Women recognized for outstanding achievement in social justice
by Sharon Bishop-Baldwin
Special to The Gayly
Four Oklahomans who have been champions in the fight for social justice are being recognized with Courage Awards from the University of Oklahoma Women’s and Gender Studies Board of Advisors at the board’s annual Voices of Justice Gala on April 21 at the Sam Noble Oklahoma Museum of Natural History in Norman.
Recipients of the 2017 Courage Awards are the Rev. T. Sheri Dickerson, Executive Director and Co-founder of Black Lives Matter Oklahoma and a Co-organizer of the Women’s March on Oklahoma; the Rev. Lori Walke, Associate Minister of Mayflower Congregational Church in Oklahoma City, who performed some of the first legal same-sex weddings in Oklahoma; and co-recipients Kathy Fahl and Kasey Catlett of Norman, the director and assistant director, respectively, of OU’s Gender + Equality Center.
State Rep. Emily Virgin of Norman will deliver the keynote address at the gala, which will feature a dinner, a silent auction and entertainment by the Furlough Sextet.
Two of the honorees say courage factors into their everyday lives in common ways.
Walke, who received a law degree from Oklahoma City University in 2009 and her Master of Divinity degree from Philips Theological Seminary in 2011, says that any time she publishes an article or speaks publicly, someone challenges the validity of her ordination because of her gender.
“This is a typical experience for clergy women in the Bible Belt,” she says. “It would be safer and easier to limit my audience to congregations and groups that do not question my ministerial credentials. It takes courage to be a female faith leader who speaks and writes in a public way because it is a given that I will have to deal with sexism.”
Dickerson, an associate minister for the Church of the Open Arms in Oklahoma City, says that for her, “it takes courage to identify as a Black queer/bi genderfluid member of clergy and leader of an organization that is plagued with the stigma of being a terroristic hate group.”
But “the greatest acts of courage consist of allowing my handsome, young, black man-child to go out in public to hang out with friends or sending him to the store for needed items and praying he isn't targeted or racially profiled and beaten or gunned down by those sworn to protect and serve.”
Both women agree that intersectionality is a key concept to better human relationships and community organizing.
“No issue is one-dimensional because no person is one-dimensional,” says Walke. “Intersectionality helps us to stop silencing voices: African American women combatting sexism, people of color in the LGBTQ community, transgender women in the feminist movement, etc.”
Dickerson adds, “It is the greatest privilege and honor to be able to serve and love en masse those who are considered the least of these. It means I am required to expand my understanding, stay up on current political and societal narratives. And overcome my own biases and ignorances and face my fears and vulnerabilities. It means I don't have the luxury to acknowledge my weariness or dark moments except on very rare occasions.”
Walke and Dickerson also agree that the best way to be an ally for marginalized populations is simple: Show up.
“It is the most important thing we can do for one another,” Walke says. “Listening is a close second. If we do not know each other’s stories, we cannot know each other’s struggles.”
Tickets to the gala are $125 per person and can be ordered online at wgs.ou.edu/voices or by contacting the OU Women’s and Gender Studies Program office at (405) 325-2454. The deadline is April 15.
Copyright 2017 The Gayly – April 3, 2017 @ 2:20 p.m.