BISHOP BARBARA HARRIS

A native of Philadelphia, Barbara Clementine Harris graduated from the Charles Morris Price School of Advertising and Journalism. She joined Joseph V. Baker Associates Inc., a national public relations firm headquartered in Philadelphia in 1949. She was president of the firm in 1968 when she joined the Sun Company as community relations consultant. She later was named manager of community and urban affairs and headed Sun's Public Relations Department from May 1973 until becoming a senior staff consultant at Sun's corporate headquarters in January 1977.
She attended Villanova University and studied at the Urban Theology Unit in Sheffield, England. She is also a graduate of the Pennsylvania Foundation for Pastoral Counseling. Ordained to the diaconate in September 1979, she was ordained a priest in 1980.
She served as priest-in-charge of St. Augustine of Hippo Church in Norristown, Penn., from 1980-1984. She also served as chaplain to the Philadelphia County prisons, and as counsel to industrial corporations for public policy issues and social concerns. In 1984, she was named executive director of the Episcopal Church Publishing Company and publisher of The Witness magazine. In 1988, she took on additional duties as interim rector of Philadelphia's Church of the Advocate.
In September 1988, she was elected suffragan (assisting) bishop of the Diocese of Massachusetts. On February 11, 1989, she was consecrated a bishop, the first woman to be ordained to the episcopate in the worldwide Anglican Communion.
Bishop Harris has been active in professional and community organizations, as well as in national church service. A member of the Union of Black Episcopalians and a past president of the Episcopal Urban Caucus, she has represented the Episcopal Church on the board of the Prisoner Visitation and Support Committee and was a member of the Episcopal Church's Standing Commission on Anglican and International Peace with Justice Concerns. She is a member of the Board of Trustees of Episcopal Divinity School in Cambridge, Mass., and is a past vice president of Episcopal City Mission, an independent agency of the Diocese of Massachusetts working for and on behalf of the urban poor.
Bishop Harris has received honorary degrees from numerous colleges, universities and theological schools, including Yale University and the Church Divinity School of the Pacific.
She retired on Nov. 1, 2002. Beginning in the summer of 2003, she began serving as an assisting bishop to Bishop John B. Chane in the Diocese of Washington (D.C.).
BLACKWELL RECIPIENTS
February 3, 2021
Supreme Court Associate Justice Ruth Bader GinsburgJanuary 22, 2015
Dr. Janet L. YellenNovember 10, 2013
The Most Reverend Doctor Katharine Jefferts SchoriOctober 27, 2011
Eunice Kennedy Shriver-
April 23, 2009
Rabbi Sally J. Priesand -
April 24, 2008
Dr. Wangari Maathai Sc.D.'94, P '94, P '96 -
April 27, 2007
Dr. Priscilla A. Schaffer '64, Sc.D. '94 -
September 7, 2004
Bishop Barbara Clementine Harris September 9, 2003
Loretta C. FordSeptember 4, 2001
Madeleine K. AlbrightMay 15, 1998
Billie Jean KingFebruary 10, 1996
Wilma MankillerSeptember 23, 1993
Barbara JordanSeptember 27, 1991
Margaret Chase SmithFebruary 22, 1991
Dr. Antonia C. NovelloFebruary 19, 1988
Barbara Aronstein BlackOctober 9, 1985
Cicely SaundersMarch 8, 1985
Sandra Day O’ConnorFebruary 11, 1984
Hannah Holborn GrayFebruary 26, 1982
Agnes George de MilleFebruary 15, 1980
Mary Douglas LeakeySeptember 30, 1977
Mary S. CalderoneOctober 3, 1975
Antonia BricoJanurary 23, 1974
Frances Keller HardingMay 28, 1973
Judith Graham PoolJune 8, 1972
Marian AndersonApril 10, 1972
Mary LaskerJune 13, 1971
Mina ReesJune 14, 1970
Helen Brooke TaussigJune 15, 1969
Georgiana SibleyJune 16, 1968
Constance Baker MotleySeptember 8, 1967
Catharine MacfarlaneJuly 10, 1966
Fe del MundoJune 13, 1965
Annette LeMeitour-KaplunJune 14, 1964
Margaret MeadJune 9, 1963
Marty MannJune 10, 1962
Frances PerkinsJune 18,1961
Leona BaumgartnerJune 12, 1960
Miki SawadaJune 14, 1959
Elisabeth Luce MooreSeptember 27, 1958
Gwendolyn Grant Mellon