D. C. Police Chief Charles Ramsey was recently heard
saying on talk radio, “We need more than prayer to bring closure
to these senseless acts of violence in our city. We can’t pray
our way out of this.”
I am a sixth generation Washingtonian. I grew up in
historical Mount Airy Baptist Church, located at North Capitol &
L Streets NW. It is one of Washington’s oldest black churches.
My great grandfather laid the first brick to build the church in
the late 1800s.
While growing up in my grandmother’s home on Jay Street
in Northeast my brothers, cousins and I attended church at least
six days of the week and Sunday was an all day affair. My great-uncle
Earl Tyler was the pastor. His sister and my grandmother Amy Tyler
Bell were the glue that held Mount Airy together. Her grandchildren
and church family affectionately knew her as “Grandma Bell.” She
played the organ, sang like an angel, kept the church books and
coordinated after church dinner on Sunday. Grandma’s chicken and
biscuits would put the Colonel and Popeye’s to shame.
I witnessed up close the power of prayer and hard
work as the Mount Airy Church family placed the community and its
people first. We were often there when Uncle Earl and Grandma Bell
visited the downtrodden in what is now known as Sergent Quarters,
and the sick in hospitals. These pilgrimages were considered a
rite of passage.
To understand the problems in our community today
we have to look no further than our churches (Mount Airy included)
and black leadership. Church leadership isn’t what it once was.
Preachers in our community have gone “Hollywood.” The only God
most worship and trust is on a dollar bill. Most are too busy trying
to build “The Biggest Cathedral” in the community instead of trying
to build trust among its members. While looking for land to build
these great cathedrals they move to the suburbs and abandon the
backbone of their congregation: senior citizens.
The “New Pimp” in our community is no longer Ron O’Neal,
the actor you saw portraying the pimp and drug dealer in the movie
“Superfly.” The new pimps are found in our churches all over the
city. Their mode of transportation – the “Pimp Mobile” – would
put most legitimate pimps’ cars to shame.
The
clergy ride our streets and highways in top-of-the-line automobiles,
Cadillac (Escalade), 350 SL Mercedes Benz, and Rolls Royce. One
local minister became so fed up with waiting in airports for regular
flights that he decided to buy his own jet plane.
Unlike the “Street Pimp” who recruits his ladies of
the night from the streets, “Church Pimps” recruit their ladies
from their congregations. The head of the National Baptist Convention
bought his mistress a condominium in Florida until the wife discovered
it and tried to burn it down. The escapades of local ministers
are too many to chronicle.
Ministers allow politicians to use their places of
worship as watering holes to jump-start their political careers.
The only time you see most politicians in your church is when they
are running for office. The next time you will see them is re-election.
One minister whose church is considered one the biggest
“Entertainment Centers” in Prince George’s County has played “The
Political Card” to feather his own nest and not the nest of his
residents and congregation. The Governor’s Chief of Staff was
a member of the congregation. Talking about being plugged in!
The pastor invited Rev. Jesse Jackson to his church
for a “Love Offering.” The offering was in the neighborhood of
eight thousand dollars. But when our children or members of the
community need a helping hand, the pastor becomes a “Penny Pincher.”
On another occasion the Pastor wrote a letter to the Governor about
a wrong perpetrated by the Prince George’s government on a member
of his community. The letter was dated July 13, 1998. The Governor
has come and gone, but the Pastor has yet to explain to the individual
why there was no follow-up on his part.
The loss of confidence and faith in our churches can
be directly attributed to our places of worship. Our ministers
want to live high on the hog, double-dip and use politics as a sidebar,
but they want us to pray and keep the faith.
Political
leadership in the D.C. Metropolitan area is the worst I have ever
seen. For example, the D. C. Mayor closes down a hospital that
could mean life or death to black residents. While our children
die in our streets and schools, the Mayor tries to bring major league
baseball back to Washington at a cost of 400 million dollars. This
venture is to be funded entirely with public funds! But he can’t
find the money for our schools and teachers? Close to 300 DC teachers
are slated to lose their jobs because of a budget shortage of 30
million dollars!
The (black) Prince George’s County Executive allegedly
holds a hospital hostage for five million dollars until the hospital
hires one of his political cronies.
In DC, Ballou High School allows a student to play
athletics with all F’s for two years running.
An 18-year-old student guns down a 17-year-old on
school grounds. The two young men had been feuding for two years.
In Prince George’s County, Suitland High School is
known as the “Blackboard Jungle” of the system. The Chief of Police
takes one look and says, “My hands are tied” and moves on. A group
of county residents meet with the State Attorney’s staff to offer
solutions. The staff never follows-up.
Congressman Tom Davis (R-VA) and NFL legend and street
gang expert Jim Brown (Kids In Trouble, Inc) co-chaired a Youth
Gang Violence Conference at Bible Way Baptist Church in 1997. Gang
members from Los Angeles, New York, New Jersey, Virginia and DC
were in attendance. Rep. Davis promised to bring the gang prevention
concepts of Amer-I-Can to Virginia and DC. There was no follow-up.
In 2004 his jurisdiction of Fairfax, Virginia has one of the worst
street gang problems in the metropolitan area. Northern Virginia
gang members recently tried to cut off the hands of a rival with
a machete.
These are just several of the many examples of leadership
gone wrong. The losers are our children.
In
1968, the year Dr. Martin Luther King was killed, one in three black
children lived in poverty. The black middle-class has tripled since
that time. In 2004 there are still one in three black children
living in poverty. You don’t need to be a rocket scientist to understand
why. Look no further than Prince George’s County – one of the most
affluent majority-black counties in America – and their brethren
in DC who all think they have arrived. Yes, they have arrived
– by themselves.
The epidemic of violence in our streets and schools
over the past two decades has robbed us of some of our best and
brightest. The latest: eight-year-old Chelsea Cromatie, shot to
death not in the “mean streets” of D. C. but in the safe confines
of her aunt’s living room while watching television. But the politicians
and clergy want us to pray and keep the faith.
The book of James verse 2-20 reads, “Faith without
works is dead.”
Harold Bell is a former Roving Leader for the
D.C. Recreation Dept. and the founder of Kids In Trouble,
Inc. Contact him at: [email protected] |