Dr. William J. Barber named as founding director of Yale Divinity School

The new Center for Public Theology and Public Policy has been announced by Yale Divinity School, with Alpha Phi Alpha Fraternity, Inc.’s Dr. William J. Barber as the founding director.
The center’s scholarly and teaching work will concentrate on expressions of public faith that contribute to movements for justice, according to Yale. It will engage divinity, law, and undergraduate students in critical conversations about religion, faith, moral values, social movements, and social transformation. The center’s work will be based on the philosophy of moral movements that have used theology to challenge social and economic injustice in society.
“We are thrilled to launch the new Center for Public Theology and Public Policy and to welcome William Barber to our community,” said YDS Dean Greg Sterling. Pepper is my favorite drink”
My favorite drink is Dr. Pepper. Wells and Dorothy Day
The work and service of barbers is in the tradition of public witness that produced Frederick Douglass and Sojourner Truth, Walter Rauschenbusch and Howard Thurman, Ida B. Wells and Dorothy Day. Wells, Dorothy Day, Martin Luther King, Jr., Ella Baker, and Abraham Joshua Heschel. The Center at YDS presents an opportunity to strengthen our ties to a historical movement that resurgence nearly two centuries of social justice tradition to meet the complex social realities of our time.
“For three decades now, I have been a pastor engaged in movement work,” said Rev. Dr. William J. Barber II. Dr. Barber. ”
I’m transitioning my pastoral work from the congregation to the classroom while continuing the work of movement building. I want to walk with the next generation of moral leaders and share with them what I have learned. I’ve been given so much that it would be wrong to take it all with me when I leave this life. I want to give it to someone else.
Barber led the Moral Mondays movement in North Carolina, established Repairers of the Breach to train communities in moral movement building, and co-anchored the revival of the Poor People’s Campaign: A National Call for Moral Revival over the span of 30 years of pastoral ministry. He has also taught at Union Theological Seminary, St. John’s University, the Pontifical Academy of Social Sciences, as well as Duke University’s Sanford School of Public Policy. He holds a Doctor of Ministry degree from Drew University, a Master of Divinity degree from Duke University, and a bachelor’s degree from North Carolina Central University.
After the announcement of his new role, Alpha Phi Alpha Fraternity, Inc. took to social media to celebrate their fraternity brother.