Rev. Marcia Dyson The Reverend Marcia L. Dyson is a native of Chicago, where she attended high school, the University of Illinois and Chicago State University. She served as the first chief of staff for Operation Push’s International Trade Bureau. In 1992, she was appointed by Mayor Richard Daley to serve as the Public Information Officer for the Mayor's Office of Special Events for the City of Chicago. Today, Dyson is the national spokesperson for the Congressional Black Caucus’ universal healthcare bill, HR676, and an affiliate with the Center for Social Justice, Research, Teaching and Service at Georgetown University in Washington, D.C. President William J. Clinton selected her to be on his 2008 Clinton Global Initiative delegation team, which traveled to Africa and Mexico. In 2007, former Secretary of State Madeleine Albright selected Dyson to be on the Women’s Global Summit Leadership. Rev. Dyson serves on many advisory boards whose missions include providing housing to single mothers, education, and combating child trafficking. She is also the Ambassador at Large for the Middle East Peace Civic Forum, an Israeli-Palestinian conflict resolution organization. Dyson is working on several books, including Don't Call Me Angel, a novel that explores the spiritual development of an African-American woman and the cultural and racial elements of the sixties and seventies; The Women Who Would Be King: Female Socio-Civic Activists; and a memoir of her travels as a surrogate for Senator Clinton for President, The Rough Side of the Mountain: Trials on the 2008 Presidential Primary Trail.

You’ve Come a Long Way Baby?

To commemorate Women’s History Month, ND20 asked women thought leaders to reflect on past accomplishments and explore today’s key challenges. Rev. Marcia Dyson warns that unequal pay threatens the nation’s economic recovery.

In the late ’60s, the Virginia Slim cigarette ads famously exploited the revival of the ’20s women movement by creating a false sense of rebellion and independence. We burned our bras but deceived ourselves in thinking that the strike of a match could light a path to true equality with men — not merely in the freedom to smoke, but in the workplace where inequality sent the hopes of millions…

Lessons from Black History: Don’t Ask, Don’t Get

One year after the historic election of Barack Obama, and in honor of Black History Month, we asked leading African-American thinkers to reflect on lessons we must bear in mind in order to advance principles of social and economic justice in public policy. The Reverend Marcia Dyson calls for black constituencies to reject the “don’t ask, don’t get” policy of the Obama Administration and demand that their voices be heard.

Last year, during Black History Month, African Americans celebrated with great pride Barack Obama’s election as the first black President of the United States. Obama sought to enlist blacks and all…

‘Terra Moralis’: Why truth, accountability, and justice must guide the FCIC

Reverend Marcia Dyson, a Roosevelt Institute Braintruster, outlines the principles that must guide the inquiry into the financial collapse.

“There is no respect of persons with God.” (Romans2:11)

Amidst all the noise and bluster about seating a commission to investigate the causes of our financial ruin, let’s not forget the fundamental moral and spiritual principles that should guide their search for the truth. And in the spirit of the bi-partisan approach being heralded, these principles aren’t the province of one religion or moral tradition; rather, these ideas are the fault lines that trace beneath the common ethical ground all good citizens…

Mondays with Marcia: Michael Jackson thrilled the music biz, blazed the trail of racial acceptance

There comes a time
When we heed a certain call
When the world must come together as one,
There are people dying
And its time to lend a hand to life,
The greatest gift of all.
We Are the World 

It is a bittersweet coincidence that Michael Jackson, dubbed by Elizabeth Taylor in 1989 as the King of Pop, died in the month of June, celebrated since 1979 as Black Music Month.

Michael Jackson emerged not long after black folk, including musical artists, shook free of the chains of legal segregation. Jackson and his brothers formed The Jackson 5, and were signed to Motown in 1968, the year…

Pill Hill

Rev. Marcia Dyson wonders how long the 40 million souls without health care will have to wait for real reform.

When President Obama announced in Chicago his plans to overhaul our unwieldy heathcare system, it reminded me of the southside Chicago neighborhood where I resided as a teen. It was dubbed “Pill Hill” because of all the physicians who lived in the community. Obama offered his prescription for what ails the nation’s healthcare delivery in an address to the annual meeting of the American Medical Association. “I need your help, doctors,” Obama pleaded. “We just do what you tell us to…

Mondays with Marcia: Deese is the right guy for the driver’s seat

Rev. Marcia Dyson would like to see ‘manual steering’ rather than automatic pilot as plans are laid for an auto industry revival.

“And there’s nothing you can do
It’s all just bits of paper
Flying away from you
Look out world take a good look
What comes down here
You must learn this lesson fast
And learn it well
This ain’t no upwardly mobile freeway
Oh no, this is the road to Hell”

–Chris Rea, Road to Hell

Hertz rental car company once had the famous slogan, “We want to put you in the driver’s seat.” That’s the very question that faces the entire auto industry: who is in the driver’s seat? Critics were…

Mondays with Marcia: What the men of the mint can teach us about spending, or saving, our money

Rev. Marcia Dyson talks about the lessons for today from a plastic-free childhood of penny candy.

A recent New York Times op-ed had me in the Amen corner.  The authors — Sandy B. Lewis, a repentant sinner, and the economic saint William D. Cohan — vividly recast the current administration’s handling of the country’s economic inferno, from “thou shall not” to “thou should and could.”  They wrote, “Instead of promising the imminent return of good times, why isn’t Mr. Obama talking about the importance of living within our means and not spending money we don’t have on things we don’t need? We used to be…

Rev. Marcia Dyson on the Little Piggy that Went to Market

This little piggy went to market,
This little piggy stayed at home,
This little piggy had roast beef,
This little piggy had none.
And this little piggy went…
“Wee wee wee” all the way home…

The problem with today’s economy is the same problem the economy faced at our country’s birth: greed and lack of respect for the national consumer base.

Not everyone is favorably situated in a marketplace that fails to
place equal value on all citizens and consumers. This point recently came
crashing in on me (much like the market we’re all obsessed with) when I spent an
afternoon with my granddaughter, Layla. While reciting for her the…