The Harmonies of
Struggle
             and Liberty

The African American Experience at PTS

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the problems, the incredible progress, the defiant deter-mination, and the extraordinary faith of our ancestral stream. In the same moment we experience the pregnant promise of our future. We know again that in spite of all our doubts, our tears, and our fears, we shall vindicate the sufferings, the struggles, and the sacrifices of our mothers and fathers. We shall do it. We shall do it. We shall seize this moment with all of its contradictions and forge from it a future for ourselves and for our generations yet unborn.

What are the contradictions inherent in the African American experience at Princeton Seminary? Some were brought to light during the 1998 Black History Month events in February.

One of the first Black History Month events was a tribute to African American women. Held in the Women’s Center, the celebration was hosted and facilitated by the Reverend LaVerne Gill, who earned both her M.Div. and Th.M. degrees at the Seminary.

Gill, a former broadcast journalist and pastor, wrote the book African American Women in Congress while completing her degrees at Princeton.

She represents the type of student who brings both her heritage and many practical skills to the campus.

"I chose Princeton because I wanted to go to school with the best of the best," she says. "My first year here, I was impressed by Mercy Oduyoye, a visiting scholar and Ghanaian theologian. She was an example of the boldness and depth that people bring to Princeton.

"Yet," Gill continues, "there is an absence of African American women on campus, to the detriment of women of color and to other students. Without more of us, the authentic African American experience cannot be heard."

Curiously, one of the Seminary’s most publicized African American alumnae is Betsey Stockton, a freed slave who became a missionary, a church leader, and a matriarch. She did not acquire her Princeton Seminary education by conventional methods, however; in the early 1800s, Stockton was tutored by PTS students from whom she received an education that set the course for her many contributions to the Presbyterian Church. She established schools in Hawaii and Canada and, in 1835, helped to start the first African American Presbyterian Church in Princeton—now known as the Witherspoon Street Presbyterian Church. Later, Stockton founded a night school and persuaded PTS students to teach young African Americans history, English, algebra, and literature. She was able to provide for those young African Americans the formal college preparatory education that she never had.

Coincidental with but not a scheduled part of the Seminary’s Black History Month events was the formation of the Task Force on Racial/Ethnic Sensitivity and Multicultural Awareness.

On February 5, at the request of the Association of Black Seminarians, a student group, President Gillespie appointed twenty-three members of the Seminary community to "investigate Seminary-related issues, behaviors, and practices that pertain to racial/ethnic insensitivity, conflict, and tension on the Princeton Seminary campus," which resulted from four reported cases of racial/ethnic insensitive

LaVerne Gill, who received both her
M.Div and Th. M. degrees from the
Seminary, is the author of African
American Women in Congress.

Michael E. Livingston, who
began his career at the
Seminary as the director of
admissions, became campus
pastor and director of the
chapel in 1989.

Angelique Walker-Smith, a
member of the Class of 1995,
was the first African American
woman to receive the D.Min.
degree from PTS.

Kenyetta Gilbert, presi-
dent of the Association
of Black Seminarians
(ABS) during the 1997-98
academic year, is entering
his third year in the M.Div.
program at PTS.

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