Alumni News

A Letter from the BUSTH DEI Office: Do Justice, Love Mercy, Walk Humbly

By Kimberly Macdonald February 3rd, 2025 in Alumni/ae News, News

As we again welcome Black History Month, and as DEI efforts are being halted across the country, it’s a good time to remind ourselves of the ground we stand on. One of the best ways to do that, in turn, is to remember those who walked that ground before us, whose footprints are all along the way.

In the summer of 2020, mass protests over racialized police brutality spread across the country. This movement brought attention to the dynamics of anti-Blackness across our social institutions, and it truly altered the conversation. Signals of support for Black lives showed up in advertisements and marketing campaigns from major corporations, during major national sporting events, in national church offices and local congregations, and across higher education. Numerous DEI offices and initiatives were created to correct systemic problems.

Now, DEI as an idea is hotly contested, and being purged from federal agencies. It remains to be seen how it will survive as such, even in private universities. Yet in the light of history, this cycle is to be expected. It’s a pattern often repeated: the emancipation of African slaves was followed by the Jim Crow era of segregation and disenfranchisement. The Civil Rights Act of 1964 was followed by decades of cuts to social welfare programs. The legalization of same sex marriage was followed by hundreds of state-level bills, and now federal orders, to limit the rights of trans people.

Thankfully, though, the people that walked the ground before us didn’t rely on America’s shifting political mood as their bellwether. They did justice, and they loved mercy, in whatever role or social location they could leverage. When such points of leverage were taken from them, they kept on and found others. Indeed: no role, no office, no political movement can guide us directly in justice and mercy. We can only look for opportunities, using the points of institutional leverage when they exist, and strive to do so with humility and clear-headedness.

As an office, therefore, we thought it was again a good time to look to the footprints of those who’ve walked ahead of us and reclaim the ground they trod. We remember Black History month as spiritual people, who believe in a “something more” that erupts as grace in the course of human events. Finally, we remember them not just in their celebrated moments, but in the everyday steps they took along the way; and we consider what that might look like for each of us.

- Nicolette Manglos-Weber, Associate Professor of Religion and Society; Director, Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion, and Andrew E. Kimble, Director of Onlne Lifelong Learning; Associate Director of Alumni and Donor Relations; Associate Director of Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion

Rev. Zelma Bostick (’89)

The late Reverend Zelma E. Bostick was an Itinerate Elder for almost 40 years and member of the Grant AME Church in Roxbury, MA and served several AME Churches faithfully. She was active in the NEAC Women in Ministry and she served with members of Grant’s Commission on Social Action with the Greater Boston Interfaith Organization. Together she worked faithfully to seek resolution on critical issues that impacted people including: affordable healthcare, unfair housing, and de-carceration. Rev. Bostick also demonstrated an unquenchable thirst for mentoring young people through their undergraduate and graduate college experiences.

Rev. Zelma Bostick served as a Lieutenant and Active Duty Chaplain in the United States Navy and as a tertiary hospital chaplain. Rev. Bostick was the 7th female African American Chaplin on active duty and she was a founding member of the Cambridge Women Veterans’ Organization.

Passage originally posted by Davis Funeral Home. Read more here.

James Leonard Farmer, Ph.D., (CAS'13, STH'16, GRS'18)

The late Dr. James Leonard Farmer, Sr., believed to be the first Black man in Texas to have a Ph.D., was born on June 12, 1886, in Kingstree, South Carolina, the son of Carolina and Lorena (Wilson) Farmer. His parents were former slaves. He attended grade school in Pearson, Georgia, and then studied at Cookman Institute in Daytona Beach, Florida, before going to Boston University, where he received B.A. and S.T.B. degrees. He received the Ph.D from Boston University in 1918. He also studied at Harvard in 1916–17 and received an honorary doctorate in 1929 from Gammon Theological Seminary, Atlanta, Georgia.

Farmer was a deacon in the Methodist Episcopal Church in 1917 and after college served as pastor of Black churches in Texarkana and Galveston. He taught philosophy and religion and also served in administrative capacities at numerous institutions of higher learning. He was versed in Greek, Hebrew, Aramaic, Latin, French, and German; he was a poet and the author of two books, The Coming of Peace and the Prince of Peace (1943) and John and Jesus in Their Day and Ours (1956).

Passage originally posted by the Texas State Historical Association. Read more here.

Eric Lincoln, Ph.D., (Wheelock'60, STH'60, GRS'60, HON'91)

The late Dr. C Eric Lincoln is best known as a distinguished scholar, author, and lecturer on the Sociology of African American Religion, Race, and Ethnic Relations in the United States. He authored, co-authored, or edited numerous books and articles about the African American experience. Lincoln authored several landmark works including The Black Muslims in America (1961), The Black Church Since Frazier (1974), and Race, Religion and the Continuing American Dilemma (1984). In 1988, he wrote The Avenue, Clayton City, a novel dedicated to his friend, and fellow civil rights author, Alex Haley. The novel won the Lillian Smith Award for Best Southern Fiction in 1988, as well as the International Black Writers’ Alice Browning Award in 1989.

Passage originally posted by the Alabama African American History Project. Read more here.

Dr. Willa Mathis-Johnson, (STH'89)

The late Dr. Willa Johnson was undeniably a hero in her own right, championing diversity at the University of Mississippi all while gaining national acclaim for her scholarship and expertise. A professor of sociology, she was the first Black woman to rise from adjunct instructor to full professor at the university. Johnson was a Hebrew Bible scholar who also studied issues of the Holocaust and the contemporary politics of race and ethnicity. She taught courses centered on subjects such as the sociology of disability, genocide and women, and the social context of Holocaust art.

“Willa was a very special person and a true scholar and intellectual,” said Kirsten Dellinger, associate dean for diversity and inclusion in the College of Liberal Arts and professor of sociology. “She was an interdisciplinary pioneer – bringing together scholarship on the Holocaust and race and racism in ways that were unique and transformative.

Passage originally posted by the University of Mississippi News. Read more here.

Dr. Samuel D. Proctor, (STH'50, HON'85)

 The late Rev. Dr. Samuel DeWitt Proctor was Pastor Emeritus of the Abyssinian Baptist Church of New York City and Professor Emeritus at Rutgers University.

Dr. Proctor was president of Virginia Union University, Richmond, and North Carolina A&T State University. He held administrative positions with the Peace Corps in Nigeria and Washington, D.C., and the National Council of Churches.

Dr. Proctor also served on the governing boards of the United Negro College Fund, National Urban League, and the Overseer’s Visiting Committee for the Divinity School at Harvard University. He was Pastor-In-Residence for the Institute for Child Advocacy at Children’s Defense Fund/Haley Farm. He was awarded honorary Doctorate degrees from more than 50 colleges and universities around the world. Dr. Proctor was a prolific writer and preacher, authoring, We Have This Ministry, How Shall They Hear, and Sermons from the Black Pulpit, among many others.

Passage originally posted by the Samuel DeWitt Proctor Conference. Read more here.

Tagged: Andrew Kimble, DEI, Nicolette Manglos-Weber