Community Corner

Longtime Pastor Announces Retirement

Rev. David Dyson of Lafayette Presbyterian Church announces plans to step down.

After nearly two decades at the head of a congregation with deep ties to the borough's decades-long struggle for civil rights, Rev. David Dyson will step down as pastor of the in Fort Greene.

His impending retirement was announced Monday evening by Councilwoman Letitia James, D-Brooklyn, who praised the pastor as a member of her "god squad" and a longstanding ally of the Fort Greene-Clinton Hill community.

"He has been at the forefront of issues of importance to this community dating back to South African divestment," James said, referring to the campaign to defund the backers of Apartheid in the 1980s and 1990s.

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Dyson was named pastor in 1992, becoming the seventh leader of the church in a line beginning with preacher and abolitionist Theodore Ledyard Cuyler.

Over the years, Dyson has received a number of awards for service to the community, including the Spirit Award from the Cooperative Culture Collective/Juneteenth Commmittee in 2007 and the Amos Taylor Award from the in 2010.

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A community tribute will be held at the , located at 85 S. Oxford St., on Sunday, Oct. 2 from 2:30 p.m. to 4:30 p.m.


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