The Rev. Vernon Tyson, 89, a retired United Methodist minister who worked for racial reconciliation and LGBTQ inclusion in North Carolina, died Dec. 29, 2018 at his home in Raleigh, according to his son, Tim Tyson, reported the Raleigh News and Observer.
Rev. Tyson’s efforts to reconcile the community of Oxford, N.C., after white assailants were acquitted of a black veteran’s murder, were a focus of his historian son’s award-winning 2004 memoir, “Blood Done Sign My Name.” The book was adapted into an independent movie in which TV star Rick Shroeder portrayed Rev. Tyson.
In a 2010 news story on the movie, United Methodist News Service writer Linda Bloom wrote that Rev. Tyson’s efforts in 1970 resulted in his being forced out of Oxford to another appointment in Wilmington, N.C. His son’s memories of that time were further shaped when Rev. Tyson and his wife Martha sent their journals from that period to their son, Bloom wrote.
“Rev. Tyson was devoted to the teachings of Jesus, particularly those related to love, mercy, justice, equality, and our obligations to the poor and vulnerable among us,” Tim Tyson wrote in an obituary he prepared. “These convictions led him to stand up for racial justice, public education, voting rights, and equal rights for LGBT citizens. He took seriously the Biblical mandate to welcome foreigners and immigrants. He became a conscientious objector to war in 1952 and opposed war and the death penalty all his life.”
According to the News and Observer, “Rev. Tyson vocally opposed the 2012 state constitutional amendment banning same-sex marriage. In 2013, he was arrested during a Moral Monday demonstration in the Capitol building in Raleigh, N.C.” In a video interview after his arrest published on YouTube (see below), he stressed that he wanted to be “a witness” for those standing up for vulnerable citizens.
“This is the people’s house, and the people paid for it. I don’t see how I can be trespassing in a house I helped pay for,” Rev. Tyson, 83 at the time, said he told security guards who arrested him.
Rev. Tyson’s memorial service was scheduled for 11 a.m. Saturday, Jan. 5, at Edenton Street United Methodist Church in Raleigh.