Teen Symbol of King’s Dream to Be Honored

On a day when parades, speeches and celebrations honor the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr.’s life and work, Ronald Dyers Jr. embodies the slain civil rights leader’s dream of a colorblind society.

Dyers, who will turn 19 on Tuesday, is the son of a white mother and a black father. He grew up in North Hills with his mother and her children from other relationships--a white older sister and three younger brothers fathered by a Latino man.

“What Martin Luther King did made me in a way,” Dyers said. “He fought for everybody to be together.”

Tonight, at Cal State Northridge, Dyers will receive the San Fernando Valley Interfaith Council’s Mayor Tom Bradley Award for community service at its annual Martin Luther King holiday celebration. He will be recognized for his work at Sepulveda United Methodist Church in North Hills, where he has spent the last year serving food to the homeless and watching over local children after school in the church’s gym.

For a young man who says he grew up in a welfare-dependent household, fell in and out of gangs and spent a month in Sylmar’s Juvenile Hall after a domestic dispute, the award is a welcome symbol that his life has taken a new course.

By June, he expects to earn a high school equivalency diploma, and has plans for college and a career counseling at-risk youths.

“When [the Interfaith Council] said there was an opportunity for Ronny to be recognized, I thought it would be great for him,” said the Rev. Jim Hamilton, who works with Dyers at the church and nominated him for the award. “The kids all love him. He’s well-liked by pretty much everybody.”

With failing grades and few goals, Dyers left Monroe High School at 16 to work part time and earn credits through a continuation school.

He took a job at the church--where he and his friends had been playing basketball after school for several years--when Hamilton started up a job-training program.

“I went into it thinking I’d make some money and hopefully survive,” Dyers said. “Next thing I know, I’m somebody that people out there like. I didn’t know I could actually help kids myself. It’s not a job, it’s like a second home.”

Dyers has used the position to draw on his own experiences and offer advice to the 15 to 40 youths who come to the church gym after school every day for basketball and table games.

“I tell them they have to stay on the straight path and watch out for people who want to keep them down,” Dyers said. “I stress education. I encourage them to push themselves and stay out of gangs.”

It was this involvement in “shaping the community in a healthy way” that made Dyers’ award nomination stand out from 15 others, said the Rev. Mark Ulrickson of Northridge United Methodist Church, chairman of the Interfaith Council’s selection committee.

“We were looking for youths who are really trying to affirm the dignity of kids no matter what race or religion or culture they come from,” Ulrickson said.

With his biracial heritage and multiracial household, Dyers said he can easily look past the diverse backgrounds of the children he counsels.

“Our family is very colorless,” he said. “We support each other and love each other and nobody says, ‘I don’t look like you so I can’t love you.’ ”