The Harmonies of
Struggle
             and Liberty

The African American Experience at PTS

(con't)

behavior that occurred during the 1997 fall semester.

Backus, who directs the task force, convened meetings and race forums with students, faculty, administration, and staff during the first two weeks in April.

"We looked at everything from human resources to material and financial resources," Backus says. "Our objective was to identify and report on those areas within the social, academic, worship, and administrative domains that need improvement relative to racial and ethnic concerns."

The many recommendations made by the task force in its final report included these: that the Seminary create an Office of Racial/Ethnic and Multicultural Affairs [whose] intentional responsibility would be to "transform" the current ethos of the Seminary into one that is theologically reflective of the "world-wide church"; that PTS build, or include in its planning for the next five years, a physical plant that would act as a Student Center for the community…and would house various organizations and foster social interaction; that the Seminary provide a coherent policy for resolving grievances of racial/ethnic and cultural insensitivity; and that Princeton Seminary improve and expand recruitment with an emphasis on racially, ethnically, and culturally under-represented constituencies.

"The issues of race and cultural intolerance are not new," Backus continues. "We at PTS are engaged in dialogue and discussion. We are looking at change from both a biblical and a theological perspective [as well as on the basis of the Seminary’s mission statement and the Association of Theological Schools (ATS) requirements]."

One of the task force’s goals was to both create and increase the Seminary community’s awareness of issues, practices, and behaviors on the campus that contribute to racial/ethnic /multicultural tension and that need to be changed. Members of the task force, in conjunction with the organizers of Black History Month events, planned an open forum, "Race Matters?", and gathered members of the community together to evaluate race issues among all cultures represented on campus.

Michael E. Livingston, campus pastor and director of the chapel, facilitated this pivotal event, which was not an evening of planned speeches and canned responses. Rather, Livingston opened the floor to all—students, faculty, administration, and staff—who cared to share their perceptions of race and race issues on the Seminary campus.

The questions, which ranged from why cultural groups sit together at meals to why there are not more African Americans and minorities on the faculty, were indicative of the types of racial issues that occur not only within the Seminary but also in any community in the United States. As one student remarked, "We may all be a community of believers, but we are all human."

Livingston was a natural choice to lead the forum. He is a campus mainstay and an advocate for students at the Seminary. A 1974 graduate of the M.Div. program and a 1991 graduate of the Th.M. program in pastoral counseling, Livingston returned to PTS in 1985 as the director of admissions. He became campus pastor and director of the chapel in 1989.

"I have found this community very open to my experiences as an African American," Livingston says. "I feel that I have been well received. But, there has been a struggle. Still, I find struggle invigorating. It has been good for the growth of the institution."

"I would still like to see the numbers increase for all minorities, " Livingston says.

Kenyatta Gilbert, the president of the Association of Black Seminarians, shares Livingston’s sentiments. He feels that progress has been made, but that more needs to be done in the area of recruiting.

"The Seminary needs to visit other campuses and make a concerted effort to bring more African Americans to campus."

Nonetheless, Gilbert is grateful for the opportunity to study at the Seminary.

"Princeton stretches me," he says. "I have firmed up what I believe about God and about oppressed people all over the world. I know more, and I don’t feel as limited. I have grown in spiritual depth."

Among the areas studied by the task force was worship. While it is evident that efforts have already been made to provide racially, ethnically, and culturally diverse worship experiences at the Seminary, the task force discovered that members of the Seminary community still perceive the chapel services as being "insufficiently representative of the rich racial, ethnic, and cultural diversity on campus." Thus, the task force recommends that a more intentional effort be made to diversify both the style and the leadership of worship in chapel.The last formal service for Black History Month provided an example of such worship. It was an "Ol’-Fashioned Testifyin’ " worship service held at Mount Olivet Baptist Church in Hightstown, New Jersey. Students and faculty of all races turned out and offered testimony and praise with one another. Members of the host church wore traditional African dress, and the bright, African fabrics—gold, red, blue, and green—set the tone for a festive occasion of worship and fellowship. Every aspect of the service, which was the culmination of a month’s celebration, involved either a Princeton Seminary student or faculty member. Carol Ann North, an M.Div. junior, sang as only she can sing. The prayer of Jay Gardner, also an M.Div. junior, transfixed the congregation. M.Div. middler Rodney Rogers, whose family prayer turned into a homily, evoked an open field revival, the tradition of African American churches in the post-Civil War South. His words raised people from their seats. Some people held hands while others answered Rogers’s call to praise in a feverish pitch that was further ignited by the rhythm of the organ. The Reverend Rogers was leading his flock home.

Grimke, Wright, Byrd, and Hawkins would have been proud.

So what is the truth about the African American experience at Princeton Seminary?

Perhaps it is Marian Wright Edelman, Civil Rights activist and director of the Children’s Defense Fund, who says it best: "What unites us is far greater than what divides us as families and friends and Americans and spiritual sojourners on this earth." z

Alfred R. Twyman Jr., a retired Navy Commander whose past job was director of public affairs for the National Naval Medical Center in Bethesda, MD, is presently in his second year in the M.Div. program at PTS.