Morehouse College alumni are outraged by the college's decision to disinvite fellow alum, the Rev. Dr. Kevin R. Johnson , Senior Pastor of the Bright Hope Baptist Church in Philadelphia, as the baccalaureate speaker on May 18, 2013. After being announced to alumni and the college community as the baccalaureate speaker, Morehouse College President John Silvanus Wilson, Jr. contacted Johnson on April 15 via phone to inform him of the decision due to concerns about views Johnson expressed in an opinion editorial in The Philadelphia Tribune and stated that the article was "untimely" given that President Obama is the 2013 Commencement speaker, a day after Baccalaureate.

The article entitled, "A President for Everyone, Except Black People," was published on April 14th and respectfully criticized the lack of African-American appointees in President Barack Obama 's cabinet and challenged the lack of policies specifically designed to reduce poverty. On April 15 and April 16, coincidentally the 50th Anniversary of Dr. King's "Letter from Birmingham Jail," Wilson contacted Johnson and encouraged him to resign as the speaker, a suggestion Johnson refused. Wilson then proposed that Johnson agree to be one of three speakers for the event. Johnson refused this offer as well on the grounds that it was a departure from the college's tradition of having one baccalaureate speaker, and all initial representations made to him. Accentuating the principle of free speech, Johnson said, "I have always been and continue to be a supporter of President Obama. The issue is not about the article in question, but about Morehouse's longstanding history and pedagogy of free thought and free speech. Without free thought and free speech, Morehouse would not have produced our most admired alumnus, the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr."


http://eastatlanta.patch.com/articles/morehouse-alumni-outraged-over-obama-baccalaureate-flap