“Central to Roxbury Latin’s mission and tradition is tending to the spiritual growth of our boys,” began Headmaster Brennan in virtual Hall on April 1. Throughout the year, Roxbury Latin students hear from speakers of various religious traditions about topics of faith, spirituality, and living with purpose. As Jews began their celebration of Passover, and as Christians looked forward to the culmination of Holy Week, RL trustee and parent Jim Frates shared his personal reflections on the meaning of Holy Thursday—and how the lessons relate to each of us, regardless of our faith or beliefs.

He began with the story of RL alumnus James Drummond Dole, Class of 1895, who had set out for Hawaii to make his fortune and—after much trial and error—found success, ultimately, in pineapples. He then shared the tale of Captain Eddie Rickenbacker, who “might have been the most interesting man in the world,” Mr. Frates said, who in his life excelled in engine repair and then race car driving; became the greatest flying ace in WWI; went on to own Indianapolis Motor Speedway and establish Eastern Airlines; and even authored a comic strip.

Mr. Frates then recounted a sermon that his uncle—a former Navy priest and WWII pilot—used to deliver about when Captain Rickenbacker and his crew crashed into the Pacific and spent 21 days adrift:

“After exhausting their supplies, starving, and near the point of death, Captain Rickenbacker organized a prayer meeting: ‘Master, we are in an awful fix, as you know. We are counting on a little something by the day after tomorrow at the least.’ Rickenbacker then lay on his back and pulled his hat down over his face. At that point something landed on it. A seagull. He slowly reached up and captured the gull, and then divided it among his men. The remainder provided him with bait for two fish which were quickly captured. There were no skeptics among those men.” He recounts how two days later, near death from dehydration, Rickenbacker prayed for water. That evening a squall occurred, providing the men with enough water to survive until they were rescued.

Finally, Mr. Frates arrived at one of the most important stories in the Christian tradition—that of Holy Thursday. “In the episcopal tradition, Maundy Thursday is the day that sets up and highlights all that is to follow.” He recounted the details of Christ’s Last Supper, the washing of His disciples’ feet, and finally the agony in the garden at Gethsemane. 

“Jesus’s commandments to his disciples during the days leading up to his death are some of the lessons I hope you take away today,” said Mr. Frates. “To love one another as I have loved you; the importance of fellowship—caring for one’s friends and neighbors; and leadership through service. If you want to truly lead you must take care of one another… Combine these lessons with those of Dole—dream big, don’t give up, look to your friends for support, take care of those around you—and Richenbacker—work hard, find your passion, give all you can, remember it can change at any moment, be a leader, and don’t be afraid to pray.

“I am sure you hear this a lot, but you have been given a great gift,” concluded Mr. Frates. “Your community here at Roxbury Latin is special—your friendships, your classmates, and your teachers. Remember your fellowship. Carry it forward. Don’t be afraid to lead, and don’t be afraid to rely on your friends.”

Mr. Frates is the Chief Financial Officer of Amylyx Pharmaceuticals—a company focused on developing new treatments for amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS), Alzheimer’s Disease, and other neurodegenerative diseases. In addition to serving as treasurer of Roxbury Latin’s Board of Trustees, Mr. Frates serves on the boards of Sage Therapeutics and St. Francis House, and formerly on the Board of his alma mater, St. Paul’s School in New Hampshire.

View the entirety of Mr. Frates’ Hall talk.

On March 9, Massachusetts State Representative Dr. Jon Santiago spoke to students, faculty, and staff in virtual Hall and discussed—from his personal experience—the many ways in which one can choose to meaningfully serve others and their community. Dr. Santiago is the Representative for the 9th Suffolk District (Boston), centered in the South End, and an emergency room physician at Boston Medical Center. A lifelong public servant, Representative Santiago was a Peace Corps volunteer in the Dominican Republic, and he continues to serve as a captain in the Army Reserve. He spent five years abroad working in community organizing and public health. His current policy and clinical interests are focused on improving quality and access to care for underserved communities.

“I’m a relentless optimist,” he said in Hall. “I do what I do because I think the world can be a better place. I made the decision to enter the Peace Corps, to join the Army, to work in BMC’s ER, to serve as an elected state official, because I am ultimately a believer in people, and a believer that the world can become a better place. While I was with the Peace Corps, in the Dominican Republic, I was sitting in bed—alone, in a different country—thinking, ‘Is the world becoming a better place, historically speaking? And can I have a role in making that so?’”

Recently, Representative Santiago has used his roles as both an elected official and ER physician to advocate for resources and equity-oriented policies during the COVID-19 pandemic. He worked in the emergency room each week during the COVID-19 surge, sharing social media videos to provide up-to-date information for hundreds of thousands of viewers. He has also been active in national and local media discussing a host of COVID-19 related issues while writing several Boston Globe op-eds. One of 14 legislators of color in the legislature, Representative Santiago played an instrumental role in leading the charge for police reform as a member of the Massachusetts Black and Latino Legislative Caucus. Born in Puerto Rico, Dr. Santiago earned his bachelor’s degree in religious studies and biology from the University of Texas at Austin, his master’s in public health from the University of Washington, and his doctor of medicine from Yale. In February, Dr. Santiago announced his candidacy for Mayor of Boston, a post left vacant as Mayor Marty Walsh assumes the post of Secretary of Labor in President Biden’s administration.

Listen to the complete Q&A session with Dr. Santiago that took place at the end of his recent Hall.

This winter’s Kingswood Oxford public speaking competition took place virtually on February 8. For the sixth year in a row, Roxbury Latin’s team earned the Googins Cup, awarded to the school that places first overall in four categories of competition: Persuasive Speaking, After Dinner Speaking, Impromptu Speaking, and Ethical Dilemmas.

The four RL boys contributing to the team’s success this year were John Wilkinson (I), Nick Raciti (II), Vishnu Emani (II), and David Sullivan (II). In addition to their team success, two boys earned individual recognition: David not only placed first in Impromptu Speaking, and second in After Dinner Speaking, but he also placed first as the Top Overall Speaker in the competition, which included 52 students from eleven schools across New England. John also earned a third place finish, in After Dinner Speaking.

The virtual nature of this year’s debate and public speaking tournaments has not lessened the boys’ hard work and commitment, faculty advisor Stewart Thomsen has noted. Faculty member Ken Hiatt ‘93 served as the judge for Roxbury Latin’s team of four at this winter’s virtual competition.

“For the past 20 years, I have studied the history of racial discrimination in the United States,” Dr. Brian Purnell began in virtual Hall on February 18. “I focused on this because I wanted to understand my country’s contradictions.” 

Dr. Purnell shared his personal journey with Civil Rights Movement history, which includes his work as a historian as well as his own personal experiences of growing up in Brooklyn, New York, in the 1980s and ‘90s. His talk offered a foundational explanation of where our country has been in regard to racism, how far we have come, and how far we still have to go.

“The most famous lines from our Declaration of Independence read, ‘We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their creator with certain unalienable rights, that among these are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.’ While Thomas Jefferson wrote those lines in Philadelphia in 1776, over 400,000 people lived as slaves in British North America. The overwhelming majority were in the South, where human labor cultivated tobacco and rice, but there were also tens of thousands of enslaved people who lived in the North—15,000 in Massachusetts and 19,000 in my home state of New York. Americans like to think that racial slavery occurred only in the South, but it was part of the North’s deep, dirty past, too.”

Dr. Purnell discussed how the economy and individuals of the Northern states benefited from and relied on the practice of slavery as much as the South: “Beginning with Massachusetts, northern states had abolished human slavery, but major northern industries—banking, finance, insurance and shipping, as well as manufacturing trades, like shipbuilding, barrel making, rope and sail fabrication—all profited from and relied upon the South’s racial slavery and the cotton it supplied the world. Boston, New York, and Philadelphia needed profits from slavery as much as Charleston, Atlanta, and Birmingham. Racial slavery was never a regional sickness, it was always a national cancer.”

Dr. Purnell walked students and faculty through the work of abolitionists William Lloyd Garrison and John Brown, and through his own transformative experience of reading Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass for the first time in ninth grade. He talked about how his third grade teacher, Mrs. Eppolito, who—in wanting to teach her young students about the dangers of racist violence, and the inexplicable nature of rage and prejudice—showed her class the very beginning of the documentary, Eyes on the Prize, which told the story of 14-year-old Emmett Till, including showing images of his dead body.

“‘This is what happens when bigots have their way,’ Mrs. Eppolito told us, and I will never forget that,” Dr. Purnell said.

“When Dr. King spoke about the Fierce Urgency of Now, he highlighted the need for people to act upon the injustices in their current world—not a future one—with compassion and commitment… I look forward to hearing how you find a way to do the same, because like Frederick Douglass said, if there is no struggle, there is no progress.”

Brian Purnell is the Geoffrey Canada Professor of Africana Studies and History at Bowdoin College. His research, teaching, and writing has focused on race relations—as well as related laws and urban development—throughout the boroughs of New York City, though he has also taught and written extensively about the place of racism in both the North and the South throughout America’s history. Dr. Purnell’s first book, Fighting Jim Crow in the County of Kings, tells the story of interracial activists fighting against racial discrimination in Brooklyn during the 1960s. At Bowdoin, he teaches courses on the civil rights movement; racism and criminal law; affirmative action; the history of racial and ethnic conflict in the U.S.; and the history of American cities from the colonial period to the present.

Watch the entirety of Dr. Purnell’s Hall talk, as well as a powerful Q&A session.

On February 3, members of Class VI braved the chill and slush to trek two miles in the name of advocacy. Joined by Class I counterparts and two dozen faculty and staff members, Sixies participated in Boston’s Winter Walk—an event that raises both dollars and awareness to combat homelessness throughout Greater Boston.

Students’ march around campus and through the surrounding neighborhoods of West Roxbury was just one part of a larger event that takes place each February—the coldest month of the year in Boston. This year marked the Winter Walk’s fifth annual event, which took place—in walks large and small—from January 29 through February 7. During the walk many RL boys wore signs indicating why they walk: “To raise awareness and spread kindness,” “To be an ally,” and “To not take the things we have for granted.”

The Walk is not only a fundraising endeavor, but also an act of solidarity: “This is our chance to link arms with those who experience homelessness and to listen humbly to their stories. It is our chance to show them that this city cares about their lives and to affirm our commitment to do all it takes to ease their struggles,” reads the Walk’s website. West Roxbury residents and RL parents, Jessie and Enrique Colbert P’26, served as co-chairs of this year’s Winter Walk, and Mrs. Colbert was the person who brought the idea to the attention of Class VI classmaster, Hunter White. During a year in which many of RL’s regular community service partnerships and events are unavailable to students, due to COVID restrictions, Mrs. White was eager to involve RL’s youngest boys in this meaningful and active service initiative. Head Cross Country coach Bryan Dunn marked a two-mile course, and—donning hats, coats, boots, and masks—RL students and adults took to the streets.

The Winter Walk is presented by Boston Medical Center and Boston Medical Center HealthNet Plan, and sponsored by many other local businesses, large and small. In support of the effort, and in honor of our Class VI walkers, Roxbury Latin made a donation to this year’s Winter Walk, which will be directed to the Pine Street Inn—one of the many shelters the organization serves, as well as a long-time service partner of Roxbury Latin. The Walk brings together a number of Greater Boston’s remarkable homeless service programs to show the powerful work being done in the city.

Community service is a central element of Roxbury Latin’s mission. In celebrating the school’s 375th anniversary last year, Roxbury Latin focused specifically on issues related to poverty and homelessness, sponsoring an all-school bed-build with A Bed for Every Child, through the Massachusetts Coalition for the Homeless, and a series of speakers, including Pulitzer Prize-winning author of Evicted, Matthew Desmond; CEO of Boston Medical, Kate Walsh; founder of Codman Square Health, Bill Walczak; and Nobel Prize-winning economist Esther Duflo. The series continued a centuries-long Roxbury Latin tradition of preparing boys to both lead and serve.

View photos from RL’s Winter Walk. (Photos by Mike Pojman)