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]