Violence broke out. Some of the demonstrators from racist groups also walked through the streets of Charlottesville and threatened people of color and places of worship. A young man described as a Nazi sympathizer drove his car into the counterdemonstrators, killing one and injuring many more.
Harvard Divinity School—in our mission, values, and community—stands completely in opposition to the ideology of white supremacy, hatred, and violence on display in Charlottesville last Saturday. We seek to inspire new narratives, new communities, and whole new cultures—ones that extend to all members the full humanity to which each is entitled. Our goal is to generate alternatives to the rituals of domination and dehumanization fostered by white supremacists and white nationalists in order to create more just societies.
At a sunrise prayer service on Saturday morning, HDS Professor Cornel West addressed the counterdemonstrators, telling them that he had come “bearing witness to love and justice….” He then locked arms with clergy from a range of religious traditions, including Rev. Susan Frederick-Gray, MDiv ’01, the newly-elected president of the Unitarian Universalist Association, and marched into the streets of Charlottesville. They were joined there by Rev. Tracy Howe Wispelwey, MDiv ’12 and Rev. Susan Hayward, MDiv ’07, who helped create a safe space for the medics who tried to revive Heather Heyer, the young woman killed in the attack. Joshua Eaton, MDiv ’10, was there covering the events as a reporter for ThinkProgress.
Since then, HDS alumni have offered comfort, strength, and hope to those struggling with the aftermath of the violence. Rev. Willie Bodrick II, MDiv ’14, put events in the context of America’s history of racism and violence for his inner city congregation. Rev. Laura Everett, MDiv ’04, executive director of the Massachusetts Council of Churches, spoke about what clergy can do to combat racism. Other alums and members of our community have spoken out against hate and bigotry.
These are times when it can be difficult, as Professor West often says, not to let despair get the last word. When I look at the faculty, students, and graduates of this School who stand on the front lines of the struggle for social justice, however, I remember the words of one of the earliest HDS alumni, the Rev. Theodore Parker:
“I do not pretend to understand the moral universe; the arc is a long one, my eye reaches but little ways; I cannot calculate the curve and complete the figure by the experience of sight; I can divine it by conscience. And from what I see I am sure it bends towards justice.”
I’ve never been more proud—nor felt more privileged—to be the dean of Harvard Divinity School.
David N. Hempton
Dean of the Faculty of Divinity
Alonzo L. McDonald Family Professor of Evangelical Theological Studies
John Lord O'Brian Professor of Divinity