In 2014, Starsky Wilson was Deaconess Foundation president and CEO and pastor of Saint John’s Church (The Beloved Community.)
He served Deaconess from 2011 through 2020, but his understanding of his job, his community and his future changed on August 9, 2014.
A former Ferguson police officer shot and killed unarmed Michael Brown, and police let his lifeless body lay on a Ferguson street for hours.
The horrific scene led to the Ferguson Uprising and boosted the Black Lives Matter movement into St. Louis and American history.
While delivering the keynote address for the ninth Webster University DEI Conference on Feb. 26, 2024, Wilson said “10 years ago I was radicalized by young people.”
“The Ferguson uprising was young, Black, poor people,” Wilson said. “They saw themselves in Michael Brown, they saw their strivings in his story. They had a beat of their own harmony. As I stood among them, I was radicalized.
Wilson said the attacks on affirmative and action and DEI began on school boards and public school classrooms.
“Many would say that what happened on August 9 could be called a lynching. There would not be any lynchings if the lynching did not begin in the classroom,” he said.
He was referring to politicians and right-wing groups that are successfully having Black history and culture scrubbed from classrooms throughout America.
Wilson explained the importance of protecting DEI programs and discussions of Black history and equity, saying “we need to know these are the grounds that should be protected.”
He added that “you no longer need to make the case for DEI to those that stand against it for political or racial reasons.
“It was proven a long time ago that these programs are successful A word of advice. Don’t waste your time [trying to convince those the refuse to admit DEI’s importance.]
Wilson said his role with Deaconess and other organization changed because “It [became] hard to sit through discussions at philanthropic conferences and realize that people would pull themselves away to for a massage.”
He said DEI’s future and the effort to sustain equity and inclusion in the nation will not come from an election cycle or from a corporate structure.
The answers will come from young people.
“I call college age students ‘our greatest resource,’” Wilson said.
“Trust students. Trust young people. Trust the most diverse population that America has ever seen.”
While Wilson was with the Deaconess Foundation it established the Deaconess Center for Child Well-Being, a community action group that engages thousands of citizens annually.
After the police killing of Michael Brown, Jr., the church hosted the #BlackLivesMatter Freedom Ride to Ferguson and other mobilizations.
Gov. Jay Nixon appointed Wilson to be one of the co-chairs of the Ferguson Commission, an organization set up to help the St. Louis area racially heal and progress.
It released the “Forward Through Ferguson: A Path Toward Racial Equity” report, calling for sweeping changes in policing, the courts, child well-being and economic mobility in 2015.
Wilson now serves on boards for Duke Divinity School, the Samuel DeWitt Proctor Conference, and the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation.
This 2024 Webster DEO Conference “Navigating an Unclear Path Together,” focused on the state of “affirmative action.”
Local, regional and national experts provided insight into the U.S. Supreme Court’s ruling on affirmative action and its impact on business and corporate spaces, philanthropic organizations and donors and educational institutions.
It also addressed the challenges that schools and universities face considering efforts to ban Black history education.
Wilson, who holds a Master of Divinity from Eden Theological Seminary in Webster, said he is in “a nine-year conversation from the results [in Ferguson] 10 years ago.”
“That conversation must continue,” he said.
