2002 Op Ed from The Boston Globe September 4, 2002
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EMBRACING THAT 'CITY UPON A HILL'
by Charles C. Euchner and William M. Fowler, Jr.
As an easterly breeze drove the ship Arbella toward New England, Governor John Winthrop feared that some among his company of 1,000 men, women, and children might lose heart and forget the mission the Lord had sent them to achieve. Winthrop had decided to leave England to found a godly community, and he summoned his fellow immigrants to offer a reminder of their common purpose.
''We must entertain each other in brotherly affection,'' Winthrop told his weary voyagers. He challenged his followers to ''make others' conditions our own, rejoice together, mourn together, labor and suffer together.'' He told them that faith would give them a power greater than their numbers: ''We shall find that the God of Israel is among us when ten of us shall be able to resist a thousand of our enemies.''
Winthrop then uttered perhaps the most famous words of community and common responsibility in all of American letters: ''For we must consider that we shall be as a city upon a hill, the eyes of all people are upon us.''
Winthrop's passengers were about to become the first settlers of a town called Boston. Previously called Trimountaine, the town was renamed on Sept. 7, 1630, to honor the town in England renowned for its spirit of assistance to outsiders. Boston also was designated the capital of the Massachusetts Bay Colony.
In the coming days, as we approach the anniversary of the new settlement's charter, Bostonians will celebrate the spirit of Winthrop's founding words, beginning with a panel discussion at Faneuil Hall tomorrow night moderated by Paul S. Grogan, president of the Boston Foundation. Mayor Thomas M. Menino will lead a birthday party with cake and music Saturday afternoon at the Boston Public Library. On Sunday evening, Supreme Court Justice Stephen G. Breyer will speak at at interdenominational service at Old North Church.
Winthrop led Massachusetts for nearly 20 years, most of them as governor. He faced the cruel dilemma of trying to do good in a world full of evil. He was not without his own vices, and his career is darkened by his persecution of those who dared to dissent. But he held tenaciously to his belief in a godly, caring community.
Like every Utopian society, Boston succumbed to worldly temptations. It grew physically and took in people and activities that Winthrop dared not dream about. It eventually became one of the leading centers of commerce in North America. Bankers and traders pushed the edges of the city, and wave after wave of landfill expanded the territory. With commerce came the ills of exploitation, crime, and struggle.
But along with these problems came the riches of human diversity. Winthrop may have failed to preserve his city upon a hill, yet his sense of mission and commitment continues to resonate in our society. Despite the city's manifest failures, Boston needs to return to Winthrop's fundamental belief that men and women can come together in brotherly affection to form communities for the benefit of all.
This ideal is more powerful than ever in the modern age, when Bostonians and others are shadowed by ills ranging from homelessness to terrorism. The ideal poses some difficult, but answerable, questions.
What would it mean to make others' conditions our own? It might mean, first of all, embracing the amazing diversity of our people. Boston is now a majority minority city, but for many of our people the basic goods of housing and education are elusive. Somehow, each of us needs to abandon some of our privileges - whether we are corporate barons, union workers, or university teachers - to make possible new opportunities for the less privileged among us.
That does not mean creating more programs so much as it means letting go of the arrangements that entrench privilege. From large-lot zoning to teachers rights, each of us might find a way to give a little ground so others might have access to their own opportunities.
What would it mean to bear problems with a faith that defied the odds? Consider the challenges as varied as brownfields or water runoff or asthma. Each of these problems poses daunting technical and financial challenges. But is there a way to use the largesse of our real estate boom to clean contaminated lots? Is there a way to limit the runoff of contaminants into rivers and ponds? Is there a way to reduce indoor and outdoor pollutants so that children can live healthy lives?
What would it mean to embrace the ideal of a city upon a hill? Maybe we could adopt, as a civic creed, the necessity of creating great civic places wherever we build. The city's struggle to create new civic spaces on the surface of the Central Artery is well known. But what about the countless school buildings, cemeteries and parks, business complexes, and neighborhood streets? What if Boston embraced the idea that every act of building should create better places for people to gather?
Societies do not always live up to their ideals, but a society without ideals is hollow. Large ideals can inform large and small decisions, where the character of the community is created every day.
John Winthrop rests today in the King's Chapel burial ground close to Tremont Street. The site is simple, as the governor would have wished. No monument is necessary to his memory other than for us to embrace his vision of a city upon a hill.
Charles C. Euchner is executive director of the Rappaport Institute for Greater Boston at the John F. Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University. William M. Fowler Jr. is executive director of the Massachusetts Historical Society.
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