Robert L. Woodson, Sr., and his belief that human dignity and moral possibility exist everywhere

Editorial note: this essay originally appeared at The Giving Review.

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Like so many others over the years, those of us at Milwaukee’s Lynde and Harry Bradley Foundation learned a great deal from Bob Woodson, who died last week. He was a good man who gave the best of himself, always, for and with others.

Among the many interactions Bradley had with Bob, founder of what became the Woodson Center, one experience in particular remains unforgettable to me. In 2003, Bob, several of his closest associates, and a small group connected to Bradley traveled to Russia to visit a number of civic and neighborhood organizations there. Organized by Declan Murphy, it was quite a trip. Declan is a former executive assistant to Librarian of Congress Jim Billington and advised Jack and Pina Templeton, including when the Templeton Prize was awarded in 1983 to Alexandr Solzhenitsyn.

One episode from the trip especially stays with me. We spent part of a day in a prison in St. Petersburg, meeting with four gang members—a tough and hardened group of Russian young men in a world far removed from our own. Watching Bob lead that conversation was eye-opening.

He spoke with them directly, naturally, and respectfully. There was no pretense about him. He understood instinctively how to engage people whom most institutions, and most people, would rather avoid altogether. Before long, what could have been a tense and uncomfortable encounter became a serious and searching discussion.

It was classic Bob Woodson. He believed deeply that human dignity and moral possibility existed everywhere, even in places where others saw only disorder, danger, or failure. He had spent his life proving it.

The trip was part of Bradley’s highly Woodson-informed grantmaking interest in civil society, including nationally and internationally. My Bradley colleague and now Giving Review co-editor Bill Schambra references this interest in his call, including at the 2024 National Conservatism conference, for any conservative creation of a “parallel polis” to be sure and look for the one that already latently exists in America’s central-city neighborhoods.

There were lighter moments on the Russia trip, too. One evening, during a concert at the historic hotel across from the Hermitage Museum, Omar Jahwar—one of Bob’s longtime colleagues and many collaborators—asked Declan to request in Russian that the bandleader give him some B flat and C major chords, the classic blues chords, to get started. Omar then played the piano and sang some Marvin Gaye songs.

Years later, Omar became a bishop and continued serving his community in Dallas with the same spirit of that trip—as he did in founding, with support from Stand Together, both Urban Specialists in Dallas and the Heal America national network of social entrepreneurs. Omar died in 2021.

His performance was an extraordinary and joyful moment, and somehow perfectly fitting for that group, for the trip, and for Bob himself: serious purpose mixed with grace, good nature, fellowship, and maybe a little Marvin Gaye. Basic, common, connection-making humanity.

In honor of Bob and in his memory, let us all continue in that same spirit. Always, for and with others.