Preston N. Williams

Preston N. Williams

Houghton Professor of Theology and Contemporary Change
Emeritus
Preston N.  Williams

 

 

 Research and Emeritus Faculty are not taking new doctoral students.

 

 

AB, Washington and Jefferson College
MA, Washington and Jefferson
BD, Johnson C. Smith University
STM, Yale University Divinity School
PhD, Harvard University

Preston Williams, who retired in June 2002, became the Houghton Professor in 1971. He has taught previously at four historically black colleges: Johnson C. Smith University, Knoxville College, North Carolina College for Negroes (now North Carolina Central University), and Lincoln University. He has served as associate chaplain at Pennsylvania State University and Protestant chaplain at Brandeis University. Prior to coming to Harvard Divinity School, he was the Martin Luther King, Jr. Professor at Boston University School of Theology. In his years at Harvard, he has served in various capacities beyond his professorial role: He was Acting Dean of the Divinity School in 1974-75, and the acting and first director of Harvard's W. E. B. Du Bois Institute from 1975 to 1977. From 1998 to 2008 he was the director of the Summer Leadership Institute, a program that brings religious leaders from urban settings to Harvard for two weeks of intensive classes on community development. His fields of interest are Christian ethics, social and economic justice, human rights, and African American experience. He is an ordained Presbyterian USA minister.

Professor Williams is currently teaching.

Contact Information

Harvard Divinity School
45 Francis Avenue
Cambridge MA 02138

office hours: see Harvard Divinity School

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