Andria Simckes has become the first candidate for treasurer to hit the airwaves — and she’s brought some star power with her.

Featured in one of a series of radio ads put out by the campaign is author Michael Eric Dyson, who knows Simckes from Brown University, where she was a student and he a professor.

Earlier, Dyson, now at Georgetown Univserity, appeared at a campaign event for Simckes in Grand Center.

Dyson has written over a dozen books dealing with race in American, from a biography of Tupac Shakur to a probe of the lingering effects of the Martin Luther King Jr. assassination.

Though Dyson is not a household name,  he is probably well-known among plenty of liberal Democrats — dependable voters in an August primary.

“My friend and sister Andria Danine Simckes is running for Missouri state treasurer,” Dyson says in the radio spot, which you can hear below. “I want you to support Andria.”

Dyson says that Simckes — vying to become the first African-American elected statewide — has the ability “to break down the wall that has been set-up in Missouri.”

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