On Martin Luther King Jr. Day, Earlham College, where I teach psychology and neuroscience, was blessed by a visit from the Rev. Dr. Michael Eric Dyson. Students, faculty and community members packed our largest auditorium for his evening lecture.
If you’ve ever heard Dyson speak, you will know what I mean when I say that it was a religious experience. “Preach,” “amen,” and other shouts of assent filled the room as Dyson delivered a talk that some have described as part hip-hop concert, part Black Baptist church. By the way, at Earlham, Dyson would simply be known as Michael. No disrespect intended, we all go by first names at Earlham; it is just one of the many ways that Earlham’s deep Quaker roots manifest today.
Though our students and faculty now practice many faiths, the Quaker notion of peace and justice courses through the life of our community. Quakers were deeply involved with the abolitionist movement in Indiana. In April 1959, when Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. came to speak at Earlham, he commended our Quaker dedication to racial equality and spoke to that aspect of the college as a motivation for supporting the civil rights movement (there is a soon-to-be transcribed tape of his speech).
In 1966, when Sybil Jordon — one of the first Black students to graduate from Little Rock (Ark.) Central High after the city’s fierce resistance to its integration — graduated with a bachelor’s in English literature from Earlham, she spoke of her experience as “fun, challenging, and exciting.” Many students are drawn to Earlham because of this tradition of social justice.
It is no surprise, then, that Dyson’s lecture (or should I say sermon?) was well-attended. He spoke to many of the students in our community, many of whom are familiar with Dyson’s liturgical tradition. He made references to people, places and things without explanation, speaking to an in-group that, for once, included the students who may have otherwise felt excluded at a typical university guest lecture. Our students are admirable and fiery activists — the most visible ones living out their convictions out loud with protests, sit-ins and walkouts.
In the classroom, I’ve come to know another group of students who live out their convictions more like a long-burning flame. I think about these students a lot in this new era in the United States because I relate to them to most. As a professor, I encouraged students to join Women’s March events, but I stayed in the classroom. I have read my share of books and articles on diversity in higher education (I recommend Sara Ahmed’s On Being Included), but I have never participated in a protest myself.
I think there are many people who would say to me, as they would to my students, that silence is an act of violence. I completely agree with this sentiment. No question. Period. I write this piece now, however, because in these last months, I’ve seen more fighting in the family than I have in a long time, and it needs to be acknowledged that there is an important difference between the silence of complicity and the “silence” of those who’s hate for injustice burns in a different way.
