Tavis Smiley presents the Ultra Americans at Chicago conference on the ‘black agenda’

Any Chicagoan who thought the election of America’s first black president would inspire black opinion leaders to come up with something new to say probably had a miserable time last weekend. Especially if they were listening to Michael Eric Dyson.

“We must have prophets who tell the truth,” Dyson preached in Chicago on Saturday. “And we are here to do that!” A half-capacity audience clapped lightly.

The highly quotable Georgetown professor didn’t seem particularly concerned by the tepid response, but PBS host Tavis Smiley was perturbed. He had flown Dyson, Cornel West, Louis Farrakhan, Jesse Jackson and others to the South Side to discuss the “black agenda” — and whether Barack Obama even has one — and CSPAN had shut them out, rescinding its promise to broadcast the event and instead covering the House debate of the president’s health plan.

“We Count! The Black Agenda is the American Agenda” was thick with Nation of Islam members in suits and bow ties herding conference attendees, separated by gender, through metal detectors.

The only other white person in my line tried (and failed) to entice a young Rastafarian to join the Green Party, even though documentary filmmaker and writer LeAlan Marvin Jones is running for Obama’s Illinois Senate seat as a Green, and 9/11 Truther and former Georgia Rep. Cynthia McKinney ran for president as a Green in 2008. Census workers handing out goodie bags had better luck — and Chicago State University president Wayne Watson, in his opening remarks, encouraged “everyone to complete the Census form to be counted so that these critical dollars can be used most effectively to benefit the communities and programs that need them the most.”

Following Watson’s introduction and a prayer by a Catholic priest, Smiley asked his panelists, “Is there a need for a black agenda?” And is it “reductionist” and “exclusionary”?

“We are not un-American,” answered Dyson. “We are Ultra American,” and America must “look beyond the reality of racism, not race.”

Obama “is not the president of black America, he’s the president of all America,” Smiley said, reiterating that his sentiments were “rooted in love.” He earlier had placed a large, white cube bearing the word “love” on the panelists’ table to remind them of that. But they seemed to wonder whether Obama was reciprocating.

“I am glad that Barack Obama is president of all America, but black people helped make you president of all America!” West, whose enthusiastic jogging-and-bowing entrance had impressed the crowd, said.

The audience clapped and shouted, “Amen!”

“To have a black face in a high place leads us to forget so many black people are in the basement of the house!”

The clapping grew louder.

“We don’t have to ask permission to talk about black suffering!”

Smiley has hosted events like this for years, but they may be on the wane. He founded the “The State of the Black Union,” which CSPAN carried live since its inception in 2000. Perhaps recognizing that Obama’s State of the Union address rendered his own somewhat redundant, Smiley retired the conference in 2009. On Satursday, CSU’s three-tiered convocation center was barely half-full by the time Smiley’s panel started at 8 a.m. Hundreds of seats close to the the panelists had been set aside for CSU students, but few showed. Event staff spidered up the rows encouraging people, most of them middle-aged or older, to move down to the reserved rows.

Smiley isn’t oblivious to charges that events like his are becoming less relevant. After asking the panelists to explain whether they see a need for a black agenda, he told the audience that he’d received countless critical letters and e-mails since announcing the event three weeks ago. Smiley queried the panel about what black voters had been asked to do since Obama was elected.

“More black Chicagoans die of health disparities a year then died in the terrorist attacks 10 years ago,” the Rev. Jackson responded.

Smiley, slightly stunned, asked him again if Obama had engaged black voters since taking office.