AMEC Health Commission Statement on Reproductive Justice and Supreme Court Draft Leak

As the leak of a draft of a Supreme Court decision that would repeal Roe v. Wade sends shockwaves around the country, members of our Zion are still suffering from the aftershock of generations of reproductive injustice already predicated on this community. We are the descendants and the survivors of medical victimization, most prominently in the same states that this change will most negatively affect. From the abuse of our bodies as objects for medical experiments on the plantation to the same in the medical pavilions today, we bear the scars that have become keloids long before Roe v. Wade. However, as this threat awakens a sense of urgency for the country, we can no longer remain silent. We who have been founded and nurtured at the bosom of social justice cannot drop the ball in the fight for reproductive justice. Whether you agree or not, this fight demands our attention.

Historically, black women have silently borne the generations-long ripple effect of disproportionate adverse health outcomes and continued to find sanctuary, succor, and hope in the Black Church. We show up in worship laden with the sequelae of health inequities, silently suffering in praise. When we pray, we lift up to our creator that even today, we are 3-4 times more likely to die in childbirth despite our age at pregnancy, socioeconomic status, or academic achievements. We are also more likely to suffer from “a Mississippi appendectomy” than our white counterparts. We are more likely to suffer the consequences into our senior years of those inequities predicated upon our bodies during our reproductive years. When we pray, we surrender to our God that more than 40% of black women experience intimate partner violence compared to 31.5% of all women, according to the 2017 report “The Status of Black Women in the United States.” Before the pen makes a complete and final stroke to that document, black women are already in a reproductive health crisis. Black women are forced to fight against numerous medical barriers stemming from racial bias that rarely affect their white counterparts; as such, we need to rise from our needs armed with the power of the Holy Spirit to make a change.

Every day we seek healthcare in a system that continues to see us as the least and the less. We entrust our care to a system in which we are underrepresented and implicit bias and “unsubstantiated truths” still exist. According to the Association of American Medical Colleges, we receive care from an institution where 5.0 % of physicians identified themselves as African American in 2018. The African American female physician is an even rarer sight at less than three percent. Structural racism and implicit bias continue to appear in the exam room with great frequency.

Reproductive justice links reproductive rights with the social, political, and economic inequalities that affect a woman’s access to reproductive health care services. Core components of reproductive justice include equal access to safe abortion, affordable contraceptives, comprehensive sex education, and freedom from sexual violence. The legacy of medical experimentation and inadequate healthcare coupled with social determinants has exacerbated African American women’s complex relationship with healthcare systems. In addition, the social determinants of health associated with institutionalized and interpersonal racism, including poverty, unemployment, and residential segregation, may make African American women more vulnerable to disparate sexual and reproductive health outcomes. We cannot remain silent.

My fellow sisters and brothers of this great Zion, we are called to be the hands and feet of our God on the earth. We are called to exemplify faith and works. To speak for the poor and the oppressed, even if that person is me. We can no longer remain silent when the “moneychangers are in our temple.” We must stand up and overthrow the powers of oppression. We must empower our membership through education about their health and healthcare issues. We must encourage healthcare advocacy from the sanctuary to the senate. We must remove the shame surrounding reproductive issues by discussing them in the Bible studies and preaching about them in the pulpit. We must pray up, then stand up and speak up! The state of our Zion depends upon it.

Bishop Francine A. Brookins, Esq., Chair Rev. Natalie Mitchem, MDiv, RD, Executive Director Rev. Miriam Burnett, MD, Medical Director Rev. Ann Marie Bentsi-Addison Posey, DMin, MDiv,

Certified Nurse Midwife, MSN Coordinator of

Women’s Health ❏ ❏ ❏

A DIARY INTRO FROM BOY SCOUT TROOP 51 ON THEIR GARDENING ACTIVITIES

The gardening project was really two projects.

The Boy Scout Troop 51 built garden platform boxes at the elementary school. I estimate that this involved approximately $200 in materials (lumber, nails, lining, etc.). The boxes were an Eagle Scout project. The concept here is that the school would have this as an asset to produce gardens from now on.

The Girl Scouts and Brownies planted, tended, and harvested the fall garden. The cost of planting soil was the major cost, approximately $100. Seeds and gardening tools were another $50.

With this front-end investment, the cost of future gardens will just involve an additional layer of planting soil and seeds or sprouts for whatever is being planted. These additional items should not cost over $50.

Last year, I used discarded five-gallon paint buckets and used a combination of backyard soil, Black Kow manure, and sprouts purchased from the local gardening store for about $25. The plants growing in the buckets did better than the vegetables I planted in the backyard!

Hope this helps.

Milton Chambliss, Scout Master Troop 51

To learn more about AAMES and how to start a garden, contact Vivianne Frye-Perry, connectional director of AME Girl Scouts, at vfryeperry@amescouts.org or Clarence Crayton, connectional director of AME Boy Scouts at ccrayton@amescouts.org. ❏ ❏ ❏

...From Edward Waters p20 board. She also taught music and social etiquette and lobbied for better facilities and equipment for African American children in the Jacksonville area. The house also served as a community resource center for veterans and the homeless. Today, the Susie E. Tolbert building is home to the Office of Institutional Advancement, Development, Marketing, and Communications for Edward Waters University. The Susie E. Tolbert House is receiving upgrades to its exterior, which includes but is not limited to landscape, repainting, and flooring.

The three buildings selected still have most of their original exterior fabric and appearance and are all at least 50 years -old with significant historical or an architectural identity with the university.

Edward Waters University relies on the historic buildings on campus for the core functions of the university.

Renovations are slated to begin summer of 2022. ❏ ❏ ❏

EDITORIAL

LESSONS I LEARN FROM A GREEN THUMB

By Robbie Colson-Ramsey, Contributing Writer

If you have read any of my other articles, you might know that I started a new hobby during the pandemic, being a plant mom. When I was a child, my weekly task was to go to the front porch and water the plants. I vividly remember my mother shouting throughout the house, “Robbie, pay attention, don’t kill my plants by giving them too much water.”

This childhood habit was reintroduced into my life through a sympathy gesture of a houseplant during earth’s loss of my dear mother to heaven’s gain. Perhaps, right now, you are making an inquisitive face, but let me explain. After the funeral and the floral arrangements were left at the gravesite, the plants were brought back to the house. Most were given to lifelong friends and extended family, but my sisters and I kept a few for ourselves. When I returned home, I sat my plants where I would see them routinely, and as I passed by, I checked whether I needed to give them a little water. Although, as days passed, the plants began withering regardless of the moisture level, there still was no change in their poor condition. I thought to myself: I never saw my mother struggling to keep her plants alive. What could I be doing wrong? I would walk by the plants and say, “Don’t die; you are a lasting connection that I have to my mother’s life.”

Surely, by now, you are reading this and saying, what does this have to do with being a pastor’s spouse? The growth and condition of the plants are also a metaphor for being a pastor’s spouse. I recognize that the growth of the plants is based on time, relationships, and selfless service—the same characteristics we need when we are ministering to God’s people as ministers’ spouses. 1. When I brought the plants home from my mother’s funeral, I just sat them down and did not think about taking the time or making a space for their growth. As a pastor’s spouse, we must make time to first welcome the presence of the Holy Ghost into our lives, into our space. This welcoming and refreshing encounter truly makes a difference. These encounters will allow us to understand the weight placed on our spouses, regardless of the size of the congregation. It also will let us love church members where they are and not expect them to be anything else but who they are. Also, as the spouse, it allows us to be committed to the call God has placed upon our marriage and our entire household. I cannot say that it is easy, but creating time and space in our lives will enable us to talk and listen to the Lord for direction. 2. I know it may sound crazy, but when I developed a healthy relationship with my plants, it helped me develop a healthier relationship with humans. As relationships grow, they become lush and give life much like plants. So likewise, we want a healthy relationship with our church members that is growing and inviting. We have to be able to cultivate a relationship that is lush and overflowing with God’s mercy and grace. 3. I often talk about my plant that sat dormant, not growing, struggling to live for many years until I offered selfless love to it. I complained about it but did not put effort into making it grow. So many of our churches need people who will offer selfless devotion to members. I know that there are thoughts that prevent us from giving our whole heart to a church: we remain mad at our spouses for answering the call to preach, furious that they have us at this little bitty church, angry that you must travel

Robbie Colson-Ramsey Guest Editorial every weekend just for church. It was not until I faced the fact that it would not grow (just like that plant) until I put time and effort into where God had planted my spouse—and me. It would always just look like a struggle until I did my part in helping the church to grow.

When I walk by the plants now, especially when they are in full bloom, I ask myself what more I have learned while waiting so long for me to grow and for God to bless me. ❏ ❏ ❏

Greetings Brother Thomas,

I know that a lot of information comes across your desk and you are an honest and insightful editor of our official publication. I thank you for that, it has been sorely needed for years and years.

I have a question and I’m wondering if this question has been posed or even suggested to the AME hierarchy.

Does the hierarchy understand that TRAVEL EXPENSES are real dollars that can be saved? In my experience as a corporate executive “freezing” unnecessary travel was a priority in challenging economic situations.

Our hierarchy is traveling, meeting, and performing ceremonial duties nationally and internationally as if there is no crisis within our denomination.

Blessings,

Dr. James Anthony Morris, Pastor ❏ ❏ ❏

MAYOR OF THE YEAR AWARD

Fayetteville Mayor Edward Johnson received the Mayor of the Year Award during the Georgia Minority Business Awards dinner held recently at the Georgia International Convention Center.

The 24th annual event, hosted by Atlanta Business Journal, honors minority businesses and entrepreneurs from around Georgia who are making an impact within their respective business communities.

Mayor Johnson has been a Fayetteville elected official since January 2012, serving first as a city councilman. He has served as mayor since January 2016. He has lived in Fayetteville since 1994.

A native of New Orleans, Louisiana, Johnson is a retired United States Navy commander and educator who now serves as full-time pastor of Flat Rock African Methodist Episcopal Church in the Fayetteville area. He and his wife, Dr. Vanessa O. Johnson, have two sons and three granddaughters.

Johnson says he initially moved to Fayetteville to put his sons into an excellent school system. Then and now, as its mayor, Johnson is encouraged by the city’s growing sense of community as it encounters well-managed development and advancement. ❏ ❏ ❏