M. William Howard Jr.

After Princeton, Howard joined the national staff of the Reformed Church in America (RCA) in 1972, where he remained until assuming the presidency of New York Theological Seminary (NYTS) in 1992.

In 1984, he travelled to Syria as chair of an ecumenical delegation that accompanied the Reverend Jesse Jackson to obtain the release of U. S. Naval Officer Robert O. Goodman.

During his tenure at NYTS, the Seminary inaugurated two academic partnerships with area graduate schools in social work and urban studies, doubled its endowment, and won the Arthur Vining Davis Foundations Award for Excellence.

This is Dr. Howard's account of how the Reformed Church in America responded to the Black Manifesto and its demand for reparations to African Americans for slavery and subsequent oppression.

They have led the community in conversations related to reparations for the enslavement of Africans in America; protecting public schools from efforts to limit instruction in the history and culture of diverse populations; affordable housing; opposition to book banning; gun safety; the Township’s Master Plan; treatment of local students with different sexual orientation; and recognition of African American history in the region, all topics deemed vital to engagement of the kind that strengthens community.

In 1985, he stood with New Jersey Governor Thomas Kean when he signed a bill divesting State holdings of some $2 billion from companies doing business in South Africa.

With Henry F. Henderson, a New Jersey businessman and Commissioner of the Port Authority of NY/NJ, Howard founded Management Futures, an initiative that provided internships to black South Africans in fields from which they had been excluded under the Job Reservations Act.