Meet members of the Black Alumni Leadership Council

In honor of Black History Month 2021, we’ve conducted a Q&A with a few of our members. Sonali Bustamante Wilson, Walter E. Fluker, Allison J. Davis, Pauline Jennett, and Karen Holmes Ward spoke to us about their most cherished BU memory, their biggest accomplishment as part of the Council, and a little about who they admire and why.

The Black Alumni Leadership Council was created to provide counsel to Boston University and the Alumni Association to help strengthen the University in its entirety by establishing productive interaction among Black alumni, students, faculty, and staff. Click here to see the full list of BALC members.

Sonali Bustamante Wilson, Esq., (CGS’78, CAS’80)

What’s your most cherished BU memory?
The program establishing the Boston University Chapters of NAACP and Operation PUSH held I believe in the auditorium at the law school in 1978 or ‘79. I was the inaugural president and invited National NAACP President at the time Benjamin Hooks and PUSH Foundation President Rev. Jesse Jackson to speak. The morning of the program I learned that Mr. Hooks could not attend and that I committed the faux pas of not inviting BU President Silber to speak. President Silber did greet the audience and Rev. Jackson spoke as well. Our focus at the time was increasing minority student and faculty numbers on campus.

What’s your biggest accomplishment as part of the Council?
At this time, participating as much as I am able and look forward to moving the work of the Council forward in the future.

Who is someone you admire? And why?
I admire former gubernatorial candidate Stacey Abrams, who along with others, used her following and great dedication to the principles of freedom and democracy to mobilize underserved citizens in the State of Georgia to exercise their right to vote in the historic national presidential election in November 2020, as well as the special senate elections in January 2021 amid the exercise of great voter suppression efforts and tactics.

Walter E. Fluker, Ph.D., (GRS’88, STH’88)

What’s your most cherished BU memory?
My graduate days in the School of Theology and Graduate School of Arts & Humanities. There were wonderful moments of exchange and learning from some of the most accomplished professors in theology, sociology and ethics. My favorite professors were my dissertation Dr. John Henderson Cartwright and Dr. Walter Walter G. Muelder. Perhaps the most wonderful and trying period of my time from 1980-1988 was my early research on Howard Thurman and Martin Luther King, Jr, the subjects of my dissertation which was published as a book, They Looked for a City. Little did I know then that these titans of American religious and political thought would provide the intellectual and ethical framework for most of my writing and teaching for many years. The publication of the five-volume documentary edition of The Papers of Howard Washington Thurman, completed during my tenure as the Martin Luther King, Jr. Professor (2010-2020), was my most cherished accomplishment.

What’s your biggest accomplishment as part of the Council?
I hope my presence and participation in the moorings and thinking about the place of equity, social justice and inclusiveness of which we are now beginning to realize throughout the University.

Who is someone you admire? And why?
Among the many individuals whom I admire, nowadays, Stacey Abrams is at the top of my list. She is my example of an ethical leader whom we and future generations can emulate. She has demonstrated in her advocacy of voting rights, a spirit of integrity, humility, empathy, hope and compassionate pursuit of justice.

Allison J. Davis (CGS’73, COM’75)

What’s your most cherished BU memory?
While there are so many incredible memories I have of my days at BU, my most cherished BU memory was the day I met the man who would become my husband. Married over 40 years, we have raised two talented young men.

What’s your biggest accomplishment as part of the Council?
My biggest accomplishment as part of the Council was to help build an online community of Black Alumni on Facebook.

Who is someone you admire? And why?
As a network television producer, I have had the unique opportunity to meet some amazing people, however, when I think about who I admire most, my thoughts turn back to my father, Walter G. Davis. A labor leader and civil rights activist, I am learning more about his remarkable career and impact on history. From marching across the Edmund Pettus Bridge with Dr. King in 1965, to his work to desegregate the building trade unions, my father often risked his life fighting for equal opportunities people of color. Of course, so much of this I’ve learned long after his death but I remain both proud and in awe of my Dad.

Pauline Jennett (STH’05, Wheelock’17)

What’s your most cherished BU memory?
One of my most cherished BU memories was standing in the lobby of the Smithsonian National Museum of African Art in DC watching our current Chief Diversity Officer, Andrea Taylor, address the hundreds of BU Black alumni in glorious attire who had gathered to commemorate the opening of the new DC Museum of African American History, and celebrate the collective vision of the launch of the BU Black alumni coalition.

What’s your biggest accomplishment as part of the Council?
I had the ability to work with BU Executive Director, Alumni relations- Susan Richardson and VP, Steve Hall to help form the Black Alumni council in 2016 and to see the progress from the original members to a Facebook group moderated by current members that spans hundreds of Black alumni is truly amazing. It is always inspiring to see what a small group of determined and dedicated alumni can accomplish.

Who is someone you admire? And why?
Rev. Howard Thurman – I had the wonderful opportunity to take a BU School of Theology course on Rev. Thurman with Dr. Walter Fluker who has spent decades studying his work. The ability to learn about the first BU Black Dean whose legacy of peace and the beloved community lives on was extraordinary. I fondly recall one of his most favorite quotes…”Don’t ask what the world needs. Ask what makes you come alive, and go do it. Because what the world needs is people who have come alive.”

Karen Holmes Ward (COM’77, HON’19)

What’s your most cherished BU memory?
Among my most cherished memories of BU was our senior year communications project! Our SPC (now COM) Advisors Blaine Littell and Dave Klatell came up with the wonderful idea to create a student radio network to feedback reports from the Democratic and Republican National Conventions to Boston stations that could not send their own reporters. For the Democratic Convention they set up a BU Broadcast Center out of Columbia University and each day we received assignments on what story to cover, who to go interview, and a deadline to have it edited for air. Through this project I got media access to the convention floor at Madison Square Garden and interviewed Rev. Jesse Jackson and Walter Mondale among others. The project was a great success and received coverage on the front page of Boston’s daily newspapers—and confirmed my passion to become a broadcast journalist!
And though I didn’t know at the time, I also met at Boston University the man that would become my husband!

What’s your biggest accomplishment as part of the Council?
As the second Chair of BALC, following the inaugural leadership of Andrea Taylor, I have been working with the Alumni office to expand BALC membership and raise the public profile of BALC through social media and presence on campus. We have successfully done so with BALC representation during the ‘Celebration of Black Alumni’ in 2018, with scores of black alumni returning to the university for the first time in years. And more recently, through BALC supported virtual events open to all alumni during ‘Alumni Weekend Reimagined’ in 2020 and year-round.

Who is someone you admire? And why?
One of my she-roes is Congresswoman Barbara Jordan (LAW ’59, Hon.’69). As the first African American woman elected to the Congress from the South, this Texas-born leader always spoke so elegantly, eloquently and passionately about civil rights and social justice and was one of the reasons I wanted to come to BU to study. And now, the ‘Barbara Jordan Lecture Series on Race, Law and Inequality’ has been named after her by BU School of Law Dean Angela Onwuachi-Willig!