Peter J. Gomes

The Rev. Peter J. Gomes will receive the YWCA Boston’s 2007 Racial Justice Award at the organization’s 13th annual Women’s Leadership Gala and Benefit Auction, entitled “A Night with the Academy.” The gala is scheduled to take place next Wednesday, June 13, at the Sheraton Boston Hotel.

The Racial Justice Award is given each year to individuals who further the YWCA Boston’s goal of fighting for racial justice and empowering women. Gomes, who serves as Plummer Professor of Christian Morals and Pusey Minister in the Memorial Church at Harvard University, will be honored for his work to forward those causes.

“Professor Gomes has played an integral role in advocating for women in the ministry as well as in society,” said Sylvia Ferrell-Jones, president and CEO of the YWCA Boston. “During his continued service in The Memorial Church he supported the first female Lutheran minister in 1972, and in 1989 he appointed the first woman as assistant minister. Professor Gomes is truly an inspiration for positive change in communities.”

Born in Boston in 1942, Gomes is an American Baptist minister, ordained to the Christian Ministry by The First Baptist Church of Plymouth, Mass. A member of the faculty in Harvard’s departments of arts and sciences and of divinity, Gomes holds degrees from Bates College and Harvard Divinity School, as well as a remarkable 33 honorary degrees. He is widely regarded as one of America’s most distinguished preachers and fulfills preaching and lecturing engagements throughout America and the British Isles.

The author of many books, Gomes is currently working on his memoirs.