Harvard Divinity School Conference on Truth and Reconciliation Experiences in the U.S.

HDS James Room, Swartz Hall
Wed., Apr. 8, 2026, 9 a.m. – 5 p.m.

Please register to attend.

Hosted by the Office for Community and Belonging through a restorative, heart-centered approach, this conference will serve as the inaugural public launching of the Harvard Divinity School Truth and Healing Commission. The convening is a call to affirm our common humanity and to advance the vision of a world healed of the harms that separate us from the natural world, from ourselves, and from one another. We are building a new world through a shared value of love.

The conference will highlight the work of Truth and Reconciliation initiatives in the United States and will feature representatives from two foundational initiatives: the Greensboro Truth and Reconciliation Commission in North Carolina and the Maine-Wabanaki Truth and Reconciliation Commission on Child Welfare. Members of these commissions will share how they worked to reconcile across differences and engaged in constructive dialogue through truth telling to heal communities after violence and historical harm.

The Commission is dedicated to helping HDS reckon with its role and the role of religion in Harvard's entanglements with slavery, colonization, forced assimilation and religious conversion, and so-called race science. Its goal is to engage our HDS community and African diasporic and Indigenous descendant communities across the Americas in truth-telling, accountability, healing, and repair.