By Tricia Cherry —
On Thursday evening at 7:00 pm at Miami Hamilton campus, esteemed professor of Vanderbilt
University, ordained Baptist minister, and best-selling author of over twenty-five books Dr.
Michael Eric Dyson came to Parrish Auditorium, courtesy of the Michael J. Colligan History
Project. Dr. Dyson arrived to discuss his latest work, Dr. King for the 21st Century, and its
relevance to the issues of race, justice, and faith, linking contemporary racial politics to that of
the past.
The event opened with Barbra Oswald, Regional Acting Associate Dean, Professor, and Lead
Departmental Advisor of Miami University, stepping up to introduce our speaker.
Dr. Dyson’s demeanor was good-natured and clever, possibly to contrast the heavy topics he
spoke of. He made a point of getting across that this was a safe place to speak of these subjects.
For instance, one of his observations was that Dr. Martin Luther King, in college from ages fifteen to nineteen, received a grade of C in preaching. He jokingly asked, “Can you imagine
those teachers looking back? ‘I Have a Dream’ is a C speech.”
Dyson
Dr. Dyson described Martin Luther King as an avatar: a symbol of what we are capable of when
standing united. Toward the end of his life, Dr. King was said to have been clinically depressed,
in sharp contrast to the strong, unshakable figure we typically think of when we hear his name.
The constant attempts on Dr. King’s life wore on him, and his true strength is that although he
did feel the burden of his difficult path, he never wavered. Similarly, Rosa Parks, who is often
portrayed as a frail, helpless old lady, was only forty-two years old when she refused to move to
the back of that bus. She was an outspoken activist for civil rights and feminism.
“If you stand for Martin Luther King, you stand against all bigotry,” Dr. Dyson said. And racism,
he noted, is a dry-run for fascism. A joke he came back to a couple of times was that the white
prison guards who oversaw the arrested civil rights activists in the 1960s ought to have been
marching alongside them, because they were so poorly paid for their services.
When questioned on the subject of Christian Nationalism, as a man of faith, Dr. Dyson declared
this attitude an abomination. Jesus preached love and acceptance, he claimed, and God made gay and trans individuals, just as He made straight individuals. The same goes for the poor, disabled, and
anyone of color. As for the idea of the US being a Christian nation, he cited “freedom of
religion” in several of our most important documents. Even as a minister, Dr. Dyson urged us to
step back from religion, if that’s what it takes to see what is right. “God is love,” Dr. Dyson
insisted.
Dr. Dyson ended with an observation: Even though many of our social problems lie within the
system itself, and not any individual person, it is still within the power of individuals to change
the system. It doesn’t take many people; Jesus only had twelve by his side, he reminded the audience.
It takes full, unselfish unity.