Nyle Fort Speaks at MLK Jr. Assembly
Noted civil rights activist and religion scholar Nyle Fort delivered a passionate, thought-provoking talk to Rivers students, faculty, and staff on Monday at the annual MLK Jr. Assembly. He captured and held the audience’s attention as he shared his thoughts on Dr. King's legacy, and how the impact of Dr. King’s goals and actions have gone far beyond the “I have a dream” speech that he is most remembered by. He reminded students that Dr. King continued to fight against injustices not only toward black people but toward all people, quoting “No one is free until everyone is free.”
Mr. Fort opened his talk by suggesting to the audience that life is like a buffet lunch. There are many choices you can make about what you put on your plate, but you are then expected to sit down together with the other guests to eat. He gave the students an historical perspective on the Civil Rights Movement, from the protests by high school students at the lunch counters in the South that brought the movement into the public eye, to his own involvement in building the Black Lives Matter movement in Ferguson, Missouri. He included quotes and references from many of the well-known activists and writers on social justice, encouraging the students to take the time to do some primary-source readings by and about them.
He ended his formal remarks by urging the students to have the courage to speak out, that silence is a form of violence in the face of social injustice, and the silence of good people is as damaging as the actions of bad people. He urged the students to become activists themselves, that young people have historically been at the forefront of demanding social justice. And he reminded students to have the courage to love, that justice is the public expression of love for one’s fellow man.
Following the assembly, Mr. Fort met with the 8th grade Systems of Justice and Injustice classes as well as Katie Henderson's Radical Literature course, where he expanded on some of the topics he talked about at the assembly and answered students’ questions.
“We're just finishing Between the World and Me by Ta-Nehisi Coates, so Mr. Fort's talk coincided perfectly with many of the ideas we've been discussing in class,” said Ms. Henderson. “I liked how he was able to complicate the narrative around Dr. King's legacy, and I think he helped my students understand the ways in which we sometimes forget the radical nature of King's work.”
A minister, organizer, and scholar based in Newark, NJ, Mr. Fort is a Ford predoctoral fellow at Princeton University in the religious, ethics, and politics subfield with a concentration in African American studies. He also holds a B.A. in English from Morehouse College and a Masters of Divinity from Princeton Theological Seminary. His writings have been featured in several publications including the Harvard Journal of African American Public Policy, The Guardian, and HuffPost. He made the 2015 Top 100 list on The Root, the online black news magazine, alongside Coates and songwriter Kendrick Lamar.
Fort has worked in the fields of education, criminal justice, and youth development for nearly a decade in various capacities, including Youth Pastor of First Baptist Church of Lincoln Gardens, American Friends field worker at the Union County Juvenile Detention Center, and International Fellow at the St. Andrew Centre for Human Development in Southern India.
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