St. Paul AME Church and I take this opportunity to welcome you to participate in the Richard Allen Lecture Series.

In cooperation with Harvard Law School's Saturday School Program and its Charles Hamilton Institute For Race & Justice, this lecture series brings to the Boston and Cambridge community notable African American speakers (such as Reverend Jesse L. Jackson, Sr. of the Rainbow/PUSH Coalition, Reverend Al Sharpton, Dr. Cornel R. West of Princeton University and the late Attorney Johnnie L. Cochran, Jr.) to discuss viable methods of transformation and restoration necessary to ensure the continuation of the Black Church.

When Richard Allen proclaimed that we will worship God under our own vine and fig tree, that was not a call to only one segment of the African American community in 1787, to build a house of their own to worship God with dignity. The call to worship God with dignity was for all African Americans to overcome the conflicts and contradictions of racism within the Christian body.

Today, nearly two and a quarter centuries later, Richard Allen's call to worship still reverberates clearly. The Black Church is being summoned not only to confront and overcome the evil of racism but also to be the fire that leads the way toward the empowerment of people historically disadvantaged due to classism, sexism, anti-Semitism, homophobia, xenophobia and all of the other evils that have plagued our society for so many generations.

It is our prayer that with the Grace of God, these lectures will give you an opportunity to survey your commitment and responsibility as a Christian within the Body of Christ. And it is our prayer that this will, in turn, help you become a viable leader and contributor as we work to meet the spiritual, social and economic challenges of our time and carry out the mission of the Black Church in the twenty-first century.