[Update]Rev. Marcia Dyson is a true hero to all Hillary supporters and we can talk to her on Paulie’s radio show in 45 minutes

No Quarter Radio Presents: Sins of Omission with Paulie Abeles Monday nights, 9-10 p.m. ET On BlogTalkRadio January 26, 2009 guest: Rev. Marcia Dyson Active Supporter, Hillary Clinton

UPDATE: THE CHAT ROOM IS OPEN!

Until I did a lot of digging, I had NO idea how indebted all of us — you and me who supported Hillary Clinton — are to tonight’s special guest on Paulie Abeles’ radio show.

Let’s all call in at (347) 677-0792 and thank Rev. Marcia Dyson for her tremendous work during the primaries, and for all the time, money and travel she put in to help Hillary across the nation.

Then there’s our terrific new host, Paulie, who worked non-stop for Hillary in the primaries, despite having small children at home and a career. Both women have great stories to tell us. Marcia, for one, was on the ground in Texas during that insane two-step primary process, and she fought to get votes for Hillary in tough states like South Carolina, starting back in November 2007.

Sure, during the primaries, I saw Rev. Marcia Dyson on television many times during the epic battles of the Democratic state primaries, including on Larry King Live and other national news outlets. Most of the time, at least on television, she was alongside her equally famous husband, Michael Dyson, an avid Obama supporter.

But, until I did a lot of digging, I had no idea just how much on-the-ground WORK that Rev. Dyson put in to Hillary’s primary campaigns. Rev. Dyson was in so many states — key states, from Texas to South Carolina — urging voters to back Hillary. Here’s a marvelous article written by Dr. Dyson in March 2008:

A House Divided: Marcia Dyson – Hillary Clinton supporter & Michael Eric Dyson – Barack Obama supporter

I am tired of trying to explain this to my husband, so I’ll explain it to you instead. …

I have been an advocate for the civil rights of African Americans since back when we were called Negroes. Growing up during the 50s and 60s in Chicago, I was well aware of the fault lines of bigotry that blocked me from entering certain neighborhoods, classrooms or stores.

As an adult, I have championed [every black cause]. [...]

So given my personal track record, I astounded myself when I realized that the person that I would travel the country campaigning for — the person I trusted to work on behalf of African American children in need of Head Start programs, for people of color whose uninsured illnesses were left untreated, for single moms and working women who are treated as second class citizens with less pay for equal work than all my brothers of varied hue, and for minorities whose communities are targets of environmental racism — was NOT black! Not a Negro!

Yes, this phenomenal black woman is standing beside the phenomenal white woman – Hillary Clinton. For this moment in HERSTORY, I will let this capable, more than qualified, compassionate and intellectual white woman clean up a white man’s mess.

You’ll want to read the full story. Well, before we move on, I just have to include this great ending from “A House Divided”:

But when Michael presses me on my support of Hillary, I tell him what I’ll tell anybody – especially as we head into the March 4th primaries. This is, after all, Women’s History Month. After 150 years, it’s time to change the punctuation mark of Sojourner Truth’s famed line, “Ain’t I a Woman?” from a question mark to an exclamation point: “Ain’t I a Woman!!!”

Yes, Hillary, you are! The WOMAN for the job of president of these here United States. What Obama has us hoping for, Hillary is ready to deliver. And for the first time in American HISTORY “ladies first.”

Here are more great moments in Rev. Marcia Dyson’s activist work on behalf of her candidate, Hillary Clinton:

In Texas, on March 3, 2008, Rev. Dyson and Erika Alexander, at the Hillary Clinton Texas Town Hall in Austin, urged Hillary Clinton’s supporters to turn out for the full Texas “two-step”:

Then there’s her interview with Roland Martin on his radio show, proof that she was willing to go anywhere to let the word out about Hillary:

On CNN’s Larry King Live, with her husband, Marcia Dyson said:

M. DYSON: … I think that Carole is right on it, because even if you shake the glass of race and it settles into the class segment, you’re going to find a lot of African-American women of color in that class segment. And sexism has been really rampant, as well, in this election.

But what I want to say is that Hillary Clinton, very bravely, too, in the embodiment of a white woman, as an African-American woman, I never would have thought that I would be supporting, really, a white woman for president.

But I remember at the first debate at Howard University when she talked about if AIDS were in disproportion in the bodies of white woman as they are black women, it would be considered an epidemic and it probably would have been cured by now. I thought that she took a very poignant message that I’m concerned about the African-American community without speechwriting.


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M. DYSON: And for Hillary, I think that when she heard the speeches of Dr. King in the late ’60s, as she talked about in her books, that she, too, instilled that. Because, you know, you talk about crisis and opportunity, she went down into a great — in a very heated moment at “The State of the Black Union” that Tavis Smiley held in New Orleans — a community of people that there are thousands who had not voted for her. 

But she came back and held her feet to the fire to discuss some of the racial issues that unfortunately the media didn’t want to address. I mean we could talk about Ashley, the woman in Barack’s speech today — …

There’s also a great report — clear back in November 2007 — in the Caucus blog at the New York Times, “Clinton Backer Goes on ‘Faith Tour’“:

[...] We found the Rev. Dyson at Le Salon talking with Charles Davis, 58, the owner, who was preparing to clip a patron’s hair.

She was telling him that Mrs. Clinton would “let go of the ego, or the she-go, often demonstrated in politics” and that she would “put a swivel base on the Statue of Liberty” to turn attention toward all the tired and poor.

[...]

After the Rev. Dyson left, Ms. Bolden told us she liked Mrs. Clinton and said she had been strong during Tuesday’s contentious debate in Philadelphia (after which the Clinton campaign had said her male opponents had been piling on).

“I like the fact that she’s not intimidated when she’s speaking,” Ms. Bolden said. “I know how it is to be in a roomful of men. She’s always prepared. Whenever someone throws a cheap shot at her, she’s able to rebound and take it professionally.”

On her way out the door, the Rev. Dyson told us she thought that at the debate, Mrs. Clinton’s rivals had ganged up on her “but that was O.K.” because she is the front-runner. “That wasn’t very gentlemanly of them, but it proved she is a brave person and can take her own and can carry her own,” she said.

She then hopped in a van bound for Columbia and perhaps a bigger audience.

Amazing.

This line from Reverend Dyson:

[Hillary] would “put a swivel base on the Statue of Liberty” to turn attention toward all the tired and poor.

Yes, she would.

I mean, yes she will.

I wish she were doing it as president.

But she will now do it for peoples of the world, in the most dangerous and dark places, and fight for the help needed desperately by women and children, just as she did when she was a young college student and continuing through her eight years as First Lady.

Right now, I’m thinking of the questions I want to ask Reverend Dyson.

Call (347) 677-0792 and talk to Reverend Dyson and Paulie Abeles, tonight from 9 to 10:00 p.m. ET.