Willie Dwayne Francois III is a minister, leader, and scholar dedicated to liberation. He is the senior pastor of Mount Zion Baptist Church of Pleasantville, New Jersey; president of the Black Church Center for Justice and Equality; and associate professor of liberation theology at New York Theological Seminary. “Through my advocacy work, I’ve learned that the policies that liberate the most vulnerable benefit all of us,” he observes. The author of Silencing White Noise spoke with HDS about religion, racial justice, and the power of progressive faith communities.
HDS: Can you tell us about your roles as a religious leader and a professor?
Francois: These roles share significant synergy and allow me to live out a multivocational life as a congregational leader, activist, public intellectual, and public theologian. I’ve served as the senior pastor for seven years to a predominantly Black middle-class congregation in Atlantic County. We think of ourselves as a justice-seeking community in a part of New Jersey that may not be immediately amenable to issues of racial, gender, and sexual justice, let alone class justice. As we say when describing our congregation, “The mission of any church should be to embody the love ethic of Jesus and serve as a resource for the struggle for justice, liberation, and the universal dignity of humanity through the power of the Spirit.”
As the president of the Black Church Center (BCC), a national policy organization and advocacy think tank, I’m committed to re-narrating what it means to be a follower of Jesus in the American empire alongside other Black faith leaders with progressive policy leanings and progressive theologies invested in intersectional justice. I also have the gift of teaching liberation theology at New York Theological Seminary, and I’m passionate about our master in professional studies program at Sing Sing Correctional Facility and Bedford Hills Correctional Facility. In the last 40 years, the institution has granted master’s degrees to more than 530 men while they were incarcerated at Sing Sing. During my tenure, we’ve expanded our program to Bedford Hills, a women’s facility where, as of June 2023, nine women have graduated.
“From an early age, I understood that my commitment to public faith would be a part of my professional trajectory, and Harvard Divinity School’s spiritual and religious pluralism set me on a powerful journey that expanded the meaning of religion.”
HDS: How can religious literacy contribute to promoting racial equity and social justice?
Francois: Look no further than the masters of professional studies I mentioned—a theological degree with a professional promise to transform lives and improve our society. Our program’s vision at New York Theological Seminary is to partner with incarcerated persons as they build power, reassert their humanity, and prepare to be on the frontlines of prison abolition in our country. Although the U.S. makes up only 5 percent of the world’s population, we are 25 percent of the world’s incarcerated people, mostly made of people of color and poor white people who are also sucked up into this system of social control. While our program’s theory is grounded in theological literacy and theological imagination, its practice is public religion committed to public justice. We are contributing to a larger decarceration movement by working directly with individuals most vulnerable and most affected by this interlocking system of death. In this sense, religious literacy becomes a force for good by transforming something as personal as faith into a source of positive social change. I get into this, and more, in Silencing White Noise. I wrote this book as an exploration of interpersonal and structural racism, and the intersections of the two, to better understand our history in the name of a just future for all.
HDS: What were some of the big lessons you learned at HDS?
Francois: I elected to go to Harvard because of its nonsectarian spiritual diversity. I wanted to experiment with what it meant to be a Christian minister alongside people preparing to do ministry in other faith traditions. From an early age, I understood that my commitment to public faith would be a part of my professional trajectory, and Harvard Divinity School’s spiritual and religious pluralism set me on a powerful journey that expanded the meaning of religion. Harvard also offered me opportunities to think about intersectional justice and taught me that segregating justice was not beneficial. I don’t think that I would be the kind of justice leader and public intellectual that I try to be now without having the opportunities to grapple with the complexities and contradictions of what it means to be human, and that’s the legacy of Harvard that I carry with me everywhere I go.
HDS: You have recently become a member of the Divinity School’s Alumni/Alumnae Council (AAC). What are you most excited about with this new leadership role?
As a new member of the AAC, I cherish the vital pathways for space-making and priority-setting in a learning community that undeniably shaped how I show up in the public square as a faith leader and abolitionist. This is another opportunity for current and prospective students to identify my story as a normal Harvard story as they forecast their emerging possibilities for civic tenacity and social change. For me, the council serves as the connective tissue between the campus and a diversity of consequential professional spheres and vocational trajectories for which HDS students are preparing to engage upon graduation. HDS students have so much to teach those of us who have been in the work for a while and need a revival of imagination and nerve.
—by Melín A. Sotiriou Droz, MTS '23
A Week in the Life
MONDAY
Practice sabbath and intentional time with family
TUESDAY
Teach at Sing Sing Correctional Facility (AM) and Bedford Hills Correctional Facility (PM)
WEDNESDAY
Attend faculty meeting and teach Bible Study at Mount Zion
THURSDAY
Strategy meetings for BCC and other issue-based campaigns
FRIDAY
Dedicated day for reading and writing
SATURDAY
Local community and congregational immersion activities
SUNDAY
Sunday Worship at Mount Zion and congregational care visits