Rev. Dr. Harold Dean “Doc” Trulear

Healing Communities National Director

Harold Dean Trulear is an ordained American Baptist minister and serves as Associate Professor of Applied Theology at Howard University, where he is also immediate past president of the Gamma of DC chapter of Phi Beta Kappa. He is also Director of the Healing Communities Prison Ministry and Prisoner Reentry Project of the Philadelphia Leadership Foundation. Designed by the Annie E. Casey Foundation, Healing Communities has been implemented in over 25 sites nationally, in partnership with such organizations as the Progressive National Baptist Convention, The General Board of Church and Society of the United Methodist Church, and the D-Free Ministry. Dr. Trulear is on the pastoral staff of Praise and Glory Tabernacle in Southwest Philadelphia, and also serves as a Fellow at the Center for Public Justice in Washington, DC. He has taught religion, public policy, and community studies in several institutions, including Yale University, the University of Southern California, Hartford Seminary, Eastern University, and Vanderbilt University. From 1998-2001 he served as vice president of faith-based initiatives at Public/Private Ventures, in Philadelphia, having come to P/PV from New York Theological Seminary, where he served six years as dean for first professional studies. A graduate of Morehouse College (BA) and Drew University (Ph.D.), Dr. Trulear has authored over seventy published monographs, articles, essays, sermons, and reviews, including African American Churches and Welfare Reform (Center for Public Justice) and Faith-Based Initiatives with High-Risk Youth (P/PV). He co-edited Ministry with Prisoners and Their Families: The Way Forward, with W. Wilson Goode and Charles E. Lewis. His writings on religion, culture and political affairs have appeared in PBS Religionand Ethics Newsweekly, the Center for Public Justice Capital Commentary, UrbanFaith.com, John Jay College of Criminal Justice’ The Crime Report, and Prism: America’s Alternative Evangelical Voice.