Dr. Andre Johnson, Henry McNeil Turner, and Coaster Prepardness

Of all the great points that Dr. Johnson raised in his class lecture on Reverend H.M. Turner, the thing that has stuck with me the most about his visit did not spring from his academic expertise, his personable demeanor, or his effective presentation style.  What stood out to me the most was that Dr. Johnson BROUGHT HIS OWN COASTER.  I’m not sure how many people remember this, but when Dr. Johnson began his lecture, he reached into his breast pocket on the inside of his suit, pulled out a coaster, and smoothly placed it on the podium before launching into his topic, setting a glass of water atop it.

Now.  I could talk about the remarkable narrative, legacy, and insight that Dr. Johnson shared about Reverend Henry McNeil Turner.  I could talk about the broad shift in Turner’s rhetoric and intellectual process that took place over the course of the late 19^th and early 20^th centuries, and how Dr. Johnson effectively contextualized and summed up this shift in a two-excerpt comparison of Turner’s Emancipation Day speech (1866) and his later A Contemptible Rag essay (1906).  I could talk about how Johnson’s lecture opened my eyes to the concept of the “African American Prophetic Tradition,” and how this paradigm has helped frame my experience in the rest of our class, as I’ve come to understand various figures of faith that have come up during our readings (like, for instance, Mordechai Johnson of Howard University) better because of Johnson’s lecture.  However, Johnson’s lecture probably affected all of you in more or less the same way, so I’m going to focus on something different.  I’m going to focus on the damn coaster.  

To make sure I wasn’t missing out on some hot new coaster trend, I turned to the internet.  My searches, however, came up with nothing, and it seems like I wasn’t missing anything after all.  Dr Johnson is just that ahead of the times!

In all seriousness though, Johnson’s talk was fantastic, and it really has helped me better understand key players in our class readings.  Perhaps, Dr. Johnson just had a coaster in his coat because he had been given one at some sort of event right before our class.  Or perhaps…he’s just that much more advanced, that much more prepared, and that much more equipped to handle the little challenges that life hands to all of us (like unexpected cups of coffee).  Regardless of the answer, I know I benefited from both Dr. Johnson’s talk and his shining example of coaster preparedness.