Harvard Divinity School marked the opening of the 2022-23 academic year with its 207th Convocation. Harvard Radcliffe Institute Dean Tomiko Brown-Nagin delivered the address, titled "Legacies of Slavery: Bondage and Resistance." Brown-Nagin chaired the Presidential Initiative on Harvard and the Legacy of Slavery, which issued its report earlier this year.
The ceremony included a welcome from HDS Dean David N. Hempton, an introduction by Tracey E. Hucks, Victor S. Thomas Professor of Africana Religious Studies at HDS and Suzanne Young Murray Professor at Harvard Radcliffe Institute, music by Aric Flemming, MDiv ’19, and Christopher Hossfeld, director of music and ritual at HDS, and readings by HDS students Ahmaad Edmund and Siana Monet.
Full transcript:
SPEAKER 1: Convocation of Harvard Divinity School Harvard University at the Opening of the 207th year, September 1st, 2022.
[MUSIC - "AIN'T GONNA LET NOBODY TURN ME AROUND"]
ARIC FLEMMING: (SINGING) Ain't going to let nobody turn me around, turn me around, turn me around. Ain't nobody turn me around. I'm going to keep on walking, keep on talking, marching up to freedom land. Ain't going to let segregation turn me around, turn me around, turn me around. Ain't going to let segregation turn me around. I'm going to keep on walking, keep on talking, marching up to freedom land. Ain't going to let discrimination turn me around, turn me around, turn me around. Ain't going to let discrimination turn me around. I'm going to keep on walking, keep on talking, marching up to freedom land.
Ain't going to let incarceration turn me around, turn me around, turn me around. Ain't going to let incarceration turn me around. I'm going to keep on walking, keep on talking, marching up to freedom land. Ain't going to let politicians turn me around, turn me around, turn me around. Ain't going to let politicians turn me around. I'm going to keep on walking, keep on talking, marching up to freedom land.
Ain't going to let injustice turn me around, turn me around, turn me around. Ain't going to let injustice turn me around. I'm going to keep on walking, keep on talking, marching up to freedom land. Ain't going to let nobody turn me around, turn me around, turn me around. Ain't going to let nobody turn me around. I'm going to keep on walking, keep on talking, marching up to freedom land.
[CLAPPING]
DAVID HEMPTON: Hi, everybody. Welcome to our first in-person convocation after a two-year hiatus.
[CHEERING]
And our first in this beautiful room as well. So thanks for coming. So we're delighted to have you with us for this very special occasion. I want to begin our 207th convocation, our annual gathering ritual with an acknowledgment of the land and people. So we offer this statement by the Harvard University Native American program. Harvard University is located on the traditional and ancestral land of the Massachusett, the original inhabitants of what is now known as Boston and Cambridge. We pay respect to the people of the Massachusett tribe, past and present, and honor the land itself, which remains sacred to the Massachusett people.
So my name is David Hempton. And as Dean of the Harvard Divinity School, I'm delighted to welcome all of you, colleagues on the faculty and staff of the Divinity School, our colleagues from other schools here at Harvard, all of our incoming and returning students, our alums and friends, near and far, from all around the world. So welcome, everyone. It's really great to have you here. Please permit me a word of thanks to everyone at HDS who helped put together today's festivities. A special thanks to everyone in the dean's office and the office for Academic Affairs, communications and IT staff for tech support and guidance, and to Chris Hosfield, and to our wonderful alum, Aric Fleming for the music they will contribute to today's event.
Special thanks to Cameron Le Whitaker whose without his creative administrative support, this event would not have happened. She had to cope with my inefficiencies along the way. So many thanks also to our student readers, Siana and Ahmaad. And especially to our speaker, my fellow Dean and sufferer colleague, Nicole Brown Nathan. Thanks so much for joining us. It's great to have you here. Welcome.
But before we hear the readings that Dr. Brown Nathan selected and the keynote address entitled-- Legacies of Slavery Bondage and Resistance. And very proud and delighted to introduce my new colleague, Tracy Hucks, Victor S. Thomas, Professor of Africana religious studies at the Harvard Divinity School, and Suzanne Young Mary, Professor at Harvard Radcliffe Institute who will introduce today's honored speaker. So this is Professor Hucks first few weeks at HDS. And we're so very delighted that he has returned to the place where her academic journey began, sort of.
Tracy Hucks is a nationally known, a distinguished scholar of Africana Studies and American Religious History. She has served most recently as provost and Dean of the faculty at Colgate University, where she was James A storing Professor of Religion and Africana and Latin American Studies. Professor Hucks previously taught at Davidson College and at Harvard Ford College. She's a graduate of Colgate. She earned her AM and PhD from Harvard University.
So Professor Hucks is the author of Yoruba Traditions and African-American Religious Nationalism, which was published in 2012. And was a finalist for the American Academy of Religion First Book Award and the Journal of Africana Religions Albert J. Raboteau Book Prize. She has a major book forthcoming this fall on religious identity in Trinidad entitled Africans in the White Colonial Imagination.
So I can't think of anyone more suited to introduce today's convocation speaker than Tracy. So, Tracy, a very warm welcome to HDS. We're so glad to have you. Please come now if you will and introduce our distinguished speaker. So thank you everyone for joining.
[CLAPPING]
TRACY HUCKS: Good afternoon. Let me begin with a profound word of gratitude. I want to thank Dean Hempton for inviting me to participate in this year's convocation and the commemoration of Harvard Divinity School. 207 years of academic excellence, moral leadership, and a place its founders established to quote advance learning and perpetuate it to posterity. I also want to extend my appreciation to the Harvard Divinity School faculty, staff, and students who entrust me, a new faculty member with representing you and welcoming and introducing today's speaker. A speaker to whom I am likewise indebted for what it means for me to return to my Alma mater as a Suzanne Young Mary Professor, the first endowed professorship that bridges the Harvard Divinity School with the Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study.
Today's event is symbolic of new beginnings. To the colleagues, students, and guests of Harvard Divinity School, it is a place of honor for me to introduce Dean Tomiko Brown-Nagin. Dean Brown-Nagin is the current Dean of the Harvard Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study, the Daniel P.S. Paul Professor of Constitutional Law at Harvard Law School, and Professor of History on the faculty of Arts and Sciences. Through her esteemed and respected leadership, she was invited by the president to chair and to lead the presidential committee on Harvard and the legacy of slavery, which resulted in $100 million allocation and the forthcoming publication, the Legacy of Slavery at Harvard report and recommendations of the Presidential Committee which will be published by Harvard University press this month. And of which Dean Brown-Nagin is the principal author.
Regarding this initiative on the legacy of slavery, she believes, quote, "We can't dismantle what we don't understand, and we can't understand contemporary inequity and injustice unless we reckon honestly with our history." Dean Brown-Nagin is the author of the most recent tax Civil Rights Queen: Constant Motley and the Struggle for Equality published this year, the co-editor of the volume Reconsidering the Insular Cases: the Past and Future of American Empire as well as the author of the Multiple Award winning book, Courage to Dissent: Atlanta and the Long History of the Civil Rights Movement.
Her sound leadership and scholarship have resulted in public authorship, interviews, and quotes in the Washington Post, CNN, Politico, the Boston Globe, PBS, PBS NewsHour, NPR, the New York Times, the Chronicle of Higher Education, the New Republic, C-SPAN, and many more venues. She is an alumnus of Furman University as an undergraduate, Duke University MA and PhD, and Yale University JD, and was awarded the Distinguished Alumni Award by Duke University.
She was elected a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, the American Philosophical Society, the American Law Institute, the American Bar Foundation, and honored as one of the 50 most influential people of color in higher education. What I share with you is a stellar record of professional accomplishment and achievement. As I draw to a close, I want Dean Brown-Nagin to know that this is Harvard Divinity School where those of multireligious and non-religious traditions are welcomed and respected.
I drawn a metaphor from one of these traditions when I referenced the book of Matthew where Jesus is quoted as saying, "But what about you? Jesus asks, "Who do you say I am? In preparation for this moment, I collectively ask over a dozen administrators, faculty, staff, and students across the University, who is Dean Brown-Nagin? So you will know today who is to come before you. I will leave you with these voices. Regarding herself, Dean Brown-Nagin says, her ancestral roots, her family, her community are sort of her superpower. That her story is one of ascent. And that because her parents were not able to achieve their potential because of discrimination, they promoted education as a pathway to social mobility for her.
Additionally, one administrator respectfully stated, Dean Brown-Nagin has quote, "Clarity of vision." In particular, a bold and ambitious vision of what higher education can and should achieve in the world. A strong commitment to core values including the importance of engaging across difference even and especially where we disagree. Has genuine human care for those around her and is an inspiring leader who values collaboration and engagement.
Likewise, a faculty colleague enthusiastically stated, Tomiko is warm, considerate, funny, gracious, kind, agreeable, thoughtful, sincere, and so welcoming. Tomiko welcomed me into the Radcliffe family with enthusiasm. And for that, I will always be grateful. I could go on and on. My affection and respect for Tomiko is not a secret.
Yet another faculty member remark with earnest. Tomiko is a loyal and supportive friend with an excellent and on point sense of humor. Also, she's a wildly enthusiastic as well as highly knowledgeable basketball fan.
[LAUGHING]
She's an engaging and inclusive host, drawing people in. While another colleague wanted me to quote, "Emphasize Tomiko as a multifaceted figure, prize-winning historian, law school faculty administrator. She is an activist within those roles in terms of the topics she chooses and the policy decisions that she oversees. She has established priorities at Radcliffe that support social justice." Similarly, one student fondly stated, I met Dean Brown-Nagin in 2020 when I was a member of the Student Advisory Board at the Radcliffe Institute. I remember that she was really kind to answer the questions of all students, and amazingly generous in showing interest and support for our requests and remarks. I remember noticing her utter devotion to Radcliffe's mission and how graciously she had some of her visions for the future.
Furthermore, one colleague expressed, I'd say that Dean Brown-Nagin is a bold and imaginative leader. She is really dynamite so much of our work at Radcliffe with her vision of what the Institute can be. She is sharp, reserved with a professional demeanor yet surprises one with her wit and frankness at times. And finally, a colleague offered their profound respect of the Dean in a litany of words-- precise, interested, curious, kind, inclusive, collaborative.
Within the African religious traditions that I teach and study, one's name, one's name speaks to one's birth and one's destiny. Tomiko means rich woman in Japanese. So to the Harvard Divinity School community, I am honored to present to you Dean Tomiko rich woman Brown-Nagin. Thank you.
[CLAPPING]
[MUSIC - "TROUBLE OF THE WORLD"]
ARIC FLEMMING: (SINGING) Soon I will be done with the troubles of this world, the troubles of this world, the trouble of this world. Soon I will be done with the troubles of this world. I'm going home to live with God. No more, no more weeping, weeping, weeping, and wailing. No more, no more weeping and wailing. No more, no more weeping and wailing. I'm going home to live with God. Soon I will be done with the troubles of this world, the troubles of this world, all the troubles of this world. Soon I will be done with the troubles of this world. I'm going home to live with God.
[CLAPPING]
SIANA MONET: This is a selection from Martin Luther King's I've Been to the Mountaintop speech. "If I were standing at the beginning of time with a possibility of general and panoramic view of the whole human history up to now, and the Almighty said to me, 'Martin Luther King, which age would you like to live in?' I would take my mental flight by Egypt through or rather across the Red Sea through the wilderness on toward the promised land. And in spite of its magnificence, I wouldn't stop there. I would move on by Greece, and take my mind to Mount Olympus. And I would see Plato, Aristotle, Socrates, Euripides, and Aristophanes assembled around the Parthenon as they discuss the great and eternal issues of reality, but I wouldn't stop there.
I would go on even to the great heyday of the Roman Empire, and I would see developments around there through various emperors and leaders, but I wouldn't stop there. I would even come up to the day of the Renaissance and get a quick picture of all that the Renaissance did for the cultural and aesthetic life of man, but I wouldn't stop there. I would even go by a way that the man for whom I'm named has his habitat and I would watch Martin Luther as he tacked his 95 Thesis on the door of the church in Wittenberg, but I wouldn't stop there. I would come on up even to 1863 and watch a vacillating president by the name of Abraham Lincoln finally come to the conclusion that he had to sign the Emancipation Proclamation, but I wouldn't stop there. I would even come up to the early 30s and see a man grappling with the problems of the bankruptcy of his nation and come with an eloquent cry that we have nothing to fear but fear itself, but I wouldn't stop there.
Strangely enough, I would turn to the almighty and say, 'If you allow me to live just a few years in the second half of the 20th century, I will be happy.' Now, that's a strange statement to make because the world is all messed up. The nation is sick. Trouble is in the land. Confusion all around. It's a strange statement, but I know somehow that only when it is dark enough can you see the stars. And I see God working in this period of the 20th century in a way that men in some strange way are responding. Something is happening in our world. The masses of people are rising up. And wherever they are assembled today, whether they're in Johannesburg, South Africa, Nairobi, Kenya, Accra, Ghana New York City, Atlanta, Georgia, Jackson, Mississippi, or Memphis, Tennessee, the cry is always the same. We want to be free."
[CLAPPING]
ARIC FLEMMING: (SINGING) Oh, freedom, oh, freedom. Freedom over me. And before I be a slave, I'll be buried in my grave and go home to my Lord and be free.
[CLAPPING]
AHMAAD EDMUND: I've Been to the Mountaintop, selections from the Reverend Dr. Martin Luther King jr. "Now we're going to March again. We've got to March again. I remember in Birmingham, Alabama when we were in that majestic struggle, there we would move out of the 16th Street Baptist church day after day. By the hundreds, we would move out and Bull Connor would just tell them to send the dogs forth, and they did come. But we just went before the dog singing Ain't Going to Let Nobody Turn Me Round. O'Connor next would say, 'Turn the fire hoses on.'
And as I said to you the other night, Bull Connor didn't know history. He knew a kind of physics that somehow didn't relate to the trans physics that we knew about. And that was the fact that there was a certain kind of fire that no water could put out. And we went before the fire hoses. We had known water. That couldn't stop us. We just went on before the dogs, and we would look at them. And we'd go on before the water hoses, and we would look at it. And we would just go on singing Over My Head I See Freedom in the Air.
And then we will be thrown in the paddy wagons, and sometimes, we were stacked in there like sardines in a can. And they would throw us in and Old Bull would say, 'take them off.' And they did, We would just go in the paddy wagon singing We Shall Overcome. And every now and then, we'd get into jail. And we'd see the jailers looking through the windows being moved by our prayers, and being moved by our words and our songs. And there was a power there which Bull Connor couldn't adjust to.
And so we'd end up transforming bull into a steer. And we won our struggle in Birmingham. All we say to America is be true to what you said on paper. And if I lived in China or even Russia or any totalitarian country, maybe I could understand the denial of certain basic first Amendment privileges because they hadn't committed themselves to that over there. But somewhere I read, the freedom of assembly, somewhere I read of the freedom of speech, somewhere I read of the freedom of the press, somewhere I read that the greatness of America is the right to protest for right. Let us rise up tonight to greater readiness. Let us stand with a greater determination. Let us move on these powerful days, these days of challenge to make America what it ought to be." Thank you.
[CLAPPING]
ARIC FLEMMING: (SINGING) No more weeping, weeping over me. And before I be a slave, I'll be buried in my grave, and go home to my Lord and be free. Freedom, oh, freedom. Freedom over me. And before I be a slave, I'll be buried in my grave, and go home to my Lord and be free.
[CLAPPING]
TOMIKO BROWN-NAGIN: Good afternoon, everyone. It's so nice to see all of you and to be in community with you here at the Divinity School. Before I begin, I do want to thank Siana Monet and Ahmaad Edmund for their inspiring readings, and Aric Fleming and Chris Hossfeld for the beautiful performances. You really touched my heart. Thank you as well to my colleague, Professor Tracy Hucks for such a lovely introduction. I really appreciate it. And also, they've put you to work already.
[LAUGHTER]
That was quick. I'm also thankful to my colleague, Dean David Hempton for inviting me to deliver the 207th Divinity School convocation address, to Karen Krendler Whitaker and the office for Academic Affairs for organizing this event, and Melissa Wood Bartholomew and the Office of Diversity Inclusion and Belonging for encouraging the Divinity School community to engage with the report of the Harvard and Legacy of Slavery committee as a common read that's so important.
And, of course, I'm grateful to all of you for how you have welcomed me here today. I'm truly honored to deliver this year's convocation address, celebrating the opening of the new academic year. The convocation provides an opportunity to reflect on the lessons of the past as we envision our future. As Dean Hempton once observed, we gather at convocation as a community, quote, "to learn from our origins and our roots. To take a careful look at where we are. To lay out a promising path to where we may go."
Well, here at Harvard, the oldest institution of higher education in the country, we have quite a lot of history to engage with. Harvard, of course, was founded in 1636, and nearly a century and a half before American independence. And thus, the University's history is deeply entwined with the triumphs and the tragedies of our nation. As the Harvard and Legacy of Slavery report shows, the University's past encompasses many painful elements. It includes deep ties to slavery and a long history of exclusion on lines of gender, race, ethnicity, religion, and so much more.
But that's not all it includes. There also is a counter history of resistance that's embedded in the University story. Harvard's faculty, staff, and graduate also have included many proud advocates of freedom and justice. And I urge you as you engage with our report to appreciate both sides of this complicated history, diminishing neither. Now, the Harvard Radcliffe Institute, one of the 14 schools that comprise the University and an institution that I proudly lead, illustrates this history of exclusion and the counter history of resistance to it.
Today's Radcliffe Institute traces its origins to Radcliffe College, which was founded in the late 19th century to give women access to a Harvard education at a time when the University would not admit women. The first president of Radcliffe College, Elizabeth Cary Agassiz, has long been celebrated as a reformer in the history of women's education. And so she was. But she also was a close intellectual partner of her husband, Louis Agassiz, a proponent of the debunked theory of polygenesis whose work hardened racial categories and provided intellectual justification for racial subjugation.
I want you to know that as the Dean of Radcliffe, this history does not defeat me. It empowers me. It reinforces the Institute's founding commitment to scientific inquiry to supporting scientists among others who advocate at the frontiers of knowledge for all of us. And yet, I do recognize that this history can be very hard for some to hear. And it can cause some to ask the question, why dwell on Harvard's past?
I have two answers for you. First, we seek to recover the past because we are an institution that values the search for truth through our scholarship and our teaching. It is not enough to focus our scholarly lens on those beyond the gates. We must look at ourselves. And we must do so even if what we learn is unsettling to our professional or personal identities.
In recent years, Harvard has begun to do just that through engaging its ties to slavery and its legacies. And I want you to know this has been a team effort, a team effort. It involves faculty members drawn from across the University, graduate students, postdocs, archivists at the Harvard libraries and at the Schlesinger Library at Radcliffe, Radcliffe staff members, many of them all endeavoring to tell the truth about the University. And I want to recognize Emily Farnsworth who was one of our student researchers and a graduate student here at the Divinity School. Thank you, Emily.
Ultimately, I think the sort of scholarly reckoning that we've undertaken through the legacy of slavery report can be liberating. It can be empowering. And it can renew our commitment to our mission. And that mission, as I understand it, is to help make the world better through Harvard, as we teach our students, serve our communities, and create knowledge that spans the sciences, social sciences, arts, humanities, and the professions. Which brings me to my second answer to the question of why engage the past.
We engage the past because as James Baldwin observed, we carry the force of history within us. In other words, history shapes the present. Or as William Faulkner wrote, "The past is never dead. It's not even past." Here and across this country, vestiges of past harms persist to this very day. The last few years have laid bare profound injustice and enduring inequities, demanding urgent action to address long standing issues. These challenges-- racism, wealth health, housing, and gender-based inequities, and so many more are all rooted in history.
And as I've said before, our capacity to understand and to dismantle contemporary injustice depends on our ability and our willingness to reckon with our past. Now, our report documents direct financial and intellectual ties to slavery. Allow me to highlight and make concrete some of these ties. Over the first 150 years of Harvard's existence, more than 70 human beings were enslaved by University staff, faculty, and leaders, including five Harvard presidents as well as the first Professor to hold the oldest endowed chair in this country, the Hollis Professor of Divinity.
Harvard's financial fortunes were linked to slavery. Some benefactors made their wealth at least in part from enslaved labor on plantations in the Caribbean and in the American South, from the slave trade and from trade and goods produced by enslaved people. And although the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court held slavery unlawful in the Commonwealth in 1783, Harvard's financial ties to slavery persisted into the 19th century.
During this era, cotton produced by enslaved people in the American South feel the textile industry on which the North's economy and the fortunes of some Harvard benefactors depended. Moreover, from the 19th century into the 20th century, some Harvard presidents and prominent faculty promoted so-called race science and eugenics, which influenced generations of scientists, researchers, and political leaders with devastating effects long after slavery had ended. Against this backdrop and notwithstanding the fact that efforts to secure equal opportunity for African-Americans often focused on education as a liberating force, Harvard admitted few Blacks.
From 1890 to 1940, only about 160 African-Americans attended Harvard College. That's an average of about 30 per decade. And the enrollment of students of color would not significantly increase until the 1960s under the pressure of the legal and the social changes wrought by the American Civil Rights Movement. Now, these are profoundly difficult aspects of our history, and we have to continue to grapple with them in the years and the decades to come. As part of this work, the University has committed unprecedented resources preserved in an endowment to support reparative action that is visible, lasting, grounded in a sustained process of engagement and linked to the nature of the damage done.
I'm so pleased that the University under the leadership of President Bacow and with the full support of the Harvard Corporation has endorsed this work. It is vital to our University and indeed to the nation to take these steps. It also is critically important for many individuals, especially those who are descended from people enslaved here at Harvard by Harvard leaders, faculty, and staff. The University is working now to identify these descendants. So they can recover their histories, and I hope engage with us in a process of reckoning and repair.
Now, this is really challenging work. And it will take time to do it right. And it's just beginning. As Professor Martha Minow, chair of the Legacy of Slavery implementation efforts explained in a recent interview in the Harvard Gazette. Now, as I said at the outset, Harvard's history is complex, intertwined with these most painful aspects of our past is a powerful counter history of resistance, resilience, and change-making that can inspire all of us. During the 19th century, a small group of white Harvard students, faculty, and alumni rejected prevailing beliefs. And they advocated for abolition of slavery and for racial reform.
And in the wake of the Civil War and into the 20th century, Black students resisted marginalization and discrimination that they faced on and off campus. Many of them went on to shape this nation through their intellects and their activism. And these Harvard students, staff, and faculty are part of our legacy too. John Gorham Palfrey, the very first Dean of the Divinity School is one such figure of resistance. Palfrey's antislavery activism occurred within the context of a growing abolitionist movement in the Northeast during the 19th century.
By the time the US descended into the Civil War in 1861, Harvard had bestowed honorary degrees upon noted abolitionists. And it officially supported the union, but things look different during the preceding decades. Before Harvard took an official stance on the debate that was roiling the nation and this campus-- and this is where your first Dean fits into the picture during this tumultuous antebellum period.
Now, before Palfrey became Professor of biblical literature and Dean of the Divinity School in 1830, he had been a minister of a multi-racial congregation at Babel Street church for more than 10 years. Over time, Palfrey became a vocal abolitionist. And his stand against slavery complicated, shall we say, his relationship to the University. Let me offer some examples.
In 1838, Divinity School students planned an abolitionist public debate. But Harvard's then President, Josiah Quincy, feared that the event would be disruptive and pleaded with Dean Palfrey to postpone it. He declined, and the debate went forward. It's important to appreciate that for Palfrey, slavery was no mere abstraction. His father was a Louisiana slaveholder who died in 1843, leaving behind a considerable estate. Palfrey received the bulk of his inheritance in enslaved people and he freed them.
At least those who could be legally mandated under Louisiana Law. Then he transported the others, some 16 women, men, and children to the Northeast and took out advertisements to find them paid work. And by 1848, Palfrey had joined the abolitionist Free Soil Party. And members of the Harvard community again worried that the former dean's politics would damage the University's national reputation.
In 1850, more than a decade after Palfrey left University, Harvard president and Palfrey's longtime friend, Jared Sparks, wrote to him and asked him to moderate his politics. Palfrey was outraged and he refused. Now, Harvard leaders preoccupation with Palfrey's abolitionism surfaced, yet again, when they considered him for a professorship and for the role of University treasurer. Palfrey received neither position.
His anti-slavery views were deemed too divisive for a Harvard committed to his role as a national institution, yet Palfrey persisted in the struggle against human bondage. I hope that the Divinity School community will take pride in the moral courage of your first Dean who stood up for human rights, or, as I said many times during the researching and writing of the report, thank God for John Palfrey.
[LAUGHTER]
[CLAPPING]
I also want to talk to you about how Harvard's early Black students continue the tradition of resistance after the Civil War. These path breakers experienced discrimination on and off campus. And yet they went on to make vital contributions that reshaped the social and legal landscape of our country. Five years after the Civil War ended, Richard T Greener became the first Black graduate of Harvard College. Greener graduated with honors and he went on to become the first Black Professor at the University of South Carolina and Dean of the Howard University, School of Law.
W.E.B Du Bois, the first African-American to earn a PhD at Harvard, became a towering intellectual figure in the struggle for equality. His work sought to append prevailing scholarship about slavery and reconstruction. He co-founded the Niagara Movement, which was the predecessor to the NAACP, the nation's oldest civil rights organization. And he called his Alma mater to account for discrimination in housing and admissions.
Charles Hamilton Houston arrived at Harvard Law School in 1919. He was a veteran of World War II. He was outraged by the violence that Black soldiers endured when they returned stateside. And he was determined to use his law degree to fight for equal rights for African-Americans. And he did it. Over the course of his career, Houston won major civil rights cases and he laid the foundation for Brown vs Board of Education, earning the moniker, The Man Who Killed Jim Crow.
And across the common at Radcliffe, Eva Beatrice Dykes became the first African-American woman to complete the requirements for a doctorate in 1921 in the United States. Dykes was a distinguished Professor of English at historically Black colleges who recovered and elevated the work of Black artists and writers, highlighting their achievements and underscoring the harms of racism in demanding racial reform. These figures of resistance and many others helped remake this country into a more perfect union, and made this University better.
They leave behind proud legacies of leadership and civic engagement. And these are examples that I hope will inspire you they do me. In fact, as a scholar of constitutional law and inequality and as an historian of the Civil Rights Movement, I take great joy in excavating these examples of Harvard affiliates who resilients in the face of challenges, and who gave back to their communities and to the nation. They illustrate my core belief that institutions and people can change, that the moral arc of the universe can be bent towards justice.
And over time, this University has changed, evolving in important ways into the Harvard that we know today. Our Harvard is a champion of diversity in the federal courts, and that's important work. The University first advocated for and defended race conscious, admissions policies at the Supreme Court and the University of California versus Bakke case, the case that set the terms of the debate over race conscious admissions policies.
It did so under the leadership of President Derek Bok. Building on the work of Harvard Law School Dean, Erwin Griswold, University argued in an amicus brief, and I'm quoting, "that the inclusion of qualified minority group members in a student body was necessary for important educational objectives." It repudiated the long period during which Harvard and other predominantly white universities did little to recruit African-Americans to campus. Quoting again, "the lack of racial diversity on campus through the 1960s had created a sort of white myopia, which narrow the perspectives of both students and professors, and deprive the University of scores of future leaders."
Now, every president sends president Bok, every Harvard president the steadfastly supported diversity in education, including but not limited to racial diversity. Now, let me be clear. These steps do not erase the past history of racial exclusion of involvement with slavery that I've recounted, but they do illustrate positive change over time. Ours also is a campus where many have taken and continue to take concrete steps every day to promote not only inclusion but belonging in all students.
And I think there's beauty in bringing to our campus people from all walks of life. People of many faiths and ideologies. People from this country and abroad. People from homes with many resources and with few. People who are first generation college students and people whose history with Harvard stretches back generations. People of multiple identities and races-- asians, whites, black, brown, and Native peoples, and people who are descendants of the enslaved. And people who are descendants of free people. This is our Harvard today.
And to be sure we have much more work to do at Harvard and in the nation. The challenges of our current moment are profound. Inequities and injustice persists across the country, across the world. But history shows that change is possible even in the face of seemingly insurmountable obstacles in law and politics.
Now I want to close with the final point. I shared these examples of resistance with the full expectation and the hope that some of you will follow in the footsteps of your predecessors who struggled for equality. As you do, I hope you will appreciate that this work requires robust dialogue and engagement across identities, ideologies, backgrounds and approaches. Even when speaking and working across divides is hard. In fact, the ability to engage in healthy even heated debate persuading the persuadable is much of the work. And this is true whether one is engaging on campus or off. Both the norms of a University and the legal architecture of this country support that work.
As we heard moments ago, Dr. King famously implored America to be true to what it said on paper. And that paper is the Constitution of the United States of America. As King continued, somewhere I read of the freedom of assembly, somewhere I read of the freedom of speech, somewhere I read of the freedom of the press, somewhere I read that the greatness of America is the right to protest for right. These are some of his most powerful words. He's calling that bundle of First Amendment rights critical to the success of a civil rights movement, and they were. These rights empowered him and fellow activists during the nonviolent demonstrations in Birmingham and Selma that provoked violent white resistance.
And in turn, pave the way for the Civil Rights Act and the Voting Rights Act. And these are the anti-discrimination laws that help begin the process of making real American democracy of making real the ideals of equal citizenship rights and equal opportunity. And they were born of dissent and civic engagement. Therein lies a lesson for us. If our community on and off campus is to thrive, if our democracy is to flourish in the 21st century, we must engage with one another, even when we disagree. We must address social problems through genuine exchange, reasoned debate, strategic thoughtful advocacy, and with respect for all persons.
These are the tools that we have as we strive to reach our highest ideals. And to be clear, that struggle is a long-term proposition. And so, I urge you as the new academic year begins, to work to shape a better future for Harvard and for the world. Daunting though it may be, that is the task before us. Thank you.
[CLAPPING]
[MUSIC - "MOVE ON UP A LITTLE HIGHER"]
ARIC FLEMMING: (SINGING) One of these morning. Soon one morning. I'm going to lay down on my cross. Get me a crown. Move one evening or late in the evening. I'm going in glory to live on high. Soon as my feet strike Zion, I'm going to lay down my heavy, heavy burden. I'm going to put on a robe in Glory. Going home one day and tell my story.
I've been coming over hills and mountains. I'm going to drink from the Christian fountain. You know, all of God's sons and daughters that morning. We'll drink that old healing water. And we're going to live on forever. We're going to live on forever. We're going to live on all the glory. Yes, after a while. Oh, I'm going to be singing. Yeah. And I'll be marching somewhere around the altar.
Yes, I'm going to sing somewhere around the altar and never get tired. Oh, I'm going to move on up a little higher. I'm going to meet with old man Daniel. I'm going move on up a little higher. I'm going to meet the Hebrew Children. I'm going to move on up a little higher. I'm going to meet with Paul and Samuel. I'm going to move on up a little higher. I'm going to meet my friends and kindred. I'm going to move, move up a little higher. I'm going to meet my loving, loving mother. I'm going to move on up a little higher. I'm going to meet the Lily of the Valley.
I'm going to feast with the rows of Sharon. And it will be always howdy, howdy. It will be always, always howdy, howdy. It will be always yes, howdy, howdy, and never good bye. Oh, will you be there early one morning? Oh, will you be somewhere on the alter? Will you be there, oh, when the angel shall? Yes, call the roll. God knows I've been waiting. Yeah, I'll be waiting. Yes, I'll be watching somewhere around the altar. Yes, I'll be waiting. Oh, what a beautiful. Yes, golden gates. Oh, as soon as my feet strike Zion, I'm going to lay down the heavy burden. You got to clap with me. I'm going to put on my robe in Glory. I'm going home, one day, and tell my story. I've been climbing over hills and mountains. Going to drink from the Christian fountain. You know, all of God's sons and daughters that morning. We'll drink that old healing water. And we going to live on forever. Meet me there somewhere on the alter. Meet me there. Yes, when the angels shall. Yes. God the roll.
[CLAPPING]
DAVID HEMPTON: I thought he would just sing one more time.
[LAUGHTER]
What a great convocation. So thank you, everyone.
[CLAPPING]
Special thanks to Tracy, Chris, and Aric, Sienna, Ahmaad, and especially Dean Brown-Nagin for really thoughtful, disturbing, inspiring, challenging remarks about the Legacies of Slavery. So we're indebted to you not just for your words today but for all your work on the Harvard wide. Legacy of Slavery report was published a few months ago. As showing us our past and guiding us towards a more just and equitable future.
So as many of you already know, we have selected this report for this year's come and read program for our entire community, faculty, staff, and students. We plan to have our opening launch of that on October 18th. Please look out for this opening launch. And for details about the common read in the year ahead. So we're grateful to have celebrated the festive opening of our academic year today. Wish you all a safe, satisfying year of study, engagement, and service, and pursuit of a more just world. So please join us now for a reception under the tent and the campus green. And there'll be refreshments and cupcakes. So thanks, everyone. And have a great year. Thank you
[CLAPPING]
[MUSIC PLAYING]
SPEAKER 2: Copyright 2022, the president and fellows of Harvard College.