Agenda
5 p.m. - Panel and Discussion/Lecture
Campus Center Ballroom
UMass Boston
6:45 p.m. - Reception
Alumni Lounge
Campus Center
UMass Boston
Select Readings & Resources
The full bibliography assembled for this year’s Wood Visiting Professorship includes more than 100 entries, spanning centuries of moral and civic thought. This shorter list offers a compact, accessible on ramp to the lecture and discussion on September 23rd. It includes a mix of primary sources behind the phrase “City on a Hill,” Robert C. Wood’s own words, and several contemporary works addressing both the country’s founding and the concept of “civic moral compass.” Please note this is not meant to be a comprehensive list—there are many disciplines and dimensions involved with questions of ethics, values, and morality, especially regarding the “civic” side. We do hope it whets your appetite, though, and inspires further inquiry and reflective practice.
Robert C. Wood, in His Own Words and Remembered
Robert C. Wood, “Urban Independence,” Independence Day Oration, delivered in Faneuil Hall, Boston, July 4, 1968.
Wood’s own articulation of civic ideals for the city
Richard A. Hogarty and Marcy Murninghan, “Two Salutes to Robert C. Wood, 1923–2005,” New England Journal of Public Policy, Vol. 20, No. 2, March 21, 2005.
A concise portrait of Wood’s character and legacy
The Source of “City on a Hill”
John Winthrop, “A Model of Christian Charity,” 1630.
A sermon that coined the image at the heart of the civic moral compass theme
Mark Peterson, review of Daniel T. Rodgers, As a City Upon a Hill: The Story of America’s Most Famous Lay Sermon, English Historical Review, vol. 135, issue 575 (August 2020), 1024–1026.
A brief account of how Winthrop’s phrase traveled from Puritan sermon to modern political cliché
The Founding, Reconsidered
Danielle Allen, Radical Duke: How One Aristocrat—and the American Revolution— Transformed Britain (New York: Liveright, June 2026).
A tracing of the Revolution's transatlantic roots offering a reminder about how the founding moral claims of the nation were contested and unsettled from the beginning
Pauline Maier, American Scripture: Making the Declaration of Independence (New York: Vintage Books, 1998).
A tale of two different but related stories: the original making of the Declaration (along with 90 other declarations throughout the 13 colonies) and its subsequent remaking into what most Americans know, remember, and revere
The Moral Distance Between Ideal and Practice
Frederick Douglass, “What to the Slave Is the Fourth of July?” July 5, 1852.
The classic counter-testimony to founding-era self-congratulation
Eddie S. Glaude, Jr., America, U.S.A.: How Race Shadows the Nation's Anniversaries (New York: Penguin Press, May 2026).
A timely reflection on how race complicates our civic self-image
Naming and Repairing the Breach
Daron Acemoglu, What Happened to Liberal Democracy? (New York: Penguin Random House, 2026)
Nobel Laureate analysis of how liberal elites failed to acknowledge heavy social and economic shocks that undermined shared prosperity, and what to do about it
Dana Meadows, “Leverage Points: Places to Intervene in a System,” (Heartland, VT: Sustainability Institute, 1999)
Landmark framework of 12 "leverage points" within complex systems, ranked in increasing order of effectiveness, showing where and how interventions can drive the most powerful structural change
Jon Meacham, The Soul of America: The Search for Our Better Angels (New York: Random House, 2019).
An accessible narrative of how the country has recovered its moral footing before
Robert Putnam, Bowling Alone: The Collapse and Revival of American Community (New York: Simon & Schuster, 2000).
The foundational diagnosis of eroding civic bonds
Michael Sandel, Democracy's Discontent: A New Edition for Our Perilous Times (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2022).
A leading philosopher's case for renewing a shared public philosophy of the common good
Yuval Levin, American Covenant: How the Constitution Unified Our Nation, and Could Again (New York: Basic Books, 2024).
A hopeful, constitutionally grounded argument for how shared institutions can still bind us together
Jill Lepore, We the People: A History of the U.S. Constitution (New York: Liveright Publishing, 2025).
A sweeping history of the Constitution
Jeffrey A. Winters, The Blind Spot: How Oligarchs Dominate Our Democracy (New York: Scribner, May 26, 2026).
A chronicle of wealth power pushing the world into "participatory inequality,” and how to address it
Moral Reckoning
Senator Reverend Raphael G. Warnock, The Crooked Places Made Straight: Reflections on the Moral Meaning of America (New York: Penguin Press, June 2026).
A biblically inflected meditation on America's moral meaning, calling for us to reach for the highest and noblest aspects of our national character
Loretta J. Ross, Calling In: How to Start Making Change with Those You'd Rather Cancel (New York: Simon & Schuster, February 2026).
A practical, hopeful guide to civil disagreement
Reverend Gloria E. White-Hammond, MD, serves as Co-Pastor of Bethel AME Church in Boston and is the Swartz Resident Practitioner in Ministry Studies at Harvard Divinity School. A graduate of Boston University, Tufts University School of Medicine, and Harvard Divinity School, Rev. Gloria White-Hammond co-founded My Sister's Keeper in 2002, a humanitarian and human rights organization that champions social justice for women and girls in conflict zones.
Reverend Ray A. Hammond, MD is Senior Pastor at Bethel AME Church in Boston. Educated as a physician at Harvard Medical School, he earned his MA in the Study of Religion at Harvard University. His long history of involvement with youth and community activities includes co-founding the Ten Point Coalition, an ecumenical group of Christian clergy and lay leaders working to mobilize the greater Boston community around issues affecting youth.
Reverend Mariama White-Hammond is founding pastor of New Roots AME Church in Dorchester and has extensive background in embedding equity and environmental justice into Boston’s communities. In 2021, Rev. Mariama White-Hammond was appointed as Chief of Environment, Energy, and Open Space for the City of Boston and served in this role for three years. She earned her Master of Divinity at the Boston University School of Theology.