Members of the Yale and New Haven communities gathered this week to confer degrees on the Rev. James W.C. Pennington and the Rev. Alexander Crummell, two Black men who studied theology at the university during the mid-19th century but were barred from formally registering as students or speaking in class due to the color of their skin.
The ceremony, held Thursday at Yale’s Battell Chapel, was an opportunity for the university to honor the achievements of the two men, who became noted pastors and powerful advocates for racial justice, and to atone for having failed to embrace them as students or treat them with the dignity and decency they deserved.
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