In his career as a fiery Dorchester preacher and national leader in the black movement, Rivers has returned to Harvard countless times to speak on issues ranging from the AIDS pandemic in Africa to the economic power of the black community in the United States.
In the 1990s, Rivers helped create the Ten Point Coalition, a group of Boston-area church leaders who were instrumental in fighting crime in Boston and served as a model for a national crime-fighting program.
In 1998, Rivers publicly defended Boston magazine after it was criticized for running the headline “Head Negro in Charge” with a profile of Chair of the Department of African and African American Studies Henry Louis Gates, Jr.
Rivers spoke last night after Alexander M. Gupman, a junior associate at the Harvard School of Public Health, addressed the implications of the Sudan crisis on international law. Gupman argued the United States should intervene not for legal reasons, but for moral and political ones, a claim Rivers supported.
Last night’s event was sponsored by the Harvard African Students Association, the Black Men’s Forum, the Black Students Association and the Association of Black Harvard Women.