The 89th Annual Convocation of the Howard University School of Divinity is the nation's oldest and highly anticipated annual gathering of theologians, scholars, national policy makers and leaders of the religious community who convene for dialogue and analysis of issues concerning African Americans.

Dr. Reynolds spoke of Rosa Parks’ courage and compared her life mission to something called “the media’s prophetic ministry.”

"But I saw the public face of prophetic ministry glowing and glistening as thousands gathered to salute the legendary life of Mrs. Rosa Parks. The five elements of prophetic ministry were clearly visible in the life and times of Mrs. Parks,” she said. Those elements are: 1) being called by God, 2) being compassionate, 3) having courage, 4) being curios and 5) acting in community with others.

Comparing Parks' prophetic ministry to media institutions, Reynolds said, “The prophetic wants change for the have-nots, while media institutions protect the status quo for the 'have-mores'. Media executives speak the language of war while prophetic messengers speak the language of love, forgiveness, rebuilding, fidelity and reconciliation.”

Dr. Reynolds, who was told by a journalism professor at Ohio State University when she was a student there that she would never be a journalist because she was an African American and female, returned as their commencement speaker not long ago. She has, since her college days, become an NNPA newspaper columnist, worked for USA Today as the first African American start-up editor and columnist. She has appeared on CNN, C-SPAN, Oprah, and has her own daily radio show called "Reynolds Wrap" on the local WOL station.

"Finally, I worked for USA Today, which lasted for thirteen years. It was a wonderful assignment. I interviewed presidents, cabinet members and wrote a column for the USA Today. My supervisor was an atheist and by this time I had become a born-again Christian. Our values were not the same.  I wrote about the church bombings. I wrote that the Gulf War was an oil war that was not our war, not our oil and not our business. I was told to tone down my writings."

Reynolds said that by then she had become a baptized Christian and "now there was something on the inside. I felt like Jeremiah with fire shut up in my bones. I could not shut up and I was soon fired. The word spread that unless I could write from a more conservative perspective, my career in mainstream press was over. I wish I could say I just said 'praise the Lord' and moved on. I knew if I had just kept quiet and could have just shut up, I would have been fine. The experience was so painful, I left the country and went to London and hung around. I had to understand that my identity was not wrapped up in USA Today, and only when I understood whose I was did the healing begin."

She did not want to "scare you away from the media, but just to be honest with you. I want you to know why it is so hard to get fair reporting out of the mainstream media. This is the kind of pressure and humiliation many Black journalists labor under. This is a wonderful venue where you can make a difference, either inside these institutions or developing your own communications systems. This was my processing for 'prophetic ministry'."

This experience prepared Reynolds to take the journalism "that I love," and mix it with the religion and spirituality "I love even more." She became a religion writer, teacher and a preacher.

Examining the second part of the topic, "Religion in the Media," she said that "it becomes very clear that a change must come. A change has got to come."

Barbara Reynolds Addresses Religion in the Media