As a young child, Henry Louis Gates was introduced to a cabinet full of scrapbooks chronicling major events in the life of his family and community. One scrapbook, containing the obituary of Jane Gates, sparked in Gates a desire to uncover his genealogical roots.

According to the obituary, Jane Gates was “an estimable colored woman.” As a young boy just nine years old, Gates didn’t know what the word “estimable” meant, but the phrase stuck with him and later that night, he pulled his red dictionary off the shelf and looked the word up. Estimable, meaning deserving of admiration or respect, seemed well-suited, Gates thought, to define a woman who was a slave until 1865 and then purchased the Gates family home in Cumberland, Maryland in 1870.

So intrigued by this “estimable” women of his family’s past, Gates began interviewing family members and tracing his family tree.

With this family tale, an evening of storytelling and sharing facts and stats about genetics and genealogy was underway. Gates, visiting Messiah as the keynote lecturer for the spring humanities symposium and the Centennial, presented an informative, entertaining lecture to a large, captive audience in Brubaker Auditorium on Feb. 25

What Gates learned from exploring his own family tree and from a serious case of what he coined “Alex Haley’s ’Roots’ envy” inspired his hit PBS television series, “African American Lives.” The program identifies prominent people from various ethnic backgrounds and uses a combination of genetics and genealogy to uncover greater depths of their family history. The results can be surprising, said Gates, as sometimes family myths that have been passed down for generations are debunked.

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Messiah College’s sixth annual Humanities Symposium held Feb. 23-27 explored the concept of Faith in the Public Square, drawing members of the college and the community into dialogue with one another regarding such topics as the loss of faith in capital markets, the relationship between faith and social justice, and social networking’s role in building organization/public relationships. Hosted by faculty and student panels, sessions throughout the week allowed for vibrant discussion on these and other topics.

The keynote address of this year’s Symposium sought to answer the question “Who’s Afraid of American Religion?” Dr. Alan Wolfe, Director of the Boisi Center for Religion and American Public Life and Professor of Political Science at Boston College, presented the keynote speech in Brubaker Auditorium Feb. 26, answering the title question within the first five minutes by saying, “A lot of people.” Unpacking this statement, he said that the outspokenness of the religious right has created a similarly ardent reaction from the nonreligious sector. This reaction frequently manifests itself as fear of a looming theocracy in the United States, said Wolfe. What scares the nonreligious public, he said, is “not only religion, but religion linked to politics.”

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Messiah College, through the leadership of the Ernest L. Boyer Center, is initiating a conversation on the interrelatedness of race, education and faith in Pennsylvania. The Boyer Center, in the words of Richard Hughes, Sr. Boyer Fellow, works to “bring [Ernest Boyer’s] vision for social education and social renewal into dialogue and conversation with contemporary social and educational issues that confront our nation today.”

Much of the conversation is expected to center on the September 25th presentation of Beverly Daniel Tatum, Ph.d., President of Spelman College who will speak on “Can We Talk About Race?”, and who is also the author of “Can We Talk about Race: And Other Conversations in an Era of School Resegregation”. Dr. Hughes found Dr. Tatum’s book to be in close harmony with the mission of the Boyer Center, and commented, “when I read Beverly Tatum’s book, I thought, ‘Is this Ernie Boyer, or what?’”
The Boyer Center was challenged by local faith leaders to enlarge the conversation and to involve a larger audience in Central Pennsylvania within the context of faith. The ways in which faith can impact society’s understanding of race were examined by Molefi Kete Asante, Ph.D., Professor of African American Studies at Temple University, in his September 13th talk on “What the Faith Community Can Offer a Polarized Society”. Dr. Asante has written extensively and is widely known as the “father of Afrocentrism”.

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The national presidential campaign is in full swing, amid much debate, airing of closely-held ideals, and attempts to sway public opinion. Messiah College views this often polarized atmosphere as an opportunity to live out an important part of the College’s mission: “…to educate men and women toward maturity…in preparation for lives of…reconciliation in church and society.” During the College-sponsored Civil Dialogue Focus Week, Messiah’s Office of Student Affairs is encouraging students, faculty, and staff to seek common ground and engage in hospitable conversation on controversial topics. (more…)