RPL Explores Intersections of Justice and Public Theology

WOMAN: Harvard Divinity School. 

MAN: Justice and Public theology. CT Vivian and the moral struggle for democracy. April 28, 2026. 

TERRENCE JOHNSON: Good afternoon, friends. I'm Terrence "Kojo" Johnson, Director of Religion and Public Life at Harvard Divinity School. Welcome to today's conversation on justice and public theology, CT Vivian and the moral struggle for democracy. We're delighted to have with us old friends and colleagues, Professor Quinton Dixie and Reverend Doctor Leslie Callahan. 

I begin by acknowledging that 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 Massachusetts tribe, past and present, and honor the land itself, which remains sacred to the Massachusett people. 

As many of you know, Religion and Public Life is designed to really engage the world with public facing scholarship that addresses issues related to justice, peace, and restoration. We're delighted to bring critical scholars and thinkers to a range of issues related to religion, democracy, and justice. 

Friends, this event is being recorded. The recording will be made available on the RPL website in a few weeks. Audience questions will be addressed at the end of the program as time permits. Please use the Q&A feature to pose a question to the speakers. 

We're gathered today to honor the life and legacy of the Reverend Doctor CT Vivian, one of the most important minister organizers of the Civil Rights movement. Reverend Vivian was a close associate of Reverend Doctor Martin Luther King, Jr. and played a major role in the national movement, the Freedom Rides, the SCLC, and the Selma voting rights struggle. Educated at Western Illinois University and American Baptist Theological Seminary, he was not only a movement leader but also a pastor whose preaching helped shape the moral vision of the freedom struggle. He died in Atlanta on July 17, 2020. 

This is also a fitting moment for this conversation. We're celebrating the publication of Your Soul Is Required, the theology and sermons of CT Vivian, which invites us to encounter Reverend Vivian through his preaching, as well as his activism. And as of 2026, we are marking the 65th anniversary of the Freedom Rides. It is an especially powerful time to reflect on how his witness continues to speak to the unfinished work of democracy and civil rights. 

Before I introduce the speakers, we'll play a short clip from one of his last interviews on Democracy Now. 

[VIDEO PLAYBACK] 

- This is Democracy Now. I'm Amy Goodman. The same day Congressmember John Lewis passed away, that was Friday, we lost another civil rights legend, Reverend CT Vivian. He died at the age of 95. Vivian was a leading proponent of nonviolent struggle. He was with the Southern Christian Leadership Conference, close friend of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. who once described him as the greatest preacher to ever live. 

In 2015, I spoke to Reverend Vivian outside the historic Brown Chapel AME Church in Selma, Alabama, on the 50th anniversary of Bloody Sunday. On that day in 1965, he was punched in the face by Dallas County Sheriff Jim Clark on the courthouse steps in Selma as he tried to escort a group of African-Americans inside to register to vote. The punch was so hard, the Sheriff broke his own hand. Reverend Vivian started by talking about the power of nonviolence and the continued fight for voting rights. 

- Nonviolent direct action is something we have brought to America. Nonviolent direct action has no violence in it. It is not there to destroy. It's there to develop and build, and that's what we've been trying to do. At the core of that is an understanding of faithful life. 

- Do you think full voting rights have been achieved at this point? 

- No, because America won't change that quickly. See, or if they have, they would have done it in 1776. There is nothing we haven't done for this nation. We've died for it. But it's been overlooked what we've done for it. But we kept knowing the scriptures. We kept living by faith. We kept understanding that it's something deeper than politics that makes life worth living. 

- What gave you the courage 50 years ago to stand up at the courthouse to make that walk? 

- You can't keep anyone in the United States from voting without hurting the rights of all other citizens. Democracy is built on this. 

Our faith. Our grandmothers and great grandmothers taught us how to live. Even when they couldn't speak well, as long as what the society was concerned about, but they were telling us about as old as the universe itself. 

- Can you describe what happened to you, the violence against you, even leading up to March 7 when you stood up for voting rights? 

- It's the understanding of nonviolent direct action. That's the change. Look, what we have to see beyond all things, that Martin King was our leader. What we have and what was given to us from its very beginnings is an understanding that we could not win by killing. Light doesn't come because of darkness. 

We are here to change America and always have been. America sees it as they're changing us. But you see, when a Christian church exists that doesn't want to accept anybody but white people, well, they've already denied the faith. Can you be a Christian and a racist at the same time? And we refuse to be racist. We just want to simply tell America what their faith is about. 

America talks about democracy, but they've kept us from voting for years. And even when they give us the vote on paper, politically, they turn around and take away the important part of what we fought for and what they said they were giving. Is that the truth is that we have to work together to save ourselves politically, save ourselves spiritually, and save ourselves physically. We're not going to be able to do it until we listen to the faith without the hate. When the preacher has to stand at the door and keep people out because of the color of their skin, something's wrong with their faith. 

- Did you stand in front of Sheriff Clark and get punched in the face? 

- Well, yes, but that's not why I was standing there. [LAUGHS] 

We're willing to be beaten for democracy. And you misuse democracy in the street. 

The point being is, I was standing in front of him because we don't have to fear the opposition. And we are willing to die for the freedom they say they have. 

- And when he attacked you, especially for young people to understand your thoughts at the time, what went through your mind? 

- Is that the problem was him. I wasn't the problem. He was trying to get rid of us so that he could act as though that the problem was us. The problem is never the person that's being beat. It's the person that doesn't have a reason to beat people and beats people, who hates people and have no reason for it. We've done nothing. What have we done to America that they should hate us so? 

We haven't done it to America. But you can state 30 or 40 things very quickly about what "American democracy," quote unquote, has done to us. And we were just trying to live for the faith. Died in every war, every war. And yet anybody who came here 10 minutes later was accepted. 

- Civil rights legend died on Friday at the age of 95. His funeral-- 

[END PLAYBACK] 

TERRENCE JOHNSON: Friends, we're delighted to continue this conversation in honor of what an amazing and incredible preacher, civil rights minister and leader, CT Vivian. I want to introduce Dr. Quinton Dixie. I've known Dr. Quinton Dixie for a very long time. He's an extraordinary scholar, teacher, and mentor. 

He's a professor at Duke University. Associate Research Professor of History and Christianity in the US and Black Church Studies at Duke Divinity School. He's worked with extraordinary scholars, including Cornel West, and the late Professor Washington of Union Theological Seminary. 

And we also have with us, also a dear friend, someone I've admired for a long time for integrity and her intellect, Reverend Doctor Leslie Callahan, Senior Pastor of St. Paul's Baptist Church in Philadelphia. She is a graduate of Harvard College, University of Pennsylvania, and now is pastoring in Philadelphia. 

So I'd like to begin the conversation in terms of with you, Professor Quinton Dixie, in terms of really framing for us Reverend CT Vivian's life and what it means in terms of to have Black preachers at the forefront of leading civil rights activism and using the Bible as a template, not simply to promote a particular narrow vision of Christianity, but a vision of Christianity that is actually rather inclusive of the dispossessed, but also inclusive in terms of wanting to open the very possibilities of who can acquire and live in the United States under the protection of the Constitution. 

QUINTON DIXIE: Sure. Thank you, Terrence, and it's good to see you again. Terrence and I come from the same little part of this country, Fort Wayne, Indiana, of all places. And so yes, we have known each other quite a long time. 

One of the things that I always try to remind students about CT Vivian is that people say, oh, he's from the North. And anybody who's from the North, especially the parts of the North where some of us reside, you know how much the North can be like the upper South. 

And so CT Vivian's from Macomb, Illinois, which is not too far from Missouri. And he was born in Missouri and did have some of the same experiences, albeit not with legal segregation, but certainly segregation by practice in his community. And having been in that one community his whole life, going to college there, et cetera, I think he was well prepared for some of the things that he would experience when he did make it to the South. 

One of the things that's fascinating to me about the ways in which he preaches, and after reading these sermons, is his understanding of history and the way in which he uses history. So often people think about the history of the Civil Rights movement, and they focus on the facts. And as a historian, I think that's one of the biggest challenges that we face when we talk to students and other groups is try to help them understand history as facts of things that actually happened, and then history as what is meant or what we learn or what we understand by what's happened. 

CT Vivian came up with a usable past. That's his history. And so it's a reading of the past. It's always thinking about how this benefits the present. And you can see that in his biblical preaching. His Christianity is not just a Christianity of the New Testament, because to do so would disconnect it from a much larger part of the story. 

And more importantly, what he does is have a vision of Christianity that emphasizes God. I think a couple of points in the book, he says, hey, Black people did not come here without God. They might not have known Jesus, but they knew God. And this deep sense of spirituality predated any kind of missionary activity, et cetera, et cetera. And there, it's where Black folk learn the understanding of justice, a sense of love, et cetera. 

So his understanding of history as being something much broader also, I think, plays into his understanding of Civil Rights history. There's been a lot of controversy back and forth the past couple decades over this understanding of the long civil rights movement and what some of the implications of that are. But I think what his version of civil rights movement history does for us, historiography and his belief, is that it helps us see just how short the time frame has actually been. 

Like he said in the book, he lived most of his life within a half the amount of the time that we had been out of slavery. It hasn't been that long. And so just as we think that we can move past certain things, CT Vivian reminds us that we're not that far from them, and that some of these things that we thought were settled are not settled. 

So I think those are some of the things, as a minister, I admire about him. As a prophetic preacher, I think it's important that his propheticism is always rooted in community. 

I was talking to a pastor recently, well, Howard John Wesley, and he talked about the experience he had post Charlie Kirk. And people may or may not have heard about what happened. But the point he tried to make, I wasn't speaking to America. I was speaking to my church who needed some answers. 

And you get that same sense from CT Vivian's preaching. It's always rooted in the sense of community. His propheticism comes out of trying to minister to the needs of a particular people. And I think that's something that is important. 

TERRENCE JOHNSON: So, Professor Dixie, this is, I think, really powerful what you're saying. So you've written, obviously, several books, including The Courage of Hope with Cornel West and This Far By Faith with Juan Williams and Visions of a Better World. 

I'm curious in terms of as a historian, what does it mean to this idea that you're preaching to your church? In other words, as you were talking, I was thinking of Toni Morrison, who talked to this idea that as intellectuals, as writers, we shouldn't be in the business of translating what happens within the Du Boisian veil, as it were, in terms of what happens in the world of Black life. 

So what does it mean for a historian to think about this idea that a minister is saying, I'm preaching to my church, I'm preaching to my particular audience? How do you begin to make sense of that in terms of what does that mean as a archivist? What does it mean in terms of people who are trying to understand what's happening in these Black church settings and how then the world might hear them? Because sometimes there's a tension. Can you explain how you look at that as a historian? 

QUINTON DIXIE: I think as someone who does archival research, this is the kind of stuff you're looking for, because as historians, we're always trying to understand. And we recognize that texts often leave out some of the stuff that happens in the local situation. But if it's in the local situation, perhaps a pastor is more willing to be free and therefore give us a better assessment of his people's yearnings, strivings, et cetera. Whereas if someone was in a different setting, perhaps saying some of the same types of things, one might be more guarded, more filtered. 

And so I remember when Spike Lee first came out, he called his films Black audience films. There's certain things you don't have to explain if you're a part of a people who've had certain kinds of experiences. And so that gives, I think, the speaker, the preacher, an opportunity to address those deep concerns, those deep yearnings, as I was saying, that we might not fully be a part of but can understand as he or she stands as a representative on behalf of their people. 

TERRENCE JOHNSON: Thank you. And Reverend Doctor Callahan, I'd love to get your perspective in terms of framing CT Vivian for us. Because as someone, like Vivian, who's a minister, you're well read and you preach in front a large audiences. You talk a lot about civil rights, about womanist thought, et cetera, and politics. How do you frame him? And also, why is that tradition so important, especially at this moment? 

LESLIE CALLAHAN: I want to say thank you for having me on and inviting me to be in conversation with Quinton, whom I've known since he was a doctoral student, and I was an MDiv student at Union Theological Seminary. We both shared Dr. James Washington as a professor and mentor. And so it's really wonderful to be on with him, and of course, with you as well. 

I think I appreciate the work and the life and the ministry of CT Vivian and the tradition that he represents, of which I see myself a part, which does not divide humanity up into parts, but recognizes the concerns that people have for their well-being and material ways as moral and spiritual concerns as well. And that recognizes he's very clear. And I appreciate the book that we've cited here with his speeches and writings and sermons specifically. 

He's very clear that the problems that we experience as Black people materially in the United States are spiritual and moral problems. They're not just political problems. They're not just material problems. They're spiritual and moral problems that require a spiritual and moral solution. That to get to the heart of what is wrong with the American project is to, of necessity, call out that moral and spiritual rot, to speak to it directly, pointedly. 

And what's beautiful about having these sermons over a long period of time, and about the blessing that Reverend Vivian had to live a long life and to continue to have a long public life, is that we can see the connections between who he was as an activist in the Civil Rights era and with SCLC. We can see the connection between that and what he is saying in the first age of Trump and the continued moral and spiritual rot, the peculiar moral and spiritual rot that's present in American Christianity as a source. 

There's a way that we, I think, have more clarity about that. I certainly have a lot of clarity about that now, in the explicit rise of white Christian nationalism, of Christian white nationalism, depending on how one wants to frame the noun part of this, as a Christian movement. But I think it's also really important, and again, I think Vivian's writings and preaching make clear this isn't a new issue. 

That just as prophetic Black Christianity is a part of a stream that CT Vivian is a part of, that MLK is a part of, and again, that many others, men and women, are part of, just as there's a stream of that, there's also a stream of distorted Christianity. Slave holding and the words of Frederick Douglass. But Vivian himself is very, very clear about the distortion of the Christian church. 

Even in the clip we just watched, he's talking about the need of Christianity to actually be converted in the United States in the way that the movement of which he's a part and the tradition which he's a part and the history. I mean, I concur with Dr. Dixie that he has a beautiful understanding and expression of history that goes from his understanding of biblical history and the biblical witness through American history and those connections. And that if we're going to attend to what's wrong again with the American project, we've got to attend to what's to the moral and the spiritual in that. 

I think I certainly, as I said, I've seen myself in that tradition. I think that the best of Black Christianity, even the more pietistic forms that are not so obviously speaking to the political moment, the consistency in Black faith about the humanity of Black people, about our relationship to a God who loves us, it is a counter-narrative to the ones that are present in secular life and even in the wide streams of white Christian, both Protestant and Catholic, white Christianity in the United States. So I love the way he speaks directly to that. 

TERRENCE JOHNSON: Thank you, Dr. Callahan. I'm curious. Can you say more in terms of how might young people now-- we have a growing number of religious nones, as you well know, who are in Black communities, who are influenced by afropessimism, this idea that why are we wasting our time in a democracy that clearly disdains anything that is Black and/or disdaining Blackness? 

Can you say, what does Reverend Vivian reveal about the historic Black church alongside freedom struggle that we actually might learn from at this moment? Not necessarily to evangelize, but what does it mean to connect the Black church, which many people say are very present. They're doing a lot on the ground. They're meeting, they're organizing. And yet, one might argue there's not a collective voice, as it were, say, when Reverend Vivian was alive. What do you say to these young people who are like, well, I don't see the relevance at this moment of the Black church in the freedom struggle. 

LESLIE CALLAHAN: Oh, there's so many pieces to this. I think one thing to say is something that I think Vivian, and I don't remember which sermon. I didn't write the notes. But there's a sermon in which as he's going through the historical story and he's going from exemplar to exemplar to exemplar and even the tensions. So there's a moment where he's talking about the tension between Booker T. Washington and W.E.B. Du Bois. 

And in that sermon, he talks about the way that the NAACP is forming as Booker T. Washington is dying, the way that W.E.B. Du Bois dies on the day of the March on Washington. He's drawing this linear connection. But the thing he says that I think is really useful is that rather than emphasizing, as some would do and many have done, the tensions between Booker T. Washington and W.E.B. Du Bois, he actually talks about the necessity of surviving and the ways that Booker T. Washington makes it possible for people to survive, both while they are in the South and even during the Great Migration, when they come North with skills that they've gained as a part of the practical orientation that Booker T. Washington offers. 

Where this connects to your question is, it seems to me that whatever we think about the project of democracy and its likelihood of creating or bringing about meaningful change, I think there is a way that we could frame the work of the Black church, one, as a work of survival. It's lovely to have all these thoughts about what might be derived in the revolution or might be derived from the revolution. But you can't revolt if you're not alive. 

And the ways, even as I said a moment ago, even the less explicitly political and more, again, I don't necessarily like this as a binary, but if you'll allow it for a second. Even the more pietistic aspects of Black Christianity really attend in very practical ways to the need for people to survive, and often the more pietistic forms are actually more embedded in the communities where survival is as least likely. And they make that survival possible and offer a vision of what survival might look like that is less fraught. I think that matters. 

I think there are other aspects where the church can speak more to the critical concerns that especially young folks have always lifted. How do we talk about the Civil Rights era without talking about the tensions between SCLC and SNCC? There are often these tensions between folks who are regarded as more establishment and often connected to the church and people who have what they regard as more radical visions of what's possible and more impatience around how long it will take. 

I think what the church can still speak to is I do think that there's a radical strand. And even as many folks regard themselves as nones and fewer folks are raised in the church, there's still a lot. There's still quite a lot of explicit religiosity that's present, hybrid religiosity shaped both by the church and other traditions, as people are trying to find their ways into various self-care and community care options. That's the last thing I will say. 

I think Dr. Dixie talked about Vivian's connection to community. I still don't see a better place to be in community with people across ages who are not members of your family. To gather with people, to meet people, to gather sometimes across not only ages, but across socioeconomic boundaries. The church still represents a diverse gathering place within community. And institutional life provides space and time and also resources for those gatherings and for the connections that are actually essential not only to survival, but also essential to anything that might be radical or revolutionary too. You got to have some folks with you. None of this is an individual project. 

TERRENCE JOHNSON: No, thank you. And I'm curious, Dr. Dixie, building upon this question, I mean, how are you teaching the Black church as this moment, which, again, religious nones, particularly African-American religious nones, are pushing back against in the context of if you think about CT Vivian's sermons, what does it tell us about the longevity of the Black church as a counter-public? What does it tell us in terms of, as a historian, what does it tell us about these criticisms or concerns raised by religious nones that they say are not being addressed at this moment within institutional Black church? How do you frame that in light of the long game, as it were, as you are imagining history and as CT Vivian imagined history and political struggles? 

QUINTON DIXIE: Sure. So one of the things that I hear young people, even some students in Divinity School talk about, is what they see as the anti-democratic impulse in churches. And so there was a period when Black churches were certainly practices or practice sessions for democracy. 

And so churches regularly had church meetings where churches would vote on things. The kids learned Robert's Rules of Order in Sunday school. And so there was a whole Democratic ethos that was a part of the church itself. And the young people point out that they don't feel like they have a voice. And part of that is because our institutions, our Black churches themselves, seem to be less democratic in some ways than they have been in the past. 

So reminding people, using history to remind people in the not so far away past, we've had practices that are there for us to recover that can first help focus Black churches in trying to be those things that communities need in a way that can address these young people who are nones. 

The other thing is that I think about growing up myself in the '80s, being in college and being introduced early on to groups like the Nation of Islam, the Shrine of Black Madonna. And I thought to myself that coming from Indiana, I didn't really know anybody who was nation of Islam. But it seemed as if Farrakhan was everywhere. And what I learned early on is that an organization's influence can be much bigger than their numerical strength. 

And so as the Black church changes, as commitment to the institution changes, it does not necessarily mean that its influence necessarily has to shrink. And so I think that starts, of course, with pastors and leaders recognizing the importance of staking out a public voice in the public sphere. And so impressing upon them those things. Well, how does that happen? Well, I think this particular historical moment is kind of forcing some people who may have normally sat on the sidelines to engage. 

I think Dr. Vivian talks about how even when it doesn't seem as if the institutions are working, God is at work. And so I would think that he would say, even in this moment of Trumpism, I think God's hand is at work, even in pulling Black churches together. You talked about the need for a collective voice. 

And I was thinking collective never meant unified. And that's OK too, but at least gives us something or some starting point to rally around. And so this kind of new anti-democratic moment has really given opportunity to churches again to find something to rally around and to find their voice. 

TERRENCE JOHNSON: I'm curious, Pastor Dixie, and I know you've started a biography on Jesse Jackson. You've studied Black preachers for a very long time. I'm curious, can you explain the peculiar nature of Black preachers and preaching within the American context? Because in many ways, I think I wonder if people actually get their due respect. 

Because again, these binaries, either you're the Hooper, or you're intellectual, potentially you're Charles Addams who can do both. You're a Hooper and an intellectual. But in many cases, I think we tend to focus on the Hooper in terms of exciting the emotions of the people. But can you say more about the intellectual capacity of someone like Reverend Vivian and also of a Jesse Jackson and then of King and of a Callahan? 

There's so many people I'm missing in terms of what contributions are they actually making to the generative movement of the Civil Rights movement in terms of ideas and ideas that are long lasting. Because often, again, we focus on how they excite the emotion. But what about the intellectual contribution that's often neglected in public scholarship? 

QUINTON DIXIE: And you mentioned Black preachers. I always want to talk about Black preachers and pastors. 

TERRENCE JOHNSON: Thank you. 

QUINTON DIXIE: Sometimes you have people who preach and don't pastor. But then I think those people who show up every day in communities and serve people in a particular way may not be the ones who get the most likes on YouTube or whatever, but by the same token, are there nurturing communities spiritually, and that's so important. 

I think someone like Vivian is important because you can see the kind of clarity in his thoughts, the consistency in his thought, which kind of mimics what he thinks is most important about the movement commitment. And so his understanding of a Christian life is a committed life. And this is where your soul is required. Not in death, but in the level of commitment you have to one particular thing. And this democratic faith was the idea that seems to be central not just throughout the book, but throughout his ministry, throughout his public witness, throughout his Christian walk. 

And so I think the challenge often is when you talk about intellectual capacity, is judging people through a kind of theological, educational lens. And if we do that, we miss a whole lot of folk who had important roles to play, who had a lot to say and yet don't enter into the conversation with someone like a King, because he could quote Niebuhr and other folk. 

You mentioned Jesse Jackson. Economic justice, economic parity, commitment to those ideals, commitment to those themes throughout his ministry. And he's one that would be much less concerned about whether or not people put him in conversation with other intellectual giants, but would measure his work based on the degree to which he changed the lives of everyday Black people. 

TERRENCE JOHNSON: I'm also thinking of-- I was drawing a blank. Reverend Prathia Hall. I also see you, Dr. Callahan, that kind of tradition. Clearly women are playing a critical role here. And again, can you emphasize more in terms of how so often we forget about the intellectual contributions of Black preachers and of Black pastors? 

LESLIE CALLAHAN: I couldn't agree more. And I think putting those-- everyone you've named, including King himself, there are various streams and various ways. 

They're the more literary preachers, I would call them, who were folks like Gardner Taylor, who was also an activist, who had soaring rhetoric. Actually, I see Prathia Hall in that category too. She was a person whose preaching-- she was a pretty strict manuscript preacher, and she very much shaped words. 

All of them, though, understood that whatever they were doing in the study and the deep ways in which they engaged the life of the mind, and every one of them did, that the job of the preacher is to say something to the people you're talking to. And the idea of being just simply impressive and deep and proving how many people you can quote, that doesn't work. 

Now, those of us who are trained in scholarship, we tend to cite our sources more, because we're trained to do that. But the ways in one of the forward essays, I think, is Eddie Glaude, who talks about-- to the book, Eddie Glaude talks about the ways that Vivian could be quoting or could have referred to Niebuhr and Christ and Culture, but it didn't fit. It wasn't necessary in the context in which he was speaking. 

Many of the sermons, I don't want us to lose sight of this, is that many of the sermons, although he was not pastoring a church, they were preached at the church of which he was a part. I didn't realize this. Speaking of Jesse Jackson, I didn't realize this until he died, that Jesse Jackson had been the member of a church for 50 or so years. He had been an active part of the Fellowship Church and active. 

I found a sermon of his on a random Easter Sunday at Fellowship, much in the way that most of the sermons or many of the sermons in the text are from Providence Baptist Church. What it means even as an associate pastor, as an associate minister, to have planted your roots in a place and to have lived through the transitions in that place, and to have been part of a community in that place, I think it shows it's significant. And I think it says something about not only the preacher as preacher, but the preacher as community member. 

TERRENCE JOHNSON: That's powerful. 

LESLIE CALLAHAN: That's also worthy of lifting up. You hear him in his introductory remarks of-- this is Vivian. You hear him in his introductory remarks giving honor to the pastor, the usual thing. He says, yeah, we learned how to do this. But it's also very clear that he is appreciative of what is being formed and shaped in the community of which he's a part, outside of just his part in it. 

Which, by the way, brings me to something that I think is really important in his analysis of the movement and his analysis of history. He talks about front people, front men, in this instance. He talks about how-- but if you only understand-- and I actually have highlighted the quote, because I thought it was really powerful. 

He says, I want to thank God for them. This is on page 13. But if you see them as more than symbols for the rest of us, then you've missed the understanding of who we are. Love them, but understand the place at which he must be placed. All right. This is a sermon in which he's talking about the role of prayer and praying up the leaders that you need. 

By the way, this vision of leadership as arising as a representation and in the context of the community, leaders without whom, if you don't understand the community don't understand the leader, if you don't understand who's calling them forth. There's a way of talking about the way a leader shapes a community. But Vivian is talking about the way a community brings forth a leader. 

And I think to talk about any of these leaders, anybody we mentioned, without talking about the community that draws them forth and the degree to which everybody that we've named has a deep commitment to and accountability to the communities that continue to call their gifts forth, that is the tradition of the democracy of the church. 

And in this instance, I'm thinking of the Baptist church in particular. Baptists believe that we hear God best when we listen together. That's what voting is, is a way of discerning what's the right direction, not just from the people, but mostly from God through the people. And so that even as someone ends up being a spokesperson, even if one person is the preacher, that doesn't make them the arbiter of what's true. 

In fact, the community can set the preacher down. And in so doing, what you're saying is that whatever's happening in the talking and with the microphone is happening in the context of being drawn forth from the community. And again, Vivian is very clear about the way that the prayers of the Saints, the groans of the Saints, have called forth God's response that gets represented in people who come along at the time that's their time. 

QUINTON DIXIE: And Terrence, if I could add something real quick, if you don't mind. It was late '80s and I was having a crisis in faith. I was sharing this with a classmate at Michigan State. And part of it had to do with the kind of anti-intellectualism that I grew up with in my particular Baptist church. 

And she said, maybe you want to come home with me and visit my church. So we went to Detroit that weekend, and that was the first time I ever heard James Cone. Because this particular church was having a Black theology conference at the church, and Cone delivered a paper. And the pastor was Charles Adams. The pastor delivered a scholarly paper and Cornel West was there. I'm like, what is going on? 

This gave me a whole different view of what Black churches could be, what Black ministers could be. And so I want to just lift up that as a moment of the intellectual prowess of Black pastors. It really had an impact on me as a Christian moving forward. 

TERRENCE JOHNSON: Thank you, Reverend Dixie. Sorry, Professor Dixie. 

QUINTON DIXIE: Whoa. Call me on my name. No, I'm just joking. 

TERRENCE JOHNSON: So friends, please, if you have questions, put them in the chat. We'll answer them. And just a quick question. Yesterday we had a wonderful discussion with Professor Zahra Moballegh, who's a feminist Iranian scholar here of Islamic thought. And she was talking to this idea of who is your neighbor. 

And I'm curious in terms of when you both think about the Black church in particular and this concept of neighbor, is there a tension between neighbor and community? I mean, who is our neighbor in Reverend Vivian's moment of struggle? Who is your neighbor? And how have ministers in this prophetic tradition spoken to the neighbor and/or embraced the neighbor? 

LESLIE CALLAHAN: That's a great question, and I hadn't thought about it in those terms. My kind of off the cuff idea would be that the concept of neighborliness is the context-- is a broader sense of community than and maybe might be regarded as beloved community. Everybody God loves is your neighbor. And that's everybody. And they become-- in some ways, you become a neighbor as I become aware of you, that I know you. 

I would make the distinction between that and the community of accountability, which is that community out of which and into which my peculiar gifts have been called, and the folks who I have to make sure to check in with periodically. So in some ways, it's the difference between I'm going to treat everybody right, which is neighborliness, and what one might call one's kinship group or something somewhat closer. 

I don't think, to be frank, I mean, I don't think we have the same level of accountability to everybody to have them shape our attitudes. I do think we have responsibility to everybody to not do things that are harmful, and more proactively, to do things that are helpful and that lead to well-being broadly. That's the distinction. I think it's a great question. It's something I'll think about some more. 

TERRENCE JOHNSON: No, thank you. 

QUINTON DIXIE: Yeah, it is a great question. And I just wanted to add, Terrence, that sometimes the ways in which we imagine community creates more boundary. And so I think that's the real challenge there. And because of that, there are certain kinds of political issues that perhaps folks don't engage in, because they don't see that as part of community. I don't feel accountable for this particular issue or to those particular people. And so neighborliness is an important way of hopefully allowing people to think beyond whatever boundaries we've created by the ways in which we define community. 

TERRENCE JOHNSON: Thank you. Well, friends, we're honored to have one of Reverend Doctor Vivian's family members, his grandson, Coleman Vivian. He's currently Board Chair of the CT Vivian Foundation and a current student at Harvard Kennedy School. We'd love to have him make a comment. And Reem, I'm not sure if we can turn on his camera. But please, Coleman, welcome and say a few words to us. We're honored to have you here, if you're still on the Zoom. Can we turn on his camera, Reem? Is he still here? 

COLEMAN VIVIAN: Can you hear me? 

TERRENCE JOHNSON: Yes, we can. Welcome. 

COLEMAN VIVIAN: Thank you, thank you. We appreciate the opportunity. I am not the only family member on board. My dad, one of CT's sons, and my aunt, one of CT's daughters, is on board, as well as my mom, who is the Executive Director of the CT Vivian Foundation, are also on board. So we absolutely appreciate the-- 

TERRENCE JOHNSON: Did we lose him? Coleman, are you still with us? 

COLEMAN VIVIAN: Can you hear me? 

TERRENCE JOHNSON: Now we can. 

COLEMAN VIVIAN: OK, sorry. It had me join it as a panelist. 

TERRENCE JOHNSON: Oh, perfect. Oh, thank you. Oh, welcome. 

COLEMAN VIVIAN: Thank you, thank you. But, yeah, as I was saying, we have a few family members on board that are sitting here in the Zoom and that we just always appreciate the opportunity to hear, one, my granddad get celebrated, but also to see how people are learning, both from his example and how we're continuing to push that legacy forward. And so the weird confluence of events for me to be at Harvard while this is happening is just a little bit of a God moment. Won't he do it? 

TERRENCE JOHNSON: Wonderful. And what does it mean, I mean, what lessons can you share with us that your grandfather shared with you in terms of struggle, perseverance, and what it means to combine faith and democratic struggle together? 

COLEMAN VIVIAN: Yeah, I think that it's actually interesting that reading Your Soul is Required. I never got to see him preach. And so I think this has illuminated a different side to him. Obviously, it lived out in his life. And I think that the distinction you guys drew between a preacher and a pastor, I saw him in a pastoral role and everything he did. I never got to see him in his preacher role, if that makes sense. 

And so I think that what I learned and what I saw was a deep love for people, a deep love and a commitment to show up in any way he could, whether that was for the people right next to him, whether that's for family or that's for the Black community writ large. And so I think that it is a faith driven by a hopeful realism. He was never naive to what the world was and what America was. But he always pushed forward, because he believed that through faith and with God and with people, that it could become something better and something more. And so I think that vision and that imagination and that love is what I picked up from him. 

TERRENCE JOHNSON: Great. Well, thank you, Coleman, for joining us. We're honored to talk about your grandfather and just grateful for his legacy. So thank you so much. And congrats on being at Harvard. 

COLEMAN VIVIAN: Appreciate you. 

TERRENCE JOHNSON: Yeah. And I'm curious. This is a more of a different question that kind of relies on your hopefulness, Professor Dixie, in terms of how you talk about courage and hope in the book with Cornel West. But also to you, Reverend Callahan, in terms of what does it mean, then, this idea of the pastor element in a moment of deep strife? I mean, what does it mean for people who are looking for answers? 

And this idea Coleman mentioned of his grandfather loving people as a pastor. And again, pastors, as we all know, particularly in a Black context, you all are 20 different things at once. And it's a huge, huge responsibility. And yet what I hear often is this idea of folk want some connection in terms of that pastoral care, which is often so difficult because you're also doing prophetic work, you're also doing demonstrations. Sometimes you're writing as well. 

What does that mean that Coleman remembers his dad, who's this, again, incredible mastermind of civil rights movement, in this pastoral element? What does that say about what people are looking for along with that democratic hope and inspiration? 

There's also this other element. I mean, what is that and how do we attend to that in ways that don't outweigh the need for struggle, but also recognize that deep need that humans need, especially Black folk, given our tragic nature in the US? What does that mean to want that other element, the pastoral element? 

LESLIE CALLAHAN: If I could start, I mean, I think it goes back to what I regard as one of the most powerful aspects of Vivian's sermons and writings, which is that he doesn't divide people up. What it means to care for people is to take seriously the breadth of their humanity. And I think that's passed through all of its pastoral work and care. 

On any given week, in any given week, the members of the St. Paul's congregation where I am the pastor are dealing with the onslaught of what the political life in the United States right now is like and its implications for the world. And they feel the stress of that. That's also material stress as people lose jobs, as people see cutbacks, as their family members lose jobs. Anybody who's working for the federal government a year or so ago was really feeling a deep sense of strain. 

All of that coheres in the life of an individual. At the same time that people's regular life, sickness, disease, death, birth, marriage, divorce, all the major life elements are at play at the same time. I think it's harder. I mean, there's no one person or set of persons who can-- nobody can fix it. But the caring for one another, again, there's this word again, this caring for one another in community means addressing both theoretically with words, but also practically. 

I heard an interview with Jesse Jackson that aired right after his death, where he's talking about that it was following Jesus that got him into all of these places. You have to be able-- if you actually care about people, you care about their material circumstances. 

King famously said, at some point, speaking of neighborliness, he's talking about the Jericho Road. OK, so on the one hand, yes, you want to bind up the wounds of the person who's been harmed on the Jericho Road. But eventually, you got to figure out why that road is so dangerous. You've got to figure out why the road is so dangerous. 

Some pastors focus more on one side, because we're all different too. We all have our own proclivities too and special talents too. Some people focus more in one area or the other, but all of it emerges, from my perspective, from a sense of caring for what's going on with the people that we serve and the people with whom we are a part. 

Last piece about this. On a very practical level, if Social Security checks don't come one month, I don't know a church in the United States that won't be in really big trouble. These are practical survival issues for us and our institutions too. We are a part of these communities. So I think that it's all about whether you care about the people that you're serving. 

TERRENCE JOHNSON: No, it's beautiful. And, Professor Dixie, I want to just tweak the question a bit and say, well, how powerful is it that CT Vivian talked about his grandmothers in terms of giving him, in some ways, a kind of theological and ethical foundation for this work? And what does it mean to think about care in terms of Black women, some of whom are educated, some of whom were also day workers, but they all experience a lot of gender bias, a lot of alienation? 

And yet they took that alienation and sometimes pain and turn it into a very powerful moment, whereas at this moment, we see a lot of people who are in pain and feel alienated, and they're using this moment, that pain and alienation, to harm others, to somehow say, to seek revenge. What does it mean that historically, even among nation of Islam, which some people have characterized as very violent, which we all know is inaccurate. 

But people in Black religions have taken pain and used that pain to somehow create a kind of open, rich, and intellectually rich, spiritually rich context for a certain kind of restoration. What is that? How do you understand that historically as a historian? How important is it that that is such a part of what CT Vivian did, but also a part of the broader Black religious movements in the US? 

QUINTON DIXIE: Sure. I think people who have experienced a certain kind of suffering and alienation can find a place in their own heart to feel the pain of others. Yes, there are those who then take their own pain and try to deflect that into a situation where they inflict harm on others. I think in the African-American experience, using Jesus as a model. What did Jesus do? 

This is Howard Thurman's whole [INAUDIBLE]. It's all these other things that we can use as coping mechanisms to try to address unmerited suffering all fall short in the end. And Thurman and Vivian say it's love. So love is at the root of what these grandmothers taught. It is what helps develop patience as a spiritual discipline as opposed to just merely waiting. Kind of active patience, understanding that things might take a long time, that they work in God's time or not our time. But that doesn't mean we don't do anything in the process, including engage in agitation. 

And so when you have a love ethic that undergirds that, I think it provides a foundation for folks who experience that pain and suffering to not pass on bitterness, but instead to pass on hope. 

TERRENCE JOHNSON: Wow, what a powerful way to end this session with Dr. Dixie and Dr. Callahan. You guys have been incredible. Again, long time friends and just incredible people of integrity and of intellect. I thank you for joining us today. 

This concludes our year long program at Religion and Public Life. And I think it's just fitting that we would end on a love ethic based on the legacy of CT Vivian. And we're so honored that his family members are with us, and especially his grandson, who's at Harvard Kennedy School. 

I want to thank Reem and [? Hashem ?] for their great work in terms of organizing not only this discussion, but all of our discussions all year. So thank you, friends, and we will see you soon. Bye bye. 

MAN: Sponsored by Religion and Public Life at Harvard Divinity School. 

WOMAN: Copyright 2026, the President and Fellows of Harvard College.