Thursday, January 04, 2001

WILMINGTON, NC - The Rev. Michael E. Dyson, best-selling author and university professor, will deliver UNC Wilmington's annual Martin Luther King, Jr., commemoration address at 7 p.m., Thursday, Jan. 18, in Kenan Auditorium.



Dyson, the Ida B. Wells-Barnett University Professor at DePaul University, received a bachelor's degree in philosophy from Carson-Newman College. He earned master's and doctoral degrees in religion from Princeton University. In addition to DePaul University, Dyson taught at Chicago Theological Seminary, the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, Brown University and Columbia University.



An African-American, religious and cultural studies scholar, Dyson has written for numerous publications including The New York Times, Chicago Tribune, The Washington Post and Rolling Stone.



He is the author of I May Not Get There With You: The True Martin Luther King, Jr., Race Rules: Navigating the Color Line and Between God and Gangsta Rap: Bearing Witness to Black Culture. Dyson's 1993 debut work Reflecting Black: African-American Culture Criticism won the Gustavus Myers Center for Human Rights Award in 1994.



UNCW's King commemoration is free and open to the public. Tickets are required and can be obtained from the Kenan Auditorium box office by calling 910/962-3500.

For more information, contact UNCW's Office of Campus Diversity at 910/962-3832.



Rev. Michael Dyson