20th Century African American Women

"My name is Claudine Gay and I am the president of Harvard University. It’s an honor to be here today, representing a community of more than 25,000 undergraduate and graduate students, more than 19,000 faculty and staff, and more than 400,000 alumni—including multiple Members of this Committee."

"Our community still mourns those brutally murdered during the Hamas terrorist attack in Israel on October 7. Words fail in the face of such depravity, the deadliest single day for the Jewish community since the horrors of the Holocaust."

"It is with a heavy heart but a deep love for Harvard that I write to share that I will be stepping down as president. This is not a decision I came to easily. Indeed, it has been difficult beyond words because I have looked forward to working with so many of you to advance the commitment to academic excellence that has propelled this great university across centuries. But, after consultation with members of the Corporation, it has become clear that it is in the best interests of Harvard for me to resign so that our community can navigate this moment of extraordinary challenge with a focus on the institution rather than any individual."

"When I became president, I considered myself particularly blessed by the opportunity to serve people from around the world who saw in my presidency a vision of Harvard that affirmed their sense of belonging — their sense that Harvard welcomes people of talent and promise, from every background imaginable, to learn from and grow with one another."

"On Tuesday, I made the wrenching but necessary decision to resign as Harvard’s president. For weeks, both I and the institution to which I’ve devoted my professional life have been under attack. My character and intelligence have been impugned. My commitment to fighting antisemitism has been questioned. My inbox has been flooded with invective, including death threats. I’ve been called the N-word more times than I care to count."

"My hope is that by stepping down I will deny demagogues the opportunity to further weaponize my presidency in their campaign to undermine the ideals animating Harvard since its founding: excellence, openness, independence, truth."

"My research marshaled concrete evidence to show that when historically marginalized communities gain a meaningful voice in the halls of power, it signals an open door where before many saw only barriers. And that, in turn, strengthens our democracy."

"Throughout this work, I asked questions that had not been asked, used then-cutting-edge quantitative research methods and established a new understanding of representation in American politics. This work was published in the nation’s top political science journals and spawned important research by other scholars."

"Having now seen how quickly the truth can become a casualty amid controversy, I’d urge a broader caution: At tense moments, every one of us must be more skeptical than ever of the loudest and most extreme voices in our culture, however well-organized or well-connected they might be. Too often they are pursuing self-serving agendas that should be met with more questions and less credulity."

"College campuses in our country must remain places where students can learn, share and grow together, not spaces where proxy battles and political grandstanding take root. Universities must remain independent venues where courage and reason unite to advance truth, no matter what forces set against them."

"I believe in the people of Harvard because I see in you the possibility and the promise of a better future. These last weeks have helped make clear the work we need to do to build that future — to combat bias and hate in all its forms, to create a learning environment in which we respect each other’s dignity and treat one another with compassion, and to affirm our enduring commitment to open inquiry and free expression in the pursuit of truth. I believe we have within us all that we need to heal from this period of tension and division and to emerge stronger."

"Debate and the inclusion of diverse viewpoints and experiences, while essential for our work, are not always easy to live with. They can be a recipe for discomfort, fired in the heat of social media and partisan rancor. And discomfort can weaken our resolve and make us vulnerable to a rhetoric of control and containment that has no place in the academy. That is when we must summon the courage to be Harvard. To love truth enough to endure the challenge of truth-seeking and truth-telling. To love truth enough to ask Why?"

"By increasing access to our magnificent collections, verging now on half a billion items, we cast the myriad elements of civilization into the living world—in all their error, and wisdom, and beauty—to be reconsidered, remade, and remembered by the next generation."

"A responsibility to help anchor our democracy—by cultivating norms and values essential to a free society and by ensuring the free flow of knowledge not only among students and faculty but to all citizens to enable them to make informed decisions."

"What the Gay controversy shows is how political judgment today is too often based on the identity of the messenger rather than the message itself. This inevitably warps the values and policies radicals pursue. Our politics should not be defined simply by the desire to show hostility to the right but by the strategies and norms necessary to build a more progressive, equal and hopeful world."

"Both of my parents, each on their own, left everything they knew in Haiti to forge new lives in the United States. And because they understood that coming to America was not enough, they eagerly sought college education—to ensure the future they wanted for themselves and for their family."

"Family, friends, colleagues, students and postdocs, alumni, distinguished guests. I stand before you today humbled by the prospect of leading Harvard, emboldened by the trust you have placed in me, and energized by your own commitment to this singular institution and to the common cause of higher education."

"Not four hundred yards from where I stand, some four centuries ago, four enslaved people—Titus, Venus, Bilhah, and Juba—lived and worked in Wadsworth House as the personal property of the president of Harvard University. My story is not their story. I am a daughter of Haitian immigrants to this country. But our stories—and the stories of the many trailblazers between us—are linked by this institution’s long history of exclusion and the long journey of resistance and resilience to overcome it."

"The challenges, of course, are not unique to Harvard. At the top of the list, I’d put declining trust in higher education and fewer people understanding the value of higher education for both individuals and society. That’s an existential challenge for us as an institution. The silver lining is that there are many potential partners as we make the case for why what we do matters and how it contributes to making the world a better place and enables all of us to thrive."

"Betraying my bias as a political scientist, I’m really excited about what we can do around democracy. We’re at a moment where it’s important for those of us who are champions of democracy to help the world understand how to make democracies work: How democratic governance and democratic practices can actually — if well done — solve crises and solve people’s problems."

"The political polarization doesn’t help, but it is striking that the erosion in public trust is bipartisan. That should be telling us something, that there’s a broad-based questioning of the value of higher education. Yes, there are some elements that are being inflected by partisan politics, but this is pretty widespread."

"And because of the collective courage of all those who walked that impossible distance, across centuries, and dared to create a different future, I stand before you on this stage—in this distinguished company and magnificent theatre, at this moment of challenge in our nation and in the world, with the weight and honor of being a “first”—able to say, “I am Claudine Gay, the president of Harvard University.”"

"The biggest takeaway from my own research is just how important it is for people to feel seen and heard. Even when they disagree, it is critically important for their values, interests, and preferences to be recognized by leadership and integrated into the thinking of leaders. That’s probably the biggest thing. That’s one of the reasons my starting point in any decision-making process involves trying to understand the perspectives of the various stakeholders around an issue. I do that not with the expectation that I can satisfy everyone, but with an understanding that those perspectives need to be part of the consideration I bring to any issue."

"I love this place. Harvard is where I found my intellectual home. It has nurtured and inspired me since I first set foot in the Yard. I am deeply invested, not only in what Harvard is today, but also in what Harvard’s leadership means for the future."

"There are three things that I always look for. I look for a commitment to excellence, because that’s what it means to be at Harvard. I look for commitment to collaboration, because I believe that no one has a monopoly on insight — even if it’s in your area and you are an expert. And I look for commitment to the mission, because that’s why we’re all here. I expect that from any member of a team that I lead and collaborate with. From there, we get to the unique requirements of a position and the unique contributions or assets that an individual might bring to the role."

"I talked about the opportunity for Harvard to be more connected to the world by centering the most pressing challenges that the world faces as University priorities. For me, those include democracy and all the ways in which democracy is faltering around the globe, the climate crisis, and inequality, to name a few. Harvard has a lot to bring to the table for society’s urgent priorities. There are also “frontier” opportunities that Harvard is uniquely positioned to exploit."

"What we offer to the world will depend on Harvard’s courage—our courage—to ask two questions that propel our work—Why? and Why not? And it will depend on the courage to answer, with confidence, two others: Why here? and Why now?"

"Why? is a question that comes to us early in life. If you know a young child, you know this well: Why are we here? Why is the moon out during the day? Why can’t I eat ice cream for breakfast? Why is she talking so much? We may be tempted to stop asking why when we accept the default answers around us, until something sparks us to question those answers."

"We serve that purpose best when we commit to open inquiry and freedom of expression as foundational values of our academic community. Our individual and collective capacity for discovery depends on our willingness to debate ideas; to expose and reconsider assumptions; to marshal facts and evidence; to talk and to listen with care and humility, and with the goal of deeper understanding and as seekers of truth."

"If men could get pregnant, abortion would be a sacrament."

"Love's got a hold on me, baby, Feels just like a ball and chain. Now, love's just draggin' me down, baby, yeah, Feels like a ball and chain. I hope there's someone out there who could tell me Why the man I love wanna leave me in so much pain. Yeah, maybe, maybe you could help me, come on, help me!"

"Sittin' down by my window, Honey, lookin' out at the rain. Lord, Lord, Lord, sittin' down by my window, Baby, lookin' out at the rain. Somethin' came along, grabbed a hold of me, And it felt just like a ball and chain. Honey, that's exactly what it felt like, Honey, just dragging me down."

"If a Black woman can learn to have civil conversations with someone who's been in the Ku Klux Klan, we should be able to have civil conversations with everybody."

"I think we overuse that word ‘trigger’ when really we mean discomfort,and we should be able to have uncomfortable conversations."

"We have to remember that there is humanity behind the words, that there is humanity behind the action."

"My best advice is to party as hard as you work and have fun doing good work! And that way, you'll be in it for 50 or 60 years, like I’ve been."

"I find that people who take themselves too seriously burn out really quickly because they become very cynical because they've become very overwhelmed. When you're overwhelmed, the most common response is to check out mentally because everything is so overwhelming."

"Even if you can't see the changes that you want to see immediately, you just keep on doing the work and eventually they will radically change in a way that's totally unanticipated but at the same time is what you're working for."

"It’s the tendency, which is unfortunate, for people to want to publicly shame and humiliate people. And it's based on what they say, or what they look like, or what they wear, or who they're hanging out with, or who they agree or disagree with. It's attaching labels to people without really doing any kind of nuance."

"Reproductive justice can’t become a reality for Black women around the world until human rights become a reality. Reproductive justice is based upon the global human rights framework."

"That's what all activists need to do: we look at the ugliness of the world and we keep on working."

"College is where you're supposed to find out things about yourself, discover your voice, and discover what moves you and what makes you passionate."

"Do the work, but also make sure you intentionally bring joy into your life because our job is to look at the worst things people do to each other, the ugliness–what I call the vomit of humanity."

"The human right to maintain personal bodily autonomy, have children, not have children, and parent the children we have in safe and sustainable communities."

"Call in is actually a callout done with love and respect. Because you're really seeking to hold people accountable for the potential harm that they cause, but you're not going to lose sight of the fact that you're talking to another human being. And so you extend a hand of active love and active listening to help them maybe stop and think about what they said."

"Influenced by the Civil Rights, Black Power and Nuyorican movements, Miriam often asserted, “African Americans have always been in the vanguard. Everything that’s worthwhile in this country has come about because African Americans have pushed it. We all benefit everyday, white people as well as people of color, from the struggles of African Americans.”"

"As a Research Coordinator and Curator of Exhibits and Special Programs at the Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture, Miriam worked closely with SNCC activists Roberta “Bobbi” Yancy, professor Zita Nunes, and director Howard Dodson to produce dozens of widely celebrated international Africana exhibits (1987-1997)."

"Jiménez Román and Flores write: "Afro-Latin@ is at the personal level a unique and distinctive experience and identity because of its range among and between Latin@, Black, and United States American dimensions of lived reality. In their quest for a full and appropriate sense of social identity Afro-Latin@s are thus typically pulled in three directions at once and share a complex, multidimensional optic on contemporary society." Taking a cue from W.E.B. Du Bois, we might name this three-pronged web of affiliations "triple-consciousness." To paraphrase those unforgettable lines from The Souls of Black Folk (1903) in studying the historical and contemporary experience of United States Afro-Latin@, one ever feels his three-ness, -a Latin@, a Negro, an American; three souls, three thoughts, three unreconciled strivings; three warring ideals in one dark body, whose dogged strength alone keeps it from being torn asunder. Du Bois's reference to strength and resilience bears emphasis: the multiple experiences and perspectives including the contradictions, pain, and outrage-does not necessarily translate into pathological confusion. As many of the contributions to this volume suggest, embracing and celebrating all the dimensions of one's self has not only been possible but has also resulted in significant innovations at the personal and collective level."

"In their introduction to the Afro-Latin@ Reader, the first major academic effort about Latin@s of African descent in the United States, editors Miriam Jiménez Román and Juan Flores struggle to define the term Afro-Latin@, asking within a North American context, "What's an Afro-Latin@? Who is an Afro-Latin@? The term befuddles us because we are accustomed to thinking of 'Afro' and 'Latin@' as distinct from each other and mutually exclusive: one is either Black or Latin@""

"She was an influential pioneering architect of the Afro-Latinx Studies movement."