NEIL L. RUDENSTINE

The President of Harvard University reads the Citation,

CONSCIENCE OF A PEOPLE,

SOUL OF A NATION,

HE HAS BROUGHT FORTH FREEDOM FROM THE CRUCIBLE OF OPPRESSION,

AND HAS INSPIRED BY HIS COURAGEOUS EXAMPLE

THE BETTER ANGELS OF OUR NATURE.

RICHARD M. HUNT

The University Marshall

It is now my privilege to present our honored guest. After my presentation, Harvard President Neil Rudenstine, by virtue of the authority delegated to him by the University’s Governing Boards, will confer the honorary degree of Doctor of Laws.…

JESSYE NORMAN
A great artist, she herself received an honorary doctoral degree from Harvard in 1998.

AMAZING GRACE

Amazing grace! How sweet the sound that saved a wretch like me!
I once was lost but now am found, was blind but now I see.…

KWESI BOTCHWEY

Director of Africa Research and Programs at the Center for International Development and former Finance Minister of the Republic of Ghana. Professor Sachs and Dr. Botchwey have been instrumental in arranging this visit of Nelson Mandela, and both have leading roles in the new “Emerging Africa” research initiative launched at Harvard in 1998.…

JEFFREY SACHS

Director of the Harvard Institute for International Development and of the new Center for International Development at Harvard’s John F. Kennedy School of Government; Galen L. Stone Professor of International Trade

How glorious to be together today, to celebrate the achievements of great leadership, and to dedicate ourselves to the tasks that lie ahead.…

HENRY LOUIS GATES, JR.

Chairman of the Department of Afro-American Studies and Director of the W.E.B. Du Bois Institute for Afro-American Research

Like so many of my fellow faculty members, I attended university in the late sixties and early seventies. Ours was a generation that came to believe that the goal of a liberal education was “to be a tributary to society, not a sanctuary from it,” as Bartlett Giamatti once put it.…

PETER J. GOMES

Pusey Minister in the Memorial Church and Plummer Professor of Christian Morals

O God of promise and of providence, we rejoice that we have lived to see this day. Great is Thy faithfulness, morning by morning new mercies we see.…

The South African National Anthem

Nkosi Sikelel’i Afrika

performed by the Kuumba Singers

Edited by Herbert F. Vetter

 INTRODUCTION

At a unique special convocation during the American Revolution, in 1776, Harvard College conferred on George Washington an honorary doctor’s degree .

At a special convocation during World War II, in 1942, Harvard University conferred on Winston Churchill, the Prime Minister of Great Britain, the honorary degree of Doctor of Laws.…