Winter 2014

GOOD NEWS FROM THE CHURCH AND COMMUNITY

Winter 2014

™ www.thepositivecommunity.com $2.95

New Leadership for NYC

Annual Martin Luther King, Jr. Issue

MIGHTY WINGS

Januar y 2014

CONTENTS ON THE COVER — We pay tribute to Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. by featuring him on our January issue cover annually since our first January issue in 2001

Library of Congress

MONEY.................................................18 EDUCATION ..........................................26 HEALTH ................................................42 CULTURE ..............................................52

Features Supplier Diversity . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 18

&also inside

Ifetayo Students Honored by First Lady. . . . . 26

Publisher’s Desk . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10

Edison Job Corps . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 30

Guest Editorial . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 14

Black Power Politics in Brooklyn . . . . . . . . . . 35

My View . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 15

My Story . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 42

Fitness Doctor . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 44

Healthy Hip Hop . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 48

Etiquette Power . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 58

Bibliophiles Celebrate 25 Years . . . . . . . . . . 52

Gospel Train. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 60

Hilliards 30th Pastoral Anniversary . . . . . . . . 56

Selah! . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 66

U.S. Naval Gospel Choir . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 53 My Christmas Miracle. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 66

The Way Ahead . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 69 The Last Word . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 70

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One history.

Countless heroes.

Celebrating our nation’s promise and progress.

Black history isn’t just words on a page. It echoes in the footsteps of civil rights marchers. It comes to life with the words of great leaders like Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. And it continues to ripple through generations, changing us all for the better. Wells Fargo honors Black history, which is American history.

Wells Fargo is proud to present The Kinsey Collection: Shared Treasures of Bernard and Shirley Kinsey — Where Art and History Intersect. This nationally touring exhibition helps share the often untold story of African American achievements and contributions to American history. Join us in our celebration and visit wellsfargo.com/kinseycollection to learn more.

© 2014 Wells Fargo Bank, N.A. All rights reserved.

Member FDIC. (1167682_10860)

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1/6/14 10:18 AM

Archdiocese of New York Black History Month Mass Sunday, February 2, 2014 at 2:00pm St. Patrick’s Cathedral 5th Avenue & 51st Street New York, NY 10022

PRINCIPAL CELEBRANT & GUEST HOMILIST: BISHOP J. TERRY STEIB, S.V.D., D.D. BISHOP OF MEMPHIS

A Celebration of Catholic Faith & Black Culture and the 25th Anniversary of The National Day of Prayer for the African American & African Family For more information on the Annual Archdiocesan Black History Month Mass contact The Office of Black Ministry 646-794-2681; obm@archny.org

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GREAT

R C OLL

MAKE THE DIFFERENCE!

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he clergy organizations, churches, community businesses and institutions listed below have committed to the purchase of at least 50 magazines per month at $1.00 each (one-third of the cover price) or support this publication through the purchase of advertising. Find out more by calling 973-233-9200 or email rollcall@thepositivecommunity.com

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Abyssinian B.C., Harlem, NY Rev. Dr. Calvin O. Butts III, Pastor

Ebenezer B.C., Englewood, NJ Rev. Jovan Troy Davis, M.Div.

Messiah Baptist Church, East Orange, NJ Rev. Dana Owens, Pastor

St. Luke Baptist Church of Harlem, NY Rev. Dr. Johnnie McCann, Pastor

Abundant Life Fellowship COGIC, Newark, NJ Supt. Edward Bohannon, Jr, Pastor

Emmanuel Baptist Church, Brooklyn NY Rev. Anthony Trufant, Pastor

Metropolitan B.C., Newark, NJ Rev. Dr. David Jefferson, Pastor

St Luke B.C., Paterson, NJ Rev. Kenneth D.R. Clayton, Pastor

Empire Missionary B.C., Convention NY Rev. Dr. Ronald Grant, President

St. Albans, NY COGIC Rev. Ben Monroe

Fellowship Missionary B.C., Newark, NJ Rev. Dr. Elton T. Byrd Pastor/Founder

Mt. Calvary Baptist Church, Englewood, NJ Rev. Vernon Walton, Pastor Mt. Calvary United Methodist Church, Harlem, NY Rev. Tisha M. Jermin Mt. Neboh Baptist Church, Harlem, NY Rev. Dr. Johnnie Green Jr., Pastor

First B.C. of Lincoln Gardens, Somerset NJ Rev. Dr. DeForest (Buster) Soaries, Pastor

Mt. Pisgah B.C., Brooklyn, NY Rev. Dr. Johnny Ray Youngblood, Pastor

The New Hope B.C., Newark, NJ Rev. Joe Carter, Senior Pastor

First Baptist B.C. of Teaneck, NJ Rev. Marilyn Monroe Harris, Pastor

Mount Olive Baptist Church, Hackensack, NJ Rev. Gregory J. Jackson, Pastor

Thessalonia Worship Center, Bronx, NY Rev. Dr. Shellie Sampson, Pastor

Aenon Baptist Church, Vauxhall, NJ Rev. Alfonzo Williams, Sr., Pastor Antioch Baptist Church., Brooklyn, NY Rev. Robert M. Waterman, Pastor Archdiocese of New York Brother Tyrone Davis, Office of Black Ministry Berean B.C., Brooklyn, NY Rev. Arlee Griffin Jr., Pastor Bethany B.C., Brooklyn, NY Rev. Dr. Jasper E. Peyton, Interim Pasto Bethany B.C., Newark, NJ Rev. Dr. M. William Howard, Pastor Beulah Bible Cathedral Church, Newark, NJ Gerald Lydell Dickson, Senior Pastor Black Ministers Council of NJ Rev. Reginald T. Jackson, Exec. Director Calvary Baptist Church, Garfield, NJ Rev. Calvin McKinney, Pastor Calvary Baptist Church, Morristown, NJ Rev. Jerry M. Carter, Jr., Pastor

Evening Star B.C., Brooklyn, NY Rev. Washington Lundy, Pastor

First Bethel Baptist Church, Newark, NJ H. Grady James III, Pastor First Corinthian Baptist Church, NY Rev. Michael A. Walrond, Jr. Senior Pastor First Park Baptist Church, Plainfield, NJ Rev. Rufus McClendon, Jr., Pastor Friendship Baptist Church, Harlem, NY Rev. James A. Kilgore, Pastor General Baptist Convention, NJ Rev. Dr. Guy Campbell, President

Canaan B. C. of Christ, Harlem, NY Rev. Thomas D. Johnson, Pastor

Grace & Restoration Fellowship, Paterson, NJ Jerry Wilder, Sr., Pastor

Canaan B.C., Paterson, NJ Rev. Dr. Gadson L. Graham

Grace B. C., Mt. Vernon, NY Rev. Dr. Franklyn W. Richardson, Pastor

Cathedral International., Perth Amboy, NJ Bishop Donald Hilliard, Pastor

Greater Abyssinian BC, Newark, NJ Rev. Allen Potts, Senior Pastor

Charity Baptist Church, Bronx, NY Rev. Reginald Williams, Pastor

Greater Faith Baptist Church, Philadelphia, PA Rev. Larry L. Marcus

Childs Memorial COGIC, Harlem, NY Bishop Norman N. Quick, Pastor

Greater Friendship Baptist Church, Newark, NJ Rev. John Teabout, Pastor

Christian Cultural Center, Brooklyn, NY Rev. A.R. Barnard, Pastor Christian Love B.C., Irvington, NJ Rev. Ron Christian, Pastor Community B.C., Englewood, NJ Rev. Dr. Lester Taylor, Pastor Community Church of God, Plainfield, NJ Rev. Dr. Shirley B. Cathie., Pastor Emeritus Concord B.C., Brooklyn, NY Rev. Dr. Gary V. Simpson, Pastor Convent Avenue Baptist Church, New York, NY Rev. Dr. Jesse T. Willams, Pastor

Greater New Hope Missionary B.C., NYC Rev. Joan J. Brightharp, Pastor Greater Zion Hill B.C., Harlem, NY Rev. Dr. Frank J. Blackshear, Pastor Harlem Congregations for Community Improvement (HCCI) Drek E. Broomes, President & CEO It Is Well Living Ministries, Clark, NJ Rev. Kahlil Carmichael, Pastor Macedonia Baptist Church, Lakewood, NJ Dr. Edward D. Harper, Pastor Mariners’ Temple B.C., New York, NY Rev. Dr. Henrietta Carter

Mount Zion B.C., S. Hackensack, NJ Rev. Dr. Robert L. Curry, Pastor Mount Zion Baptist Church, Westwood, NJ Rev. Barry R. Miller, Pastor Mt. Olivet B.C, Newark, NJ Rev. André W. Milteer, Pastor Mt. Zion AME Church, Trenton, NJ Rev. J. Stanley Justice, Pastor New Hope Baptist Church, Metuchen, NJ Rev. Dr. Ronald L. Owens, Pastor New Hope Baptist Church of Hackensack, Hackensack, NJ Rev. Dr. Frances Mannin-Fontaine, Pastor New Life Cathedral, Mt. Holly, NJ Rev. Eric Wallace, Pastor New Zion B.C., Elizabeth, NJ Rev. Kevin James White, Pastor Paradise B. C., Newark, NJ Rev. Jethro James, Pastor Pilgrim B. C., Newark, NJ Rev. Glenn Wilson, Pastor Ruth Fellowship Ministries, Plainfield, NJ Rev. Tracy Brown, Pastor Shiloh AME Zion Church, Englewood, NJ Rev. John D. Givens, Pastor Shiloh B.C., Plainfield, NJ Rev. Dr. Gerald Lamont Thomas, Pastor Shiloh B.C., Trenton, NJ Rev. Darell Armstrong, Pastor St. Anthony Baptist Church, Brooklyn, NY Rev. Dr. Duane E. Cooper St. John Baptist Church Camden, NJ Rev. Dr. Silas M. Townsend, Pastor

St. James AME Church, Newark, NJ Rev. Ronald L. Slaughter, Pastor St. Paul Community B.C., Brooklyn, NY Rev. David K. Brawley, Pastor

Union Baptist Temple,, Bridgeton, NJ Rev. Albert L. Morgan, Pastor Walker Memorial B.C. Bronx, NY Rev. Dr. J. Albert Bush Sr., Pastor World Gospel Music Assoc., Newark, NJ Dr. Albert Lewis, Founder

Businesses & Organizations 125th St. BID African American Heritage Parade American Diabetes Association American Heart Association, Northern, NJ Brown Executive Realty LLC, Morristown, NJ City National Bank Essex County College, NJ Greater Harlem Chamber of Commerce Medgar Evers College Mildred Crump, Newark City Council Muslim American Chamber of Commerce NAACP New Jersey* NAACP, NY State Conference* New Brunswick Theological Seminary New Jersey Performing Arts Center New York Theological Seminary New York Urban League Newark School of Theology Razac Products Co., Newark, NJ Schomburg Center The College of New Rochelle United Way of Essex and West Hudson WBGO-88.3FM West Harlem Group Assistance, Inc. WKMB-1070AM

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TENDING THE LIGHT

COMMUNITY ORGANIZING & THE MODERN CIVIL RIGHTS MOVEMENT S a t u r d a y, 9:30 AM – 3:00 PM The Paul Robeson Campus Center Rutgers, the State University of New Jersey 350 Martin Luther King Jr. Blvd.

Newark, New Jersey 07102

F e b r u a r y

Marion Thompson Wright Speakers: Bob Moses

2 0 1 4

The Marion Thompson Wright Lecture Series is made possible by funds and support from the Prudential Foundation, New Jersey Historical Commission, Department of State, New Jersey Council for the Humanities, Newark Museum, and the Rutgers Committee to Advance Our Common Purposes.

Civil Rights Movement Veteran President, The Algebra Project

Barbara Ransby

University of Illinois at Chicago

Diane Nash Photographer: Danny Lyon Mississippi, 1963. Martha Prescod, Mike Miller, and Robert Parris Moses do voter registration work in the countryside.

1 5 ,

Civil Rights Movement Veteran

Charles Payne

University of Chicago

Presented by Rutgers Institute on Ethnicity, Culture, and the Modern Experience, The Federated Department of History, Rutgers UniversityNewark/New Jersey Institute of Technology, and the New Jersey Historical Commission, Department of State.

For more information, visit http://ethnicity.rutgers.edu 973-353-3891

IECME

@49bleeker

3 4th Annual Marion Thompson Wright Lecture Series

ADRIAN COUNCIL FROM THE PUBLISHER’S DESK

Faith, Freedom, and the Future he Positive Community’s Cultural Literacy Initiative presents the 2014 Grand Jubilee Calendar commemorating the sesquicentennial (150 years) anniversary season of the Great Emancipation. This year’s theme: Faith, Freedom, and the Future, Coming Up Through Great Tribulation.

It’s a celebration of the beauty and dignity of a people. The words and images — a reflection of truth and goodness — thoughts and ideals. It is the ecumenical faith and worship experience of the contemporary African Diaspora as seen through the lens of photographer Bob Gore.

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rich in these confusing, ultra-individualistic times. But, real prosperity and enduring, creative wealth are always founded upon community-building ideals: self-acceptance, selfreliance and self-respect—teamwork. Check the records of any successful ethnic group or organization and you will discover that these are the sustaining values along with education and hard work that move a people forward—generation to generation to generation. Let us teach our young people to choose their heroes wisely.

Coming Up Through Great Tribulation

Cultural Literacy The progress of our children and the integrity of African American culture — values and traditions mean everything!

This year, we honor the contribution of the Intellectual — historians, educators and scholars — who have dedicated their professional careers to the research, understanding and the interpretation of black life in America.

Cultural literacy is the cause of our times and the conversation about our future. Who will teach the children about their history — the trials and tribulations and triumphs of a people? What must we do to promote, protect and preserve our very best from the enemies of progress; an entrenched unjust, greed driven, minority of shrewd, wicked, designing men who would take unfair advantage of an unsuspecting, vulnerable majority — the young, the poor and the unlearned — for selfish, short term gain and profit; those who seek to suppress and exploit African American creative talents and gifts, effectively marginalizing and obscuring the value of our people’s mighty contribution to America and world popular culture?

Cultural literacy is a living narrative, a highly qualitative educational experience. Cultural literacy is the ability to read, write, speak and comprehend the English language while being conversant in matters of relevant history. Ideally, cultural literacy should be taught in the home, churches and community institutions as well as in our schools. Cultural literacy is about collective knowledge, wisdom and destiny!

Never forget: culture is to a community, nation or race what the soul is to a man or woman, the combined ministries of experience, wisdom, faith and hope. Ultimately, cultural literacy is the story of the people of God, with the mighty hand of Providence, “Coming up through Great Tribulation!”

The farther the Negro gets from his historical antecedents in time, the more tenuous become his conceptual ties, the emptier his social conceptions, the more superficial his visions. His one great and present hope is to know and understand his Afro-American history in the United States more profoundly. Failing that, and failing to create a new synthesis and social theory of action, he will suffer the historical fate described by the philosopher who warned that “Those who cannot learn from their history are doomed to repeat it.”

The above is an excerpt from the concluding passage of the late Harold Cruse’s 1967 epic, Crisis of the Negro Intellectual. It is the last paragraph of this ground-breaking historical analysis and critique on black leadership in 20th century America. The book ends with a final admon ition: “Those who cannot learn from their history are doomed to repeat it.”

One hundred and fifty years ago, in 1864, one year after the Emancipation Proclamation, the Civil War raged on; a war that had cost over 600,000 lives. It was the war that eventually ended slavery. In 1865, the Thirteenth Amendment was passed by both legislative Houses and signed into law by President Abraham Lincoln, abolishing slavery forever in the United States.

Now, more than ever it is absolutely essential that we learn our own story, our American story. The ability to compete and prosper in today’s market-driven economy is proportionate to a knowledge of self and one’s own history.

Sure, there will always be those who make money and get

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Martin & Malcolm & America

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elow is the concluding passage, a summary from the highly acclaimed work, Martin & Malcolm & America: A Dream or a Nightmare by author, theologian, philosopher and living torchbearer, James H. Cone. His book, published in 1991, examines the “two most influential African American leaders of the 20th century.”

From James H. Cone “. . . It is not easy to survive in a society that says you do not count. Many do not survive. With the absence of black pride, that “I am somebody” feeling, young African Americans have no respect for themselves or anybody else.

They are dropping out of secondary schools at an alarming rate. They are joining gangs, selling and using drugs, and going to prisons. Black teenagers have begun to kill each other with a frequency that boggles the human imagination . . . If something is not done soon to put an end to this madness, the African American community will commit genocide against itself.

Malcolm X (Alhajj Malik El Shabazz) is the best medicine against genocide. He showed us by example and prophetic preaching that one does not have to stay in the mud. We can wake up; we can stand up; we can take that long walk toward freedom. Freedom is first and foremost an inner recognition of self respect, knowledge that one was not put on this earth to be a nobody. Using drugs and killing each other are the worst forms of nobodyness.

Our foreparents fought against great odds (slavery, lynchings and segregation), but they did not self-destruct. Some died fighting and others inspired by their example, kept moving toward the promised land of freedom, singing “we ain’t gonna let nobody turn us around.” African Americans can do the same today. We can fight for our dignity and self-respect. To be proud to be black does not mean being against white people, unless whites are against respecting the humanity of blacks. Malcolm was for blacks and against their exploitation.

As Americans we (blacks, whites, Latinos, Asians and Indians) should create a society which contributes to the well-being of all citizens, not just the well-being of some.

Black teenagers are not responsible for being born in the violence-prone conditions of the urban ghetto. Unless we give them hope in themselves and in this nation, they will be lost. The same is true for all races of people.

Martin King was right: “The hour is late” and “the clock of destiny is ticking out.” We must declare where we stand on the great issues of our time . . . We must break the cycle of violence in America and around the world.

Human beings are meant for life and not death. They are meant for freedom and not slavery. They were created for

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each other and not against each other. We must therefore, breakdown the barriers that separate people from one another. For Malcolm and Martin for America and the world, and for all who have given their lives in the struggle for justice, let us direct our fight toward one goal—the beloved community of humankind.”

“Martin & Malcolm & America I bequeath to my children and grandchildren as the cornerstone of their spiritual inheritance.

This book sums up me and my generation. It’s about my life as a Black man in America. Thank God it has finally come.”

— Ossie Davis, Civil Rights activist, actor, director, writer (1917-2005) James H. Cone, A Charles A. Briggs Distinguished Professor of Systematic Theology at Union Theological Seminary, New York City, is widely regarded as one of the most influential theologians in America. His many books include A Black Theology of Liberation, The Spirituals & the Blues, God of the Oppressed, My Soul Looks Back and Speaking the Truth.

Dr. Cone’s latest book, The Cross and the Lynching Tree, a best seller, is published by Orbis Books.

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The Positive Community’s

The Grand Jubilee Season of Emancipation—2014 Coming Up Through Great Tribulation

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e are now into year two of the 150th anniversary Grand Jubilee Season of Emancipation, the sesquicentennial commemoration. One hundred fifty years ago, in 1864, one year after the Emancipation Proclamation, the Civil War raged on, a war that cost over 600,000 lives. In 1865, the Thirteenth Amendment was passed by the legislative and executive branches of government, abolishing forever slavery in the United States. From those troubling times to the present, we as a group are blessed with an enormous opportunity to measure, analyze and define our American journey our claim on the American Dream.

Below is a cultural narrative — our story — our history, a brief presentation of our deep collective experience that dates back to before this nation's founding: The Cultural Narrative African Americans are a unique people with a peculiar history in this land. Brought to these shores in chains from Africa as slaves in the early 1600s, our people toiled and suffered as captives in brutal bondage for a quarter of a millennium (250 years).

On January 1, 1863, two years into the Civil War, the Emancipation Proclamation, signed by President Abraham Lincoln, became law signaling an end to slavery. On that day, the African American community of the United States of America was born.

One hundred years later, in August, 1963, at the height of the civil rights movement, Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. stood in front of the Lincoln Memorial as he led hundreds of thousands to a “March on Washington” seeking an end to discrimination and Jim Crow segregation in the South. It was a demand for full citizenship rights for the people in what has been called “The Second Emancipation.”

Forty years after Martin Luther King’s tragic assassination in 1968, America elected its first black president, Barack Obama (2008).

In one hundred years between the first and second emancipation, in the midst of bitter persecution, humiliation, lynching and the denial of basic human rights, the resiliency of the African American spirit continued to shine brightly in religion, business, medicine, invention, sports and in the creative arts—music, fashion, dance, language, literature and theater. Indeed, original American art forms and a popular culture that has become the envy of the world were founded upon the souls of a forlorn people! That is our story — the Truth, Beauty and Goodness of a loving and gifted race revealed!

An Extraordinary History Ours is an extraordinary history of trial, tribulation and triumph that we must never forget! This is the story that we must tell our children and be ever remembered. We the people, descendants of the Great Emancipation, must tell our story to each other reminding ourselves, over and over again of the great, noble struggle and sacrifices of those who came before us.

This is our story, our cultural narrative, our Grand Jubilee and springboard into a great and prosperous future—a vision of hope and progress; health and wholeness; peace and goodwill!

2014—the Grand Jubilee Season of the Great Emancipation!

Author: Adrian A. Council, Sr. Editor: Jean Nash Wells Graphic Design: Penguin Graphics & Martin Maishman

Published by: The Positive Community Corporation www.thepositivecommunity.com

THE POSITIVE COMMUNITY'S CULTURAL LITERACY INITIATIVE PRESENTS . . .

2014 Grand Jubilee Calendar Only $19.99!

The Great Countdown to Freedom Commemorative Calendar for the 150th Anniversary Season of the Great Emancipation: Our Faith, Our Freedom, Our Future.

SUPPORT CULTURAL LITERACY! The calendar provides insight into our American story. It’s a cultural curriculum. The photos are beautiful, equally matched by inspired words of truth, encouragement and comfort!

The Grand Jubilee Calendar featuring the Cultural Narrative is a quality commemorative product—a cultural and spiritual marker for this important season.

The calendar is all that we have as a keepsake for this extraordinary time. The calendar speaks to the soul and points the way forward. No home, school or house of worship should be without one.

Your $20.00 investment will yield compounded interest, unlimited returns if we were to learn the cultural narrative ourselves and teach it to a child.

The progress of our children and the integrity of the very best African American culture, values and traditions mean everything.

Cultural Literacy—celebrates our faith, our freedom, and our future. Through the words and images in this calendar, may generations yet unborn reflect glowingly upon our present times and sacrifices. Keep the calendar in the family.

In this patriotic season, let’s get excited about our future, America’s future—today! Order calendars for your home, friends, school, business or organization—now!!

Proceeds to fund events, activities, cultural literacy and emancipation awareness initiatives throughout the region.

Send Check or Money Order to:

The 2014 Grand Jubilee Calendar

CALL TODAY: 973-233-9200

Grand Jubilee Calendar c/o The Positive Community Foundation 133 Glenridge Ave. Montclair, NJ 07042

PAUL MARTIN GUEST EDITORIAL

Paul Martin is an attorney practicing in New York and New Jersey and an ordained minister in the AME Church.

Push on, Push on, and Push on Can Dr. King’s Dream Be Achieved? s we approach this reflective time of the year, I, like many others, reread the writings of Dr. Martin Luther King with expectations of gaining a fuller knowledge of Dr. King’s humanity while renewing my own spirit and contemplating the inequalities of yesteryear. Unfortunately, after reading his posthumously published essay “A Testament of Hope,” I am of the opinion that Dr. King’s dreams, his expectations of humanity and his assumptions about what America can achieve, may be unachievable under our current mental state in America.

While Dr. King raised issues of the human condition to the forefront of society, he also provided solutions to the problems which were crippling this great society. The solutions were realistic, plausible answers to the problems that overshadow this country. In reading “A Testament of Hope,” we cannot deny America is still haunted by the same problems: racism, economic disparity, unjust wars, and police brutality.

Has the media caused black America to have temporary amnesia? Have we forgotten that despite electing President Barrack Hussein Obama, blacks are disproportionately incarcerated, executed and living below the poverty line? What would Dr. King’s marching orders say?

How would he advise his lieutenants, the clergy and America at large?

We are no longer subject to the dehumanizing “white only” signs in public accommodations; but Dr. King’s agenda was so much more than combating segregation.

Dr. King acknowledged and spoke out against America’s moral hypocrisy in areas of war, poverty, and political representation by and for African Americans.

Dr. King believed war was immoral and unnecessary.

His philosophy was simple: war depleted America’s resources. These resources would best be used to solve society’s ills and ensure our survival and not the demise of the human race. In his sermon entitled “Remaining Awake through a Great Revolution,” Dr. King quoted President John F. Kennedy, who said, “Mankind must put an end to war or war will put an end to mankind,” Dr. King appealed to our sense of humanity.

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America still engages in immoral wars; African Americans are still disproportionately fighting on the front lines of these wars; private companies are still benefiting from the promulgation of war as they sell weapons and manipulate world views of “our enemies.”

Dr. King would speak out on these acts of aggression. Dr. King would implore us to remain vocal and annoy the political elite until they come to terms with this unnecessary evil.

The United States, the wealthiest country on this earth, has seen some African Americans soar to the top of their professions. Still, far too many of us live below the poverty line — living day to day — unable to pull ourselves up by the boot straps because we cannot “afford” the boots. We are often last hired, first fired in government and private industry.

Urban issues such as police brutality remain a condition that the African American people endure each day.

The mere fact we must ask those who are charged with protecting our city to protect and respect people of color is a sad indictment of our culture. Most African Americans view police as an occupying force rather than one of safety and protection. Dr. King looked simply for an “attitude of courtesy.”

In the end, Dr. King would tell us to push on, push on, and push on. There is much work to be done. Do not give up our humanity, our dreams or our hearts. Push on despite the height of the mountain, push on despite lows in the valley, and push on so our dreams will not shrivel into nightmares but blossom into blessings. www.thepositivecommunity.com

REV. THERESA NANCE MY VIEW

Rev. Nance is pastor of The Church by the Side of the Road in Passaic, NJ. She is also a radio talk show host and documentary filmmaker.

LISTEN TO THE POSITIVE COMMUNITY HOUR ON WKMB 1070 AM HARVEST RADIO, MONDAYS, 1:30–2:30 P.M. WITH HOST THERESA NANCE.

A Time for Miracles

t’s 2014, another new beginning as we put away holiday decorations and make resolutions. We hang our new calendars, wear the gloves and scarves we received as Christmas gifts and reflect on the 2013 holidays and all that we gave and received.

Perhaps all the Rev. Hilton Rawls Jr. wanted for Christmas was a new kidney — a kidney transplant, to be more specific. I received a telephone call from Pastor Rawls himself telling me about the urgency of this health dilemma and was asked to consider this as a featured story from Melissa Prayer, station manager at WKMB-AM radio.

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Those who have good health should view such a thing as an absolute blessing that money cannot buy. And then, there are those who find that their bodies need assistance of some kind to enhance the quality of their lives. www.thepositivecommunity.com

Those who have good health should view such a thing as an absolute blessing that money cannot buy. And then, there are those who find that their bodies need assistance of some kind to enhance the quality of their lives. In this case, it is a transplant.

There was a nationwide online campaign to meet the extraordinary expense of such a procedure. Titled “Hope for Hilton: A Night of Miracles,” this fundraising endeavor included selling t-shirts and bumper stickers with the “Hope for Hilton” and “What Love Does” logo, 3 Nights of Prayer and Word Celebration as NJ Pastors Unite and a benefit concert on December 9th at Agape Family Worship Center. It was an outpouring of love and hope to help Rev. Rawls as he in the past has helped so many others.

A night of miracles . . . Well, December was the right month for such a theme. There was a miracle occurring more than 2,000 years ago when God manifest in the body of a baby to become the living Christ who saved humankind from its collective sin. And, because of such a once in a lifetime miracle, His coming spawns hope for both the depressed and the infirmed.

I agreed to pen a column to highlight this campaign.

I forwarded an email, indicating that the article would be written and even though no one ever responded one way or another, my late pastor, the Rev. Dr. Allene Gilmore used to say, “Nance, when you put your heart out there, you gotta’ honor it.” I have.

On a personal note, I have never met this pastor in person but I trust that the God who saved us and others would move on his situation and grant the pastor’s request for a transplant and also pray that he has continued good health in the future.

We serve a God of miracles. After all, miracles are his specialty. I trust that the Rev. Hilton Rawls, Jr. will be able to bear witness about the life-saving, life-sustaining God who swooped down one day and answered his prayer — A miracle from the Creator of all miracles.

To the many readers of The Positive Community magazine, I wish you perfect health, both spiritually and physically in this New Year.

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L–R: Rev. Geraldine Harris, Assistant Recording Secretary, Rev. Dr. Renee F. Washington-Gardner, 2nd Vice Moderator, Rev. Dr. Sean P. Gardner, Auditor, Rev. Dr. Anthony Lowe, 1st Vice Moderator, Ms. Lisa Harris, Lady Benita Washington & Rev. Dr. Carl L. Washington, Jr., Moderator

UMBA Installation

By Rev. Patricia A. Morris Rev. Ronald Grant, president, Empire Missionary Baptist Convention

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Lee Arrington, Moderator Washington has the distinction of having three women in his cabinet: Vice Moderator Rev. Dr. Renee F. Washington-Gardner, Assistant Financial Secretary Rev. Patricia A Morris and Assistant Recording Secretary Rev. Geraldine Harris. Moderator Washington has opened the door to expanded opportunity and expression for the Youth & Young Adult Auxiliary through worship during their session as well as managing the UMBA website under the leadership of President Brittany Johnson.

Moderator Washington hit the ground running with the theme Reflecting the Will of God in Ministry, Message and Mission. 2 Peter 1:3-11

Former UMBA moderators L-R: Rev. Dr. John L. Scott, St. John BC, NYC; Rev. Nelson Dukes, Fountain Spring BC, Bronx, NY; Rev. Dr. Isaac B. Graham, Macedonia BC, NYC; Rev. Lee A. Arrington; Paradise BC, NYC and (center) new Moderator Carl L. Washington, Jr.

L-R: Carrie Mobley-Johnson; Moderator Carl L. Washington, Jr. being congratulated by immediate past Moderator Lee A. Arrington and Rev. Geraldine Harris

Photos: Bruce Moore

he United Missionary Baptist Association (UMBA) installed its 14th moderator and cabinet on Tuesday, December 3, 2013. The installation was held at the Mt. Olivet Baptist Church in the Village of Harlem, the Rev. Dr. Charles Curtis was host pastor.

Moderator Carl L. Washington, Jr. serves as the pastor of the New Mt. Zion Baptist Church also in the Village of Harlem. He has served UMBA for the past 18 years in numerous capacities including financial secretary, 2nd vice moderator and 1st vice moderator. While the first woman elected to office, Rev. Patricia A Morris, served corresponding secretary in the cabinet of Rev.

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The Positive Community Winter 2014

www.thepositivecommunity.com

For info: (212) 777-7070 or go to www.ohbm.org

Money Business, Money & work

Supplier Diversity: Meeting The Challenges Of Minority-Owned Businesses Deborah Wiggins, Manager of Supplier Diversity Initiatives, University Hospital and James R. Gonzalez, MPH, FACHE, President and CEO, University Hospital

Ozzie Mendez, president, Menco Business Products

J

erome Davidson, owner of Promotions R Us in Princeton, is keenly aware of the special challenges of minority-owned businesses. Before starting his own business in 2001, Davidson had nearly 20 years experience in the industry with a major company who sent him to New Jersey as national sales manager for the east coast. He knew the business well, but when he went out on his own, he wasn’t prepared for the resistance to the idea that a small, minority-owned business had the ability to service major institutions. “I found that some major corporations saw doing business with small, minority-owned enterprises as ‘hand-outs’ rather than good business,” Davidson explains. “If it weren’t for supplier diversity initiatives at places like University Hospital, minority-owned businesses like mine wouldn’t have had a chance,” he adds. Promotions R Us has had a ten-year relationship with University Hospital, and was named a Class 1 Supplier by UMDNJ in 2005. “Business for most of those years has been good” says Davidson.

Ozzie Mendez, President of Menco Business Products, agrees that supplier diversity initiatives make a difference. He started Menco, a printing business in

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The Positive Community Winter 2014

Jerome Davidson, owner, Promotions R Us, Princeton, NJ

“ He knew the business well,

but when he went out on his own, he wasn’t prepared for the resistance to the idea that a small, minority-owned business had the ability to

”

service major institutions.

www.thepositivecommunity.com

Hillsborough, 25 years ago, and for 23 of those years, he has had a relationship with University Hospital. He is proud to report that Menco was twice named “vendor of the year” during that time. “Vendor diversity was a major goal going back to when the hospital was part of the University of Medicine and Dentistry of New Jersey (UMDNJ),” Mendez says. “That attitude did a lot to enable smaller companies to succeed.” And he is pleased that now that University Hospital is independent, supplier diversity is still a priority item on its agenda.

“At University Hospital, diversity at all levels is key to our success in serving our communities,” explains hospital President and CEO James R. Gonzalez, MPH, FACHE. “Our supplier diversity initiative is one example of our commitment to inclusion. What started as a compliance exercise has now become a strategic business imperative.”

Supplier diversity is an integral part of the business process at University Hospital. Its goal is to provide minority- and women-owned suppliers with equal access to procurement opportunities.

Deborah Wiggins, heads the Newark hospital’s supplier diversity efforts. “University Hospital wants supplier participation that reflects our diverse business communities,” she notes. Nearly 10 percent of New Jersey businesses are owned by minorities; in Newark this same population owns between 25 and 35 percent of all businesses. “The opportunities to promote both inclusion and economic development are enormous,” Ms. Wiggins adds.

The demographics of America are changing. According to the Bureau of the Census, by 2050 what are now minorities will be the majority. Already minority businesses, especially black-owned businesses, are one of the fastest growing segments of our economy.

The robust supplier diversity initiative at University Hospital recognizes that increasing participation in the supply chain increases competition, innovation and cost savings. President Gonzalez believes that this is a win-win situation. “The initiative allows our hospital to establish a more competitive supply base while supporting business and job creation in minority communities.”

University Hospital became independent in July 2013, when most of the schools and units of the University of Medicine and Dentistry of New Jersey (UMDNJ) were transferred to Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey.

At that time the hospital was separated from UMDNJ and became a standalone medical center that continued as a principal teaching hospital for Rutgers’ medical, dental and other health sciences schools. The new University Hospital will continue its leadership role in advocacy organizations that promote supplier diversity.

“Inclusion is a commitment, a core business strategy and represents a competitive advantage in advancing our hospital’s mission,” President Gonzalez maintains.

For more information about the supplier diversity initiative at University Hospital, contact Ms. Wiggins at 973-972-4318.

From Our Hearts to Your Hearts! From Our Hands To Your Hands!

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For many years Florence E. Browne has served many communities locally and abroad. Feel free to visit our Funeral Home located in the Village of Harlem, New York. Our Service Family would be more than happy to sit and answer your questions regarding funeral arrangements, cremations & pre-arrangements. In addition, we provide notary services as well as referrals for anyone desiring professional grief counseling.

Winter 2014 The Positive Community

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Knights of the Round Table

By Madinah Najla James

W

ith the condition of today's economy, embarking on entrepreneurship in our communities is becoming more and more the norm.

The ability to build strategic business alliances with like minded individuals is extremely important and crucial to successful brand building and exposure.

The Knights of the Round Table is a mastermind organization that provides a platform and "think tank" for the creation of such alliances. The organization is based in Bergen County and is currently expanding, creating additional branches throughout the state of New Jersey.

L-R: Ronald H. Rollieson, director Marketing and Sales, English Realty/president, Knights of the Roundtable; Madinah N. James, TV producer/writer/correspondent, CEO, MNJ Consulting Corporation; Steven Cooper, mortgage banker, New Jersey Lenders; Priscilya M. Hawkes, Esq., The Hawkes Law Group; Darrell James, CEO, NOJ Media Internet Brodcasting/Managing Principal, LevyChin LLC; Richard Stanard, CEO, King Richard Auto Group; Dawn M. Nelson, Transamerica; Johnnie Banks, president, The Nitsew Group LLC; Kelechi Njoku, civil mediation specialist

The Knights of the Round Table networking group is a spiritually-based invitation-only organization.

Members build their businesses through networking and giving back. This group of motivated professionals seeks to increase and improve their overall health, wealth and spiritual awareness through business contacts, referrals and mutual relationships. Their principle is "We Get by Giving." The organization participates in philanthropic endeavors and donates to organizations such as The Martin Luther King Senior Center, Gilda's Club and The Teaneck Terpsicorians Dance Group at Teaneck High School. The organization seeks to uplift communities by sponsoring events such as a Free Women's Empowerment Conference and supporting initiatives such as the annual Think Pink Spring Bling Cancer Fundraiser.

Recent Knights Of The Round Table honorees include John Harmon, President and CEO of the African American Chamber of Commerce of New Jersey, Dedra Tate, entertainment icon and partner, Unlimited Contacts, Inc. and Darrell James, media mogul, minister, entrepreneur and business development expert.

Professionals from the tri-state area attend this very exclusive networking event where they exchange contacts and resources, create business opportunities as well as obtain vital information for lifelong success.

If you would like more information about this organization, please contact Ronald H. Rollieson, President Knights of the Round Table at 201-889-8529.

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The Positive Community Winter 2014

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High-Profile Data Breaches Reaffirm need for Small Business Security

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ecember and January were dark days for data security. Just before Christmas, Target announced that credit and debit card info from over 40 million customers had been hacked over a three-week period of holiday shopping.

On December 28th, German researchers revealed how cybercriminals had taken advantage of Windows XP security lapses to infect European ATMs with malware.

• To a hacker, every employee and workstation represents a possible entry point. Beyond tech measures, the biggest data security investment you can make is in your people. Employees should do more than just create stronger passwords — they should know how to identify and handle an unsafe email attachment, they should know how to assess and manually re-enter external links, and they should be empowered to think about how their online actions can affect their employer.

Is your computer guy driving you crazy?

What do these three stories have in common? They highlight the fact that anyone — major retailers, online entities, small businesses, brick-and-mortar shoppers, Internet users — can be affected by a data breach.

• Malware, phishing attacks, and social engineering tactics are on the rise. In 2013, targeted malware attacks against small businesses increased 8%, with an average loss of $92,000, while social media-based phishing attacks increased 125%. As for social engineering, the act of using sensitive information to impersonate a user and gain access to data; nearly 30% of all security breaches involve some form of this 21st-century tactic — and the average loss is $25,000 to $100,000.

In a recent Inc. Magazine article, statistics from security firm Symantec estimated that cyberattacks on small businesses rose 300% in 2012. And Jeremy Grant, an adviser at the Department of Commerce’s National Institute of Standards and Technology, said his agency had seen “a relatively sharp increase in hackers and adversaries targeting small businesses.”

• TheCMIT safest (and cheapest) way to bounceTeam back from is Your Technology a security breach is with remote backup and disaster recovery. If data is compromised, bouncing back isn’t OUR SERVICES easy — and can often be impossible. But with a trusted CMIT Marathon - Service Plans backup solution and disaster recovery plan like CMIT Security - Backup Solutions Guardian, even the worst cyberattack can’t bring your - Disaster Recovery company to its knees.

And on January 1st, online messaging service Snapchat alerted over 4.5 millions that their usernames and phone numbers had been posted online in an apparent attempt to expose the company’s data vulnerabilities.

Here’s why small and medium-sized businesses (SMBs) are receiving more attention from cybercriminals — and what you can do to avoid it:

• Small businesses tend to have weaker security and

data encryption measures. Traditionally, major cyberattacks are directed at major companies. But as IT departments at those businesses are increasingly focused on foiling potential hacks, criminals have shifted their focus to more susceptible smaller organizations. Many companies feel they can’t afford to splurge on IT solutions. But the average annual cost of a cyberattack on an SMB is $188,242 — far more than the average data security investment.

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The Positive Community Winter 2014

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CACCI Honors Entrepreneurs and Corporate Leaders Medger Evers College president Dr. Rudy Crew extends welcoming remarks

T

he Caribbean American Chamber of Commerce and Industry, recently hosted its annual small business recognition reception at historic Brooklyn Borough Hall. It was a tribute to visionary leadership and new CACCI members who have taken a risk and accepted the challenge of entrepreneurship and are continuing to persevere despite challenging economic times for small business owners.

The Positive Community’s own Adrian Council, Jr. was among the honorees recognized as business visionaries.

Adrian is a graduate of the School of Business at St. Augustine’s University, a historically black university in Raleigh, N.C. At graduation he received the business school’s prestigious Horatio Alger award in recognition of his maintaining a high academic level throughout his college career while working full and part time, pursuing work study in an internship and becoming a father in his junior year.

After graduation Council was recruited by HBSC/ Beneficial and moved his family to Myrtle Beach, S.C. to assume a position as account executive selling various

financial products including mortgages. Adrian quickly rose to the top in sales leadership, consistently ranking number one in his district and in the top 5% of five thousand HSBC account executives throughout the country.

However, when the financial industry collapsed in 2009, even Adrian Council Jr. could not keep the office from closing and Council joined The Positive Community Corporation.

Since then he has been serving businesses in New York and New Jersey, helping them increase sales, profits and brand awareness through consumer outreach in The Positive Community magazine. It is here that Adrian Jr. strives to achieve his personal goals in sync with the vision of a positive community.

The Caribbean American Chamber Of Commerce and Industry, Inc. (CACCI), founded in August 1985, is a statewide membership organization, which has developed expertise in providing business assistance to small and start-up business owners, in areas of business planning, financing, certification, procurement, business expansion, and export/import opportunities.

Michael Jones-Bey, Director of Supplier Diversity, Con Edison delivers keynote address

L–R: Honoree Adrian Council, Jr.; Dr. Roy Hastic, Malaak Shabazz and Michael Jones-Bey

Photos: Seitu Orunde and Wali Amin Muhammad

www.thepositivecommunity.com

Winter 2014 The Positive Community

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Walker Memorial honors Deacon Cheryl Forbes Rev. Dr. Joe A. Bush, Sr., Walker's 7th and longest standing pastor, chooses Pastor Bush and Deacon Cheryl L. Forbes (back)

L–R: Deacon Joyce H. Davis (chairperson of Deacons), 1st Lady, Mrs. Mary Bush, Deacon Laura Walcott (chairperson-Church Anniversary), Deacon Cheryl L. Forbes (honoree), Deacon Leigh Hunter (co-chair-Church Anniversary)

I

n 1981 a handful of baptized believers organized a church that became Walker Memorial Baptist Church, the first Negro church in Harlem, NY. On Psalm Sunday, March 23, 1975, Walker's sixth pastor, the

If You’re Ready to Buy a Home, We are ready to Help.

The State of New York Mortgage Agency offers: up to $15,000.00 Down Payment Assistance 1-800-382-HOME(4663)

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The Positive Community Winter 2014

for Housing

The Trustees of WMBC - Trustee Harold Gollop, Leader-In-Training Lynette Hayes, Deacon Cheryl L. Forbes, Trustee Ethel McNeal, Deacon Darney Gripper, Sr.

late Rev. Dr. Ivor Moore, led the congregation from Harlem to its present home at 120 East 169th St., Bronx, NY. Because of its Christ-centered teaching, Walker Memorial has birthed several daughter churches including Convent Avenue Baptist Church, Greater Zion Hill Baptist Church and Tabernacle Baptist Church, all in Harlem.

Each year during the commemoration of the church anniversary in October, a person from the congregation is chosen to receive the Rev. Dr. Ivor Moore Humanitarian Award. This year’s recipient is Deacon Cheryl L. Forbes, a born and raised Bronx resident.

Deacon Forbes is vice principal of the Grand Concourse Academy Charter School (GCA), Bronx, NY. A school born out of the vision of Pastor Rev. Dr. Joe A. Bush, Sr. (Walker's seventh and longest standing pastor), for Walker Memorial to be a source of light for the community. Today, GCA (K - 5th grade) is among the top schools in New York State.

In presenting the award to Deacon Forbes, Pastor Bush said, “...she came to Walker by herself in 1982 and found her place in the ministry of this church (trustee, secretary/treasurer) and in the hearts of the people...

She has earned our love and respect. When the history of Walker Memorial is written, it cannot leave her name out, for it is written in ink and also written in the hearts and minds of the boys and girls of this church and the men and women who have been a part of this church for the past 30 years.” www.thepositivecommunity.com

Education Teaching, Learning, Making a Difference

First Lady Michelle Obama Pays Tribute To Brooklyn After-School Arts Program Ifetayo Cultural Arts Academy Recognized By White House

Photos: Courtesy of the White House

L–R: Michelle Obama, Isoke Senghor and Kwayera Archer-Cunningham

Ifetayo dancers L–R: Jahi Smith, 15 (drummer) and Alexa Menuau, 16.

he holiday season got off to a great start for the Brooklyn-based Ifetayo Arts Cultural Academy, recently honored by the White House as a recipient of the 2013 National Arts and Humanities Youth Program Award, the highest honor offered in the United States for after-school programming.

Talented students of the Ifetayo Youth Ensemble had the opportunity to perform in Washington, DC for First Lady Michelle Obama, who indicated during the program that the award is a way to honor outstanding organizations using the arts to uplift our young people.

The program was recognized for its effectiveness in

developing learning and life skills in young people by engaging them in the arts or humanities.

The First Lady presented the award on behalf of the President’s Committee on the Arts and the Humanities, in partnership with the National Endowment for the Arts, the National Endowment for the Humanities, and the Institute of Museum and Library Services. Ifetayo students were extremely excited to perform for the First Lady and esteemed partnership members with national acclaim.

Ifetayo, one of only 12 programs from across the country chosen from 350 nominations and 50 finalists for this White House distinction, is a cultural program

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The Positive Community Winter 2014

www.thepositivecommunity.com

First Lady embraces Isoke Senghor, 14.

L–R: Jean- Daniel John, 17; Sonji Gaul, 17; Jahziah Kefentse, 12 and Mrs. Obama

that supports creative, educational and vocational development of youth of African descent in Brooklyn.

Founded in 1989, the program has served over 20,000 students and families offering a wealth of programs in academic and literacy training, personal skills development, community engagement, cultural heritage classes, and socially responsible art making. The organization’s name stems from the West African Yoruba word “ifetayo” which means “love is enough for joy” capturing the spirit of the program’s nurturing philosophy to empower and redefine community development.

www.thepositivecommunity.com

This nurturing approach was key for preparing the gifted youth recipients for their sojourn to D.C. to perform and receive the award at the White House. In preparation for their trip, students engaged in intensive media training, prep on what-to-expect during their trip, extensive dance rehearsals and overall coaching.

And the results reflected an exceptional performance followed by accolades and warm hugs from Mrs. Obama.

While countless arts programs throughout the country face economic challenges, Ifetayo has survived the challenge. They have changed the culture of building a successful arts program as acknowledged by the White House, and are slated to celebrate their 25th anniversary in 2014.

Ifetayo’s students and staff say the award and opportunity to perform for First Lady Obama were a great way to commence the holiday season.

Winter 2014 The Positive Community

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TOURO COLLEGE AND UNIVERSITY SYSTEM

The Touro College and University System presents its schools of medicine and pharmacy in the legendary Blumstein Building- where Martin Luther King, Jr. survived an attempted assassination to go on to lead the March on Washington and many other victories in the battle for the civil rights of African-Americans.

T

he Touro College of Osteopathic Medicine (TouroCOM) and the Touro College of Pharmacy (TCOP) – both in Harlem and both part of the Touro College and University System, have renovated the former Blumstein’s department store on 125th Street, best known as the site of the attempted assassination of the Reverend Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., on September 20th 1958, and turned it into a life-affirming edifice by graduating over 300 physicians and pharmacists since opening in 2007.

In addition to the physicians and pharmacists educated at Touro College’s 125th street site, the over 1000 medical and pharmacy students , who have studied there, have been

imbued with the mission of providing service to the community members of Central and East Harlem. By providing mentoring and tutoring, as well as health information, health screening and referrals to the community, the Touro students have been embracing a mission worthy of Dr. King’s legacy: “The Touro College and University System is committed to preparing students to become outstanding physicians and pharmacists who uphold the values, philosophy and practice of the healing professions. Touro College of Osteopathic Medicine and Touro College of Pharmacy place special emphasis on teaching and learning in the areas of primary care, and the ho-

listic approach to healing the patient. These institutions are committed to identifying and recruiting students who are interested in serving underserved communities. The College advances higher learning and serves students and society by providing a firm educational foundation, encouraging research and scholarly activity, and participating in community service.”

Special thanks and recognition to TouroCOM’s Community Advisory Board Members: Dr. Hazel Dukes, Maurice Wright, MD, Jay Cowan, MD, Martin Levine, DO, Michael Hardy, Esq., C. Virginia Fields, Allyne Spinner, LCSW, Icilma Fergus, MD, Walter Edwards, Milton Haynes, MD, Geoffrey Eaton and John Crepsac, LCSW, CASAC.

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Edison Job Corps Hosts Luncheon Local Businesses Meet Students

L–R: Leslie Burwell, business community liaison Edison Job Corps and Jon Harmon, President & CEO NJ African Chamber of Commerce Edison Job Corps Students

Michael Cox, area development director UNCF; Windy White, deputy director Edison Job Corps and Corey Lilliston, district manager Home Depot Adrian Council Photos: Karen Waters

L–R: Nick Caravassi, president of Creative Design Plus and Stephanie DeGenesta, executive director of New Covenant Christian Academy Edison Job Corps Students

Edison Job Corps Students

L–R: Jean Nash Wells and Adrian Council of The Positive Community

Ty Baily Edison Job Corps instructor, Mohamad Shalal Director of Administration Edison Job Corps and Brenda Jenifer Edison Job Corps Center Director

www.thepositivecommunity.com

Edison Job Corps Trade Instructors, Daniel Wright, Bill Carroll and Michelle Jewel with guests.

O

n Tuesday, November 5th, 2013 Edison Job Corps hosted its quarterly Community Relations Networking luncheon. Attendees included over one hundred corporate executives, community leaders and educational representatives. At this special event, Council and Job Corps leadership highlighted the importance of people and programs that support the career aspirations of today’s youth. Attendees participated in networking activities to foster collaboration and resource leveraging amongst local businesses. Job Corps is a no-cost education and career technical training program administered by the U.S. Department of Labor that helps young people ages 16 through 24 improve the quality of their lives through career technical and academic training.

The Job Corps program's mission is to teach eligible young people the skills they need to become employable and independent and placing them in meaningful jobs or educational opportunities.

For more information about the Edison Job Corps program please visit us on the web at http://edison.jobcorps.gov.

Winter 2014 The Positive Community

31

Cicely Tyson Honored National Urban League 57th Annual Equal Opportunity Day Awards Dinner

National Urban League 2013 Million Dollar Hall of Fame Inductees with Marc Morial (2nd from rt.): Michael Corbat, CEO, Citigroup—$10 Million Hall of Fame; Andy Church, president and general mgr., Enterprise Holdings— $5 Million Hall of Fame, and Michael Norris COO, Sodexo —$1 Million Hall of Fame.

A

t its 57th Annual Equal Opportunity Day Awards Dinner, t he National Urban League (NUL) presented its highest commendation to several individuals and corporations that have demonstrated a commitment to equal opportunity and equal rights. Actress, philanthropist and advocate Cicely Tyson received the Arts Award for her tremendous achievements in the area of arts and culture.

“The people and organizations that we honor at the Equal Opportunity Day Awards Dinner exemplify the National Urban League’s commitment to service and the revitalization of communities across America,” said Mark Morial, president and CEO. “This year’s recipients display extraordinary leadership encouraging empowerment in all aspects of our society.”

L–R: Cicely Tyson with Marc and Michelle Morial

David L. Cohen, executive vice president, Comcast Corporation chaired this year’s dinner. The presenting sponsor for the 2013 Equal Opportunity Day Awards Dinner is Comcast/NBC Universal, which works with NUL to promote access to broadband in underserved communities.

Jon Campbell, EVP, Director of Social Responsibility Group, Wells Fargo, presented $4.035 million on behalf of Wells Fargo for the Urban League’s housing counseling work and Entrepreneurship Centers.

David Ushery, anchor/reporter and host of The Debrief with David Ushery, NBC4 New York, and Caroline Clarke, executive editor/host of Black Enterprise and the Black Enterprise Business Report, served as MCs for the dinner, which was held at the New York Marriot on Wednesday, November 13, 2013.

Recipients of the prestigious Equal Opportunity Day Award were: • Walgreen Co., Gregory D. Wasson, president/CEO and Steve Pemberton, VP, Diversity & Inclusion:

Corporate Leadership Award Roger W. Ferguson, Jr., president/CEO, TIAA-CREF: Leadership Award • • John D. Hofmeister, founder/ CEO, Citizens for Affordable Energy: President’s Award • Kurt M. Landgraf, president/CEO, Education Testing Service: Special Award for improving quality

and equity in education for underrepresented students.

Hall of Fame Awards were presented to major donors to NUL. Recipients were: • $1 million—Sodexo North America, accepted by George Chavel, president/CEO • $5 Million—Enterprise Holdings, accepted by Andy Church, VP/general manager Enterprise

New York/New Jersey. $10 Million— Citigroup; accepted by Michael L. Corbat, CEO. •

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The Positive Community Winter 2014

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Hugh Masekela 75th Birthday Tour In Honor of Nelson Mandela s 4/6

Family 4-PACK

$100!

*

The Peking Acrobats s 2/23

2013–14 Season at a glance JANUARY 2014

FEBRUARY 2014

MARCH 2014

Jan 17 Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Celebration Dance Theatre of Harlem with special guest speaker Rev. Dr. DeForest B. Soaries, Jr. Jan 19 Dorthaan’s Place: Steve Turre Jan 21 Pixies Jan 25 Nai-Ni Chen Dance Company Jan 30 Hezekiah Walker & Friends starring Marvin Sapp

Feb

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Feb Feb Feb Feb Feb Feb Feb Feb Feb Feb

9 13 14 15 15 16 22 23 23 28

Mar Mar Mar

* Family 4-Pack $100. Use code 4PACK. Restrictions apply.

My Jazzy Valentine featuring Hillary Kole, Christopher Gines and LaTanya Hall Sleeping Beauty (complete ballet) RAIN: A Tribute to The Beatles Fantasia & Friends Rhapsody In Jazz: George Gershwin The Tenors St. Petersburg Philharmonic Black Violin Dorthaan’s Place: Jon Faddis The Peking Acrobats* Paddy Moloney and The Chieftains

1 1 2

Mar 6 Mar 7 Mar 8 Mar 8 Mar 21-23 Mar 22 Mar 23 Mar 28 Mar 29 Mar 29 Mar 30

Mammoth Follies Patti LuPone and Mandy Patinkin Jazz Meets Sports: Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, Bernie Williams Evgeny Kissin, piano Bill Cosby Mystic India: The World Tour Jersey Moves! Festival of Dance The Music Man KT Sullivan & Mark Nadler Dorthaan’s Place: Antoinette Montague Johnny Mathis We’re Going On A Bear Hunt Israel Philharmonic Orchestra Jon Anderson–The Voice of Yes

Visit njpac.org for a full 2013-14 schedule 1-888-GO-NJPAC Groups of 10 or more: 1-888-MY-NJPAC World Music Series

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Please call our ticket services department to let them know if you require ADA services, particularly if you require wheelchair seating.

The Changing Face of Brooklyn’s Politics

BY GLENDA CADOGAN

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peaking about his plans to stage Brooklyn’s own version of the New Year’s Eve ball drop in 2015, newly installed Borough President Eric Adams said that would-be detractors will “realize Brooklyn has become the center of the universe.” Certainly there is substance behind the Borough President’s claim as the once “outer-

borough” is now featuring prominently as the seat of political power in New York City. In the recent past, Brooklyn has emerged as a thriving alternative to Manhattan life with some even giving it a new moniker as “the other Manhattan.” With its multi-million development at the Brooklyn Bridge Waterfront, the construction of the worldclass Barclays Arena and an aggressive housing market, Brooklyn is now the toast of the City. Sealing the deal in making Brooklyn the place to be was the historic election of the first African Americans to hold the positions of Borough President, Public Advocate and District Attorney. Completing the foundation of Brooklyn’s political power base is none other than Bill de Blasio, the man holding the top post as the City’s chief executive who is a proud Brooklyn native and emerged as the first Democrat to occupy City Hall in the past 20 years.

Seitu Oronde

BILL DE BLASIO: BALANCING THE SCALES OF INJUSTICE AND INEQUALITY tepping into City Hall with a landslide victory over Joseph Lhota, former chairman of the MTA, Mayor de Blasio campaigned on a stump which portrayed New York as a “tale of two cities”—one rich and prosperous, the other poor and neglected. His platform advocated for a tax on rich city residents making more than $500,000 a year, universal prekindergarten, de-emphasizing standardized testing in public schools and a massive overhaul of the police practice of stop-and-frisk.

In his New Year’s Day inauguration speech on the steps of City Hall, Mayor de Blasio, a liberal democrat, reaffirmed his campaign commitment to the huge gathering of New Yorkers who braved the weather to see him installed as the 109th Mayor of the City.

“Now I know there are those who think that what I

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said during the campaign was just rhetoric, just “political talk” in the interest of getting elected. There are some who think now as we turn to governing — well, things will just continue pretty much like they always have. So let me be clear.

When I said we would take dead aim at the tale of two cities, I meant it. And we will do it. I will honor the faith and trust you have placed in me. And we will give life to the hope of so many in our city. We will succeed as One City,” he reaffirmed.

Vowing to make sure that “no New Yorker is left behind” Mayor de Blasio spoke with the authority of a commanding officer marshalling his troops. “New York has faced fiscal collapse, a crime epidemic, terrorist attacks and natural disasters,” he said. “But now, in our time we face a different crisis – an inequality crisis…It’s a quiet crisis, but one no less pernicious than those that have come before. Its urgency is read on the faces of our neighbors and their children as families struggle to make it against increasingly long odds. To tackle a challenge this daunting, we need a dramatic new approach — rebuilding our communities from the bottom-up, from the neighborhoods up. And just like before, the world will watch as we succeed,” he promised. “All along the way, we will remember what makes New York, New York a city that fights injustice and inequality — not just because it honors our values but because it strengthens our people.” continued on next page Winter 2014 The Positive Community

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Broklyn’s Politics continued from previous page

an who overcame a troubled childhood, attended two of the country’s most prestigious universities —- NYU and Columbia — worked on social justice issues at an international level and with the Federal Government. His political career began in the David Dinkins’ administration in 1989 and in 2000 he was campaign manager for Hillary Clinton’s US Senate race. In 2001 he was elected to the New York City Council representing the 39th District in Brooklyn. In November of 2009 de Blasio was elected as the City’s third Public Advocate bringing some teeth to the often ridiculed office by handling 20,000 complaints from residents, helping tenants avoid eviction and assisting small-business owners with disputes with city agencies.

As de Blasio begins his Mayoral journey all of New York (and even some eyes in other parts of the country) are waiting to see if indeed, the man once nicknamed “Brother Bill” can make this: “A city of five boroughs — all created equal — Black, White, Latino, Asian, gay, straight, old, young, rich, middle class and poor, a big city where big dreams are not a luxury reserved for a privileged few but the animating force behind every community, in every borough.”

ERIC ADAMS: BRINGING BETTER TO BROOKLYN s a 20-year veteran of the New York City Police Department, Eric Adams is no stranger to battles in varied forms. But in his recent bid to become Brooklyn’s Borough President, he vanquished his challengers even before the start of the race and then cruised to an unopposed virtually “bloodless battle.” On November 5, 2013 he was elected to the top stop in Brooklyn’s politics and created history as the first African American Borough President in Brooklyn.

Now, he is poised to continue the efforts of his predecessor, Marty Markowitz, to strengthen the Brooklyn brand as the Borough takes over from Harlem as the black political power center of New York City.

However, in one of his first forays as Borough President, Adams shows that his tenure will not be marked by running away from confrontation if it means bringing better to the Borough. In what may certainly ruffle some feathers, Adams is advocating for Brooklyn’s own version of an “international” New Year’s Eve party. He signaled his intentions to being

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a version of the Times Square “ball drop” to Kings County in 2015.

“We’re no longer living in the shadow of Manhattan,” Adams said in an article with the New York Daily News. “We have our own identity and one way of stepping out of the shadow is from the bright lights of the ball drop.”

Asked about the possibility of setting off a war with Manhattan he said: “We think they’re going to just raise the white flag. They realize Brooklyn has become the center of the universe.”

It was his desire to lead this “center of the Universe” which saw him announcing his candidacy for Borough President on the steps of Borough Hall with a slew of the city’s powerbrokers standing behind him. Calling Brooklyn the greatest place on earth because of the strength and love that its people are willing to pour into it, Adams said: “It’s no wonder, when you ask a person that is from Brooklyn, ‘Where you from?’ They don’t say New York City, they say, ‘We’re from Brooklyn, baby.’”

But then in his customary outspoken manner, Adams went on to address his passion about the Borough in which he was born and bred. “I know Brooklyn well,” he said. “I know it not because I sat down and read about Brooklyn in a newspaper, but because I put on a bullet-proof vest for 22 years to serve this city. And that desire to serve and protect stuck with me.”

As a police officer Adams co-founded 100 Blacks in Law Enforcement Who Care, an advocacy group for black police officers and often spoke out against police brutality and racial profiling. He retired from the NYPD as a Captain to run for political office and on November 2006 was elected as State Senator for the 20th Senate district. He served four terms and during his tenure in Albany was meticulous on the issues and earned the reputation as a bold crusader for justice.

The office of borough president is essentially an advocate for the Borough and all its residents. The Borough President represents the borough’s interests within city government and presents Brooklyn’s priorities to the state and federal governments as well. Brooklyn’s first Borough President was elected in November of 1897 as the borough became part of a consolidated New York City. Among the other duties of the Borough President is working with the mayor in preparing the annual executive budget presented to the City Council and communicating budget priorities directly to the council.

In addition, the Borough President’s duties include reviewing major land use decisions; leader of the Brooklyn City Council delegation; monitoring the delivery of city servwww.thepositivecommunity.com

City Council delegation; monitoring the delivery of city services, and appointing one member to the Panel for Educational Policy, the citywide education governing board. The borough president also appoints two members to each of the twelve Brooklyn Community Education Councils, which decide zoning issues for more than 521 schools and about 312,000 public school students.

According to Adams, his personal agenda as Borough President is simply to focus on one thing: “making Brooklyn a better place to live now and for future generations. There is no higher honor that anyone can achieve in life than that which a community bestows on one of its own,” he said in his first greeting to constituents.

“Brooklynites have given me their respect and trust and there is nothing more important to me.”

With this kind of commitment to service, Brooklyn knows that in Eric Adams they have a Borough President who will fight for their rights from Albany Avenue to the City of Albany; from Crown Heights to Capitol Hill.

LETITIA JAMES: A FEARLESS ADVOCATE etitia “Tish” James made history when she was elected Public Advocate and became the first woman of color to serve in a citywide office.

Seitu Oronde In true Tish James style, she came out swinging at her New Year’s Day inauguration at the steps of City Hall. She openly criticized the Bloomberg administration of the last 12 years and in so doing drew the ire of some media personalities and political pundits.

“We live in a gilded age of inequality where decrepit homeless shelters and housing developments stand in the neglected shadow of gleaming multimillion-dollar condos,” James said. She added that the city’s policies had left many people voiceless. “Those policies must give way to a government that works for them—that speaks for them—that cares more about a child going hungry than a new stadium or a new tax credit for a luxury development.”

After graduating from Howard University School of Law, James began her career in public service as a public defender for the Legal Aid Society representing count-

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less young individuals in the criminal justice system. She later served as a top-level aide in the State Assembly and as an Assistant Attorney General in charge of Brooklyn’s regional office. In that capacity she resolved hundreds of consumer complaints and investigated predatory lenders who preyed on first-time homebuyers.

In 2003 James was elected to the City Council representing the 35th District in Brooklyn. She immediately distinguished herself as a fearless advocate for social and economic justice pushing a platform of housing advocacy, women’s rights, job development, environmental issues, healthcare access and creating more City contracting opportunities for minority-and-women owned businesses. She was an outspoken opponent of the Atlantic Yards project and was featured in the documentary about the hotbed issue, Battle for Brooklyn.

As a councilmember, James introduced the Safe Housing Act, which became City law in 2007. The ground-breaking bill ensured that thousands of families in rental buildings receive prompt and full repairs to their apartments. It was a major victory for all New Yorkers living in substandard housing.

On November 5, 2013 James became the City’s fourth Public advocate; an ombudsmanlike position established in 1993 which monitors city agencies and represents the concerns of city residents. In this position she is the first in the line of succession if the mayor is incapacitated. In the historic election, James secured 59.6% of the vote in a bitter run-off campaign against Daniel Squadron.

After her victory she told supporters that her story — like those of so many other New Yorkers — is an unlikely one. “It’s a story where a councilwoman from Brownstone Brooklyn becomes the first woman of color to serve in citywide office,” she said. But what truly matters, she said, is how everyday New Yorkers are making it through their struggle in “the toughest city in the world.

I ran for Public Advocate because all my life I have seen New Yorkers persevere and I’ve seen the role that government can play in helping uplift working people. As someone who comes from humble beginnings, I’ve experienced it myself. My father was a janitor and my mother cleaned offices. The opportunities I was given and the family, faith, and community that stood behind me helped me make it.”

On that night, as her supporters celebrated, Tish James pledged to bring hope to the office of Public Advocate. “I will follow the lead of my hero, Shirley Chisholm, who told us to measure progress not by what we’ve achieved but by the potential that’s yet to be realized,” she said. continued on next page

Winter 2014 The Positive Community

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BROOKLYNS’ POLICTICS continued from previous page

KENNETH THOMPSON: FROM THE PROJECTS TO THE PROSECUTOR’S OFFICE ccording to Brooklyn’s District Attorney Kenneth Thompson, when he was a little boy running around the public housing projects in Harlem, very few people thought that he would amount to anything in life. But what they did not know, he said, is that upstairs was a mother who never wavered in her duty to serve, protect, and uphold the law. On November 5, 2013 when he was elected as Brooklyn’s District Attorney, his victory was not only historic because he is the first African American to hold the position, but because he toppled Charles Hynes, making him the first incumbent Brooklyn district attorney to lose at the polls in 102 years.

“Because of my mother, I will always be grateful to God because she gave me the principles of justice, fairness and equality,” he told supporters. “As Brooklyn’s next district attorney, I am deeply committed to keeping our streets safe and making sure that everyone is treated equally under the law.”

Thompson, who is a former federal prosecutor, won the seat with a mandate of 72 percent of the vote to run one of the nation’s busiest DA offices, handling more than 80,000 cases a year. “I ran because we deserve a Brooklyn DA’s office that will keep us safe,” Thompson told his supporters. “I am truly grateful and deeply humbled, for the people of Brooklyn have taken a man who started out in life with the odds stacked against him and made him the next district attorney of Brooklyn,” he said in his election night speech.

Thompson, 47 was raised by a single mother who was among the first female police officers to patrol the streets. He worked his way through the New York City public schools to attend John Jay College of Criminal Justice and graduate magna cum laude. His legal career began as an attorney in the United States Treasury Department in Washington, D.C. where he served as Special Assistant to the former Treasury Department Undersecretary for Enforcement.

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Thompson then became a federal prosecutor who served in the United States Attorney’s Office in Brooklyn, distinguishing himself as a member of the federal prosecution team in the high profile Abner Louima case, before going on to establish a private practice in 2003.

He again appeared in headline news in 2011 as he represented hotel housekeeper Nafissatou Diallo in her sexual assault case against Dominique Strauss-Kahn, the former head of the International Monetary Fund.

With widespread disappointment in the policies and practices under former 23-year veteran District Attorney Hynes, many people are holding court that Thompson will restore the public’s faith in the office.

His answer to why he wanted the job as Brooklyn’s top prosecutor provides some insight into the kind of legacy he is hoping to build. “…People have asked me why did I run for Brooklyn DA? I ran for Brooklyn DA because I love Brooklyn. And I care about Brooklyn.

I ran for Brooklyn DA because I heard about a woman named Shirley Chisholm who paved the way for future generations of elected officials of color here in Brooklyn.”

www.thepositivecommunity.com

NYTS Gospel

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ospel music poured into the streets of Harlem from the Salem United Methodist Church, as New York Theological Seminary hosted a Celebration in Song fundraising concert for its Master of Professional Studies Degree program at Sing Sing Correctional Facility, last month. Honoring over 30 years of graduates of the MPS Program at Sing Sing, the evening of Gospel Praise featured a host of gospel performers from throughout the tri-state area, including songs and testimonies by program graduates, all of which moved the audience and brought many to tears. Gospel performers included The Rev. Keith Branch and The Branch Company, the Rev. Darren Ferguson and SWAGGER, Ayana George, Brother Jay, Theo Harris, The Imani Singers of Medger Evers College, LIVRE’ and others.

L–R: Rev. Dr. Eleanor Moody-Shepherd, dean NYTS with Rev. Dr. Alphonso Wyatt, trustee NYTS

Ms. Courtney Wiley-Harris, director of development, NYTS

Photos: Bob Gore

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Winter 2014 The Positive Community

39

“Doctor” Bob Lee, WBLS radio personality & founder of MTG

Mark S. Brantley, honoree & MCU chairman of the board of directors

Making the Grade

Fitzgerald Miller, honoree & OHBM president with Ann Tripp of the Steve Harvey Morning Show

Joseph Gates, honoree & principal, Frederick Douglass Academy; and Denise Rogers, MTG board VP

John Liu, former NYC comptroller and Anthony Harmon, UFT director of Parent & Community Outreach & MTG board member

George Hulse, Healthfirst VP of External Affairs and Fred Price, Medgar Evers College dean of public affairs

Photos: Seitu Orunde

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he Make The Grade Foundation held its 9th annual Awards Gala on November 21, 2013 at Terrace On The Park in Flushing Meadow, Queens, New York. This year, three distinguished gentlemen were honored: Mark S. Brantley, Esq., Chairman of the Board of Municipal Credit Union; Joseph Gates, Principal of Frederick Douglass Academy; and Fitzgerald Miller, President, One Hundred Black Men, Inc. of New York. Ann Tripp of the Steve Harvey Morning Show was the evening’s mistress of ceremonies, and WBLS’ Dr. Bob Lee , one of the founders of Make The Grade was also on hand for the festivities. The foundation is a non-profit organization that helps facilitate and encourage young people’s academic achievement.

L–R: Derrick Barnes, Tyrone McKinney, Robert Brown, Fitzgerald Miller, honoree & OHBM president; Phil Brooks Jr., OHBM immediate past president; “Doctor” Bob Lee and Mark S. Brantley

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The Positive Community Winter 2014

Legendary singer Gerald Alston and “Doctor” Bob Lee, WBLS radio personality & founder of MTG

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Upper Upper Upper Montclair Montclair Montclair 474Memorial Upper Mountain Avenue, Upper Montclair Iris Gardens Upper Upper Montclair Montclair 973-783-5974 973-783-5974 973-783-5974 Upper Montclair Avenue, 973-783-5974 474 Upper Mountain 973-783-5974 973-783-5974 973-783-5974 Upper Montclair 973-783-5974 For For more more information, information, please please visit visit www.essexcountynj.org www.essexcountynj.org For more information, please visit www.essexcountynj.org ForFor more more information, information, please please visit www.essexcountynj.org www.essexcountynj.org 973-228-8776 973-228-8776 973-228-8776 621B Eagle Rock Avenue, Roseland 973-228-8776 Environmental Center 973-228-8776 973-228-8776 973-228-8776 621B Eagle Rock Avenue, Roseland 973-228-8776

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Health

P R E V E N T I O N , T R E AT M E N T & C U R E

My Story

By Quinita E. Good

he only thing unique about my story is that it belongs to me. Other than that, all other facts are—unfortunately—common.

Being unemployed for over three years belongs to millions. According to DepartmentOfNumbers.com, over 10 million people were unemployed in the United States as of November 2013. In addition to becoming unemployed, I was evicted from my apartment, my car was repossessed, and I was admitted to the hospital for a stress-related illness.

Again, I share these experiences with thousands of others.

They are, no doubt, signs of our times.

After all, we are living in a deep recession. With heightened terrorism, our nation’s security is at risk; our communities have experienced more crime, and our families are often at odds with each other. It seems we are faced with pressures on every side. Yet, I cannot help but to hold on to a ray of hope that got me through some of the worst times in my life.

It is amazing to me how indomitable the human spirit is.

I’m not sure of the date or time when I began to hope again, but at some point — probably during prayer — I believed that my circumstances did not dictate how I felt about my life. Sure, my finances had depleted and also my health, but somehow I called upon the strength God gave all of us—and falling, I fell on my back looking up. I could not, would not allow myself to wallow in self-pity.

Gradually, I realized that sharing my problems with anyone besides a healthcare professional was useless. Most of the responses I got were of the pity sort and sometimes, because the person I was speaking to was also depressed, it felt like the blind leading the blind. This cycle of thinking only made me feel worse.

One day, I picked up the book The Power of Positive Thinking by famed author Norman Vincent Peale. I found myself reading it into the wee hours of the morning, and feeling my spirit lifted, I began to limit those self-defeating conversations. One of the things I liked about Peale’s book was that he used scriptures from the Bible to encourage his readers. I must admit that as problems presented themselves to me, I had read my Bible less and less. Peale’s book renewed my interest in the Bible and I then re-committed to the study of scripture. My favorites were the Psalms and

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Proverbs because of their comforting insight into life and the faithfulness of God. I also began to scour the gospels so rich in God’s promises.

Oh, God’s promises! I had quoted these scriptures to others in the past, but I realized I had never leaned on them for my own sustenance. Now, when I read any promise in the scripture, I recite it in the first person until it gets down in my spirit and I can believe it like I believe the sun will rise tomorrow morning.

It’s funny how things snowball. After reading The Power of Positive Thinking, I began to devour more of Peale’s books, like Imaging and A Guide to Confident Living, wherein Peale exhorted that if one filled their mind with scripture and positive thoughts, you could actually change your circumstances. And things did begin to change for me. I began to have more energy and spent more time in selfcare. I was able to encourage others, and witty inventions and great ideas filled my mind. But more than anything, I began to dream again.

I dreamt of working and starting my own business. I dreamt of being able to help others who had experienced some of the same things I had experienced. And I dreamt of becoming an inspiration to my family.

Today, I work for the State of New Jersey as an administrative assistant. I am also the founder of Qwrites Writing & Editorial ServicesTM, providing freelance writing and editing to newspapers and magazines, editorial help to students in advanced studies, and pre-publishing assistance to authors.

And, I have a better relationship with my son, who recently commented that he was proud of me.

If it were not for God’s mercy and the guiding of the Holy Spirit, I don’t think I would have been able to accomplish these things. I tell you this, because I want you to be encouraged, too. No circumstance is too difficult for our God who is the King of kings. And because you are His child, that makes you royalty. I declare that “no good thing will be withheld from you.” You will rise again!

Quinita Edmonia Good is a freelance writer and editor, and is the founder and operator of Qwrites Writing & Editorial Services. She can be reached at qwrites@live.com.

www.thepositivecommunity.com

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KAHLIL CARMICHAEL THE FITNESS DOCTOR Kahlil Carmichael is the Pastor and Founder of It Is Well Living Church located in Monroe, NJ. He is the CEO of the Fitness Doctor Inc., a Fitness Rehabilitation and Wellness Consultation company. To contact Kahlil to become spiritually and physically fit visit www.itiswellchurch.com or call 732-921-3746

Do It Again

he gospel artist Tye Tribbett released a gospel tune in 2013 entitled “Same God,” which contained a very catchy hook that declared, “If He did it before, He could do it again.” The premise of the song suggested that the same God who restored, renewed or redeemed us to live a victorious life and overcome obstacles, could do it again if we found ourselves involved in a challenging situation, circumstance, or unfavorable predicament. In essence the song encourages us to keep going. The same God who helped, healed, and heard our cries before will do it again.

That’s good news! All of us, at one time or another, will need God to restore some area within our lives that may have withered or gone dry, especially within realms (of our specific lives) where we once experienced success. Areas or realms inclusive of (but not limited to) family, faith, finances, physical fitness, and health.

Many of you in 2013 may have achieved weight loss and other physical fitness and health goals. My hat goes off to you. I have been blessed to participate in the healing process of some wonderful people who have improved their health through consistent exercise and healthy eating. To God be the glory!

Unfortunately some of these committed people have

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fallen away from what works and reverted back to their bad habits and lack of discipline. I know! It sounds harsh but fear not! No worries! Calm down! It’s okay!

People of faith, I want you to know that the same God who helped you get fit, lose weight, and/or reverse the effects of obesity related disease can help you do it again; this time, for life. How can I say such a thing? Well, this year I will be introducing some online tools (books, live streaming, workshops, etc.) to help you with this process!

I am also hosting a two-day wellness retreat (this spring in the mountains) designed to teach all the participants how to exercise consistently, eat healthy, heal emotional wounds, and live well through faith.

Proverbs 24:16 tells us, “Though a righteous man falls seven times, he will get up, but the wicked will stumble into ruin.” (HCSB) In other words, because you are a child of God (accepted, chosen, and beloved), God can help you overcome the challenges and obstacles within your life (inclusive of your physical fitness and health).

How do I know? How am I so certain or sure? If He did it before, He can do it again!!! Have a healthy and prosperous New Year!

Here are some of my tips to get you going for 2014: t Pray for discipline and strength to stay focused t Decide how many days you plan to exercise and be realistic! If it is only two days per week be honest and stick to those two days without making excuses. t Eat healthy every day. ELIMINATE ALL SUGARLADEN DRINKS Make certain your exercise regimen includes resistance and weight training.

You can do it!

Disclaimer: The information contained in this column is of a general nature. You should consult your physician or health care professional before beginning any exercise program or changing your dietary regimen. www.thepositivecommunity.com

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And, with our growing provider network, you can see a Fidelis Care doctor almost anywhere you go in New York State!

To learn more, call Fidelis Care today at 1-888-FIDELIS (1-888-343-3547) or visit fideliscare.org. We have a health insurance program that's right for you - and the ones you love.

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Some children who had employer-based health insurance coverage within the past six months may be subject to a waiting period before they can enroll in Child Health Plus. This will depend on your household income and the reason your children lost employer-based coverage.

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THE NEWARK CLUB

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“ We are passionate about getting you the best care.”

George Ingram, Horizon NJ Health

Horizon NJ Health is a compassionate and caring organization with employees who clearly understand the needs of the people they serve in New Jersey. We’re here to guide and assist you to get the health care you and your family needs.

If you are on Medicaid, NJ FamilyCare, or are uninsured, Horizon NJ Health can help.

To enroll, visit HorizonNJHealth.com or call 877-765-4325 (TDD/TTY: 1-800-654-5505).

Horizon Blue Cross Blue Shield of New Jersey is an independent licensee of the Blue Cross and Blue Shield Association. The Blue Cross® and Blue Shield® names and symbols are registered marks of the Blue Cross and Blue Shield Association. The Horizon® name and symbols are registered marks of Horizon Blue Cross Blue Shield of New Jersey. © 2013 Horizon Blue Cross Blue Shield of New Jersey Three Penn Plaza East, Newark, New Jersey 07105.

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Winter 2014 The Positive Community

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Curtis Sherrod and Jah Jah Shakur

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he Positive Community in association with “Hip Hop Professor” Jah Jah Shakur of True School University recently reached out to young people to involve them in the conversation about the Affordable Care Act and the importance of our community’s participation.

“It’s time that our community engage in a half-filled glass dialogue with the folks who comprise our future—the young people” says Shakur.

Get Healthy Hip Hop was the theme as intellectuals, health and fitness professionals, spoken word artists and lovers of the genre came together and enjoyed the opportunity to network, have their voices heard and have fun!

Newark Symphony Hall’s Terrace Ballroom was filled with the sounds of Hip Hop music and wholesome talk.

The event was designed to encourage and demonstrate that young people can be responsible for their future on matters concerning healthy choices and healthy lifestyles.

Special thanks to Curtis Sherrod, Hip Hop Culture Center of Harlem; the Founder/Godfather of Hip Hop, the legendary DJKool Herc; and his sister Cindy Campbell; DJ Antoine Qua of WBLS; Gospel Hip Hop star, J Prophet; Video Music Box, National Action Network of NJ, NAACP Newark Branch, African Americans for Health Awareness, the Hip Hop Student Associateion of Essex County College; Newark Municipal Council President, Hon. Mildred C. Crump, and many others.

Very special thanks to community partners: Horizon Blue Cross Blue Shield, Verizon, Razac, Barnabas Health/ Newark Beth Israel Medical Center, WBLS/WLIB. Catering by 2 Fish and 5 Loaves. To see more go to www.thepositivecommunity.com.

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The Positive Community Winter 2014

DJKool Herc

J. Prophet and his management team

www.thepositivecommunity.com

Right; DJ Antoine Qua

Photos: Karen Waters

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Winter 2014 The Positive Community

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L–R: Mabel Kissiwah Asafo, Sheila Nigre, Cecilia Eliason, Catherine Ayoka, Rita Amoo-Neizer, Florence Solomon, Yvonne Wesley, Mavis Torgbor, Mary Amofa, Bernice Mensah, Augustina Nkrumah; Seated: Annette Hubbard and Ulanda Marcus-Aiyeku This proof is for your protection. It is your opportunity to catch any errors made during the not marked. This is not a second opportunity to redesign the ad. Your original layout inst changes may result in an additional charge. Please proof read all copy thoroughly and sign

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OWN PLANNE

Nurses Taking the Lead r OK as is NJODO-14 Strategies for Career Advancement

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Davis Integrated Medicine "Live Life Well" Offering Complete Medical, Chiropractic, Acupuncture & Physical Therapy Treatment for Adults and Children Early Morning & Evening Appointments

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Offering Complete Medical, Chiropractic, Acupuncture & Physical Therapy Treatment for Adults and Children Dr. Alfred Davis Jr. (973) 783-3606 HealthyAdjustments.com 50

The Positive Community Winter 2014

r OK with chan r Please provi

CLIENT SIGNATURE: ______________________

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o advance within the field of nursing one must gain confidence to lead. Unfortunately, in a profession populated predominately by women, some nurses lack confidence to lead even after many years of successfully caring for patients. This may be due, in part, to women’s membership of an oppressed group.

Nurses Annette Hubbard, Ulanda Marcus-Aiyeku and Paulette Opoku (not pictured) shared their strategies for career advancement with a cohort of nurses from Ghana, Africa.

A project of NYU’s College of Nursing, The Ghanaian Nurse Leaders Program is designed to improve participants’ ability to be effective leaders within the Ghanaian health sector. Director Dr. Mattia Gilmartin and Co-Director Dr. Yvonne Wesley agree the program will enable the nurses to improve the quality of care in their local setting.

Annette Hubbard, founder and president emeritus of Concerned Black Nurses of Newark, NJ shared her 1960s struggles to overcome oppression, and establish her voice in community health. Ulanda Marcus-Aiyeku, a doctoral student of Rutgers School of Nursing pointed out the need for a mentor to be successful, while Paulett Opoku, a fellow of NYU’s Leadership Institute for Black Nurses, shared her story via Skype, of overcoming obstacles to building and staffing a private Orthopedic Hospital in Ghana.

www.thepositivecommunity.com

Mayor Luis LuisA. A.Quintana Quintana Mayor Newark Municipal MunicipalCouncil Council&& Newark Department of Child Childand andFamily FamilyWell-Being Well-Being Department of PRIMARYMEDICAL MEDICALPRACTICE PRACTICE(973) (973)877-6110** 877-6110** PRIMARY MEDICALAPPOINTMENTS APPOINTMENTS (973) (973)733-8739 733-8739 MEDICAL

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Exams/Testingfor formost mostcommunicable communicablediseases. diseases.HIV HIVcounseling counseling and treatment Exams/Testing and treatment

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Winter 2014 The Positive Community

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Culture L i f e , M u s i c , Ar t & L i t e r a t u r e

Newark Museum VP Gloria Buck

Bottom row L–R: Maxine Whiting; Deborah E. Collins, Esq., chaplain; Joyce Wilson Harley, Esq.; Shelia T. Baynes; Mary G. Bennett; Trudi Smith Whittle; Marjorie Rich; Dr. Alexis Colander; Valencia Yearwood, treasurer 2nd row L–R (top of stairs): Linda Peoples Thomas; Doris Young Boyer; Dr. Adunni Anderson, president; Diane Borreiro Bundy; Marlene Eubanks; Debra Spruill; Lee Rambeau Kemp Not shown: Sandra Carney

Wilma Grey

Joan Whittaker

Carolyn Reed

Bibliophiles Celebrate 25 Years Culture Keepers honored

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he Bibliophiles, Inc. the oldest, continuously operating, incorporated, black book club in America celebrated its 25th Anniversary at a glorious brunch on Saturday at the Highlawn Pavilion in West Orange, NJ. “We are so excited and grateful that our love of our literature is so widely regarded and shared,” said cofounder, Joyce Harley. “ Sheila [Baynes] and I knew that we were on to something extraordinary 25 years ago when we were moved to form our club after reading Toni Morrison's masterpiece Beloved. We gambled that other black women would be as taken with the story and the unbelievable writing as we were,” she explained. “twentyfive years later we know that our gamble paid off.”

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The Positive Community Winter 2014

Evidently, their colleagues, family and friends thought so, too. More than 200 guests were on hand to celebrate with the Bibliophiles. Among them were former NJ Assembly Speaker Sheila Oliver, who donated $1,000 to the group, and State Senator Ron Rice, who donated $100, a tradition that he began 25 years ago when the group first organized.

A highlight of the day was the presentation of special Culture Keeper awards to four women for their work in promoting and preserving African American culture.

They are New Jersey Public Library Directors Wilma J Grey of Newark; Carolyn Ryan Reed, East Orange; Joan E. Whittaker, Irvington and Newark Museum Vice President Gloria Hopkins Buck. www.thepositivecommunity.com

US Naval Academy Gospel Choir

US Naval Midshipmen in choir stand

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n Sunday, November 10th, St. Luke AME Church in Newark, NJ celebrated the Sarah Allen Women's Missionary Society (WMS) and the Young People's Division's (YPD) Anniversary as well as Veterans' Day. Special guest for the occasion, The United States Naval Academy Gospel Choir, under the direction of Karla Scott, provided inspirational musical selections for the10 a.m. worship service.

Comprised of midshipmen from various places, races, and creeds, the United States Naval Academy Gospel Choir reflects diverse interests and ethnicities within the brigade of midshipmen.

Pastor, Rev. Dr. James E. Deas, Sr. and the members of St, Luke AME Church were blessed to have this choir singing their songs of praise at the morning service.

Their uplifting and inspirational songs received standing ovations. The guest speaker of the day was Sister Carla Hinds, WMS First Vice President for the First Episcopal District.

Sister Hinds spoke about the need for increasing faith, worship, and service, key parts of the missionaries' mission statement. The St. Luke Missionaries had a me-

L–R: Midshipman H. Saunders; Rev. Dr. James E. Deas, Sr.; Lt. Col. M. Williams

morial for the late Sister Bertie Mae Hadley EL during the service. Members of the Sarah Allen WMS and the YPDers participated in the worship service and hosted a luncheon for the choir.

The midshipmen left full of food and praise for St. Luke; many saying they want to come back. They left the St. Luke family feeling honored to have heard the voices of these dedicated young men and women. The midshipmen of the US Naval Academy are an asset to our nation's future. These young men and women are the leaders of tomorrow.

World Harvest Communications & Dr. Gary Kirkwood, Sr. Presents

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“LIVE REMOTE & AWARD CEREMONY” January

20,

2014

www.thepositivecommunity.com

9-4PM

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Eric Freedman, artist Branford Brown, First Lady Linda and Rev. Jefferson

counts in life is “What not the mere fact that

NJ State Senator, Thomas Kean, Jr

A Tribute and Celebration of the Life of Nelson Mandela

we have lived. It is what difference we have made to the lives of others that will determine the significance of the life we lead.

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”

Nelson Mandela

he congregation, community leaders, pastors, imans, elected officials and diverse social organizations packed Metropolitan Baptist Church, Newark to celebrate the life and legacy of Nelson Mandela.

“There are many things that you can say about a man who lived 95 years, struggled in the face of extreme adversity and oppression, yet kept his dignity, his faith, his joy and taught us all the power of God’s true forgiveness.”—Pastor David Jefferson He was born: July 18, 1918, he died: December 5, 2013, and in between, he lived an extraordinary life that took him from “Prisoner to President.”

Rev. Jefferson

Pastor Jefferson welcomes remarks from Orange Mayor Dwayne D. Warren,Esq

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Photos: Karen Waters

L–R: Rev. Louise Roundtree, Jah Jah Shakur, Sis. Pansy King

Sis. Fredericka Bey, Hon. Mildred Crump and Sis. Amina Bey

Zawadi’s School of African Dance and Drums The Spirit of Dance Ministry

The Positive Community Winter 2014

www.thepositivecommunity.com

Vaughn Harper

Presents FIRST FRIDAY’s

Abyssinian Jazz Vespers Jan-June 2014 Series JANUARY 12 Wycliffe Gordon

Friday, February 2014 Friday January7th, 3, 2013

FEBRUARY 2 Edmar Castaneda

A Monthly Gathering For Mature Adults

Featuring Live Music By:

• MARCH 2 • Alicia Olatuja • APRIL 6 • Black Arts Jazz Collective Jeremy Pelt, Wayne Escoffery, James Burton, Xavier Davis, Dwayne Burno, Johnathan Blake

The Fred Mac Band and DJ Darryl James

• MAY 4 • Brianna Thomas

Doors Open at 7:30

• JUNE 1 • Steve Kroon Latin Jazz Sextet

Admission $20 in Advance $25 At The Door

For Tickets Go To:

4:00 PM | Doors Open 3:30 PM $20 - General Admission | $10 - Seniors & Students Taking place at

THE ABYSSINIAN BAPTIST CHURCH

Conveniently Located At MIST Harlem 46W. 116th Street New York, NY

132 Odell Clark Place | Harlem, NY 10030 Reverend Dr. Calvin O. Butts, III – Pastor

Sponsored by

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Photo: Paul McGowan

The Hilliard Family L-R: Destiny Joy Hilliard-Thomas, Charisma Joy Hilliard, Bishop Donald Hilliard, Pastor Phyllis Hilliard and Leah Joy Hilliard

Hilliards Celebrate 30th Pastoral Anniversary

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Eric LeGrand and Deacon Brenda Boyce Photo: Donald Moore

t began in 1983 at a small house of worship in Perth Amboy, NJ called Second Baptist Church. Thirty years later husband and wife, Bishop Donald and Pastor Phyllis Hilliard, celebrated their ministry and service to the community during a three-month celebration that included a September 22 special service honoring Pastor Phyllis Hilliard; a musical festival on October 11 featuring Alvin Darling and Celebration, Karen Boateng, Joy Ebonynne Sommersett, and others; and a 30th Pastoral Anniversary Gala on Friday, November 8 at the Hilton Hotel in East Brunswick, NJ, hosted by Bishop David and Pastor Claudette Copeland with guest speaker Bishop John R. Bryant.

The Bishop's Ball and Youth Formal Gala for ages 4 to 17 continued the festivities on Friday, November 15 at the church's Family Enrichment Center. The celebration culminated with the Pastoral Anniversary Closing Worship Service on Sunday, November 24 with Dr. DeForest B. Soaries Jr., senior pastor of First Baptist Church of Lincoln Gardens in Somerset, NJ, as the guest preacher.

Reflecting on their journey from 1983 to 2013 Bishop Hilliard remarked. “What you see over the last 30 years has been a divine leap of faith.” That divine leap took the Hilliard’s, from Second Baptist with just 125 members to Cathedral International with three locations (Perth Amboy, Asbury Park and Plainfield) and over 5,000 members. To God be the glory!

Youth Pastor Danielle Brown, Pastors Phyllis and Donald Hilliard www.thepositivecommunity.com

The Whispers Harold Melvin’s Blue Notes

FRI FEBRUARY 14

www.thepositivecommunity.com

FEBRUARY 26

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DORIS YOUNG BOYER ETIQUETTE POWER

Doris Young Boyer speaks writes and coaches on ways to be confident and successful in business and social situations. She is co-author of Mastering the Art of Success with Les Brown, Jack Canfield and Mark Victor Hansen. She is CEO of A Sense of Grace Global Protocol. www.asenseofgrace.com. Write to her at Doris@DorisYoungBoyer.com. www.DorisYoungBoyer.com

Gracious Dining Knowing table etiquette will increase your comfort and dining enjoyment (especially if you want to make a good impression during a business meal).

THE BASIC PLACE SETTING

The Napkin • Place your napkin in your lap, not in your collar as a bib. Leave it folded in half with the fold facing your waist and use it throughout the meal to blot your lips and hands, especially before picking up your glass.

• Place your napkin in your chair, not on the table if you leave the table temporarily, and make sure any soiled parts do not come in contact with the chair.

• Your server will know that you are returning and will not take your plate and you will keep the tablecloth clean by not putting a soiled item on it.

• At the end of the meal, place your napkin on the left side of the plate.

• Handbags, cell phones and briefcases are not to be placed on the table before the meal has concluded Silverware • Silverware is arranged in the order of the courses.

• Begin using the silverware that is farthest from the plate and work your way inward. For example, if salad is being served as a first course, the salad fork will be farthest from the plate.

• Generally, a salad knife will not be on the table however, if you need to cut your salad you may request a salad knife or use the dinner knife provided.

• The butter spreader is used to take butter from the butter dish and butter your bread, one small piece at a time.

• Silverware that has been used is not placed on the table; it is placed on your plate.

American vs. European Style There are two main styles of handling silverware when eating: the American Style and the European Style. In the American Style, the fork is in the left hand when cutting food and transferred to the right hand when placing food in your mouth. In the European Style, the fork remains in the left hand and the knife in the right hand throughout the meal. Most Americans use the American Style when eating formal or informal meals.

The Protocol School of Washington offers the following guidelines for using the American Style of eating: • Hold the knife in your right hand with your index finger on the handle, overlapping onto the blade a little.

Hold the fork in your left hand with the tines down on the food as you cut. The fork is at a slight angle, not standing straight up like a spear. continued on 65

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www.thepositivecommunity.com

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Winter 2014 The Positive Community

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In Him do I live, move, and have my being/(And I’m nothing without You)/I’m nothing without You/ So breathe through me/And live in me/Let Your glory reign in me

BY PATRICIA BALDWIN

—“Nothing Without You,” by Pastor Jason Nelson

Breathe

Grace & Peace! o breathe is to live, to sing, to share, to release and to reflect. To breathe is to allow the tears to fall, to allow yourself to live in the moment, to give yourself a chance to run this race with patience. Sometimes we take for granted the very air we breathe. On my eleventh day in the hospital being treated for pneumonia, reality set in. I’m grateful to be alive! Jason Nelson’s song plays through my headphones and my spirit weeps in joy because I can breathe.

In this new year, breathe. Take a moment to enjoy all that God has given and learn how to live a balanced life.

Know that you are an asset to anyone or anything that you touch. Enjoy the life that God has given us no matter where you are in your life . . . Breathe.

The word of God says our body is the temple of the Holy Ghost, but the picture of a cloudy x-ray of my chest filled with pneumonia was the clearest picture of the smallest space where God could dwell. How unfair to Him, the Father that gave me life, The Son who gave me new life. I literally closed him out of his dwelling place inside of me. I took advantage of this vessel and couldn’t breathe.

Believe it or not, but the chest cavity is where the most important ingredients of life are. Its location is from the collar bone down to right above your navel. Of course there is your heart — where the word is allowed to hide, where all your blood vessels flow, main arteries and valves work. Love, peace and joy dwell in your heart.

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Then there are the lungs, contracting in and out as God designed, allowing all praises to be executed with a push of air. That‘s also where the soul lives, protected by the rib cage and the layers of life. It’s where the glory falls as your lungs birth the sounds that represent pain, triumph, songs of victories and war cries. Your chest is where spiritually the breast plate of righteousness is commanded to remain. And if you’re punctured in the lung, the loss of air and blood can be fatal. In order to live, we must breathe.

As we welcome another year and all of its plans and possibilities, remember to breathe. We take for granted the space God has ordained us with and the commune that we have with him. Don’t limit his space to live in you with the negativity you hold and bad habits. Breathe... knowing that our bodies are the Temple of the Holy Ghost- let him be free to dwell and live. The Lord, our God, speaks over us in Ezekiel 37:5-6, “God, the Master, told the dry bones, ‘Watch this: I’m bringing the breath of life to you and you’ll come to life. I’ll attach sinews to you, put meat on your bones, cover you with skin, and breathe life into you. You’ll come alive and you’ll realize that I am God!’” Reflect upon your life and enjoy it; every day is a good day, because it’s the day that the Lord has made! So we should rejoice, be glad and breathe. Honor yourself with time to slow down for a real relationship with God, some quiet reserved time for Him not just with the music, but in His word.

It has been my ultimate pleasure to write to you monthly (even from my hospital bed) with the good news in gospel. However, the Gospel Train wanted to give you more than lyrics of a song, words that can be an inhaled melody of life. I pray you can benefit from it somehow or pass it along. I’m looking forward to the New Year with you and the best that Gospel Music has to give!

Beloved, I wish above all things that thou mayest prosper and be in health, even as thy soul prospereth.

—(3 John 1:2 KJV) www.thepositivecommunity.com

PRODUCTION PHOTOS BY MATTHEW MURPHY

Photo: Darryl Hall

“THE #1 BROADWAY MUSICAL OF THE YEAR!”

“FANTASIA IS THRILLING!” “JAW-DROPPING MOVES. THE BEST CHOREOGRAPHY I HAVE EVER SEEN!” Pictured in ties, brothers Jalil and Darren Dowdy of Razac share a moment with families and Mayor Dwayne Warren (holding child)

Razac Distributes Thanksgiving Gift Baskets

N

ewark-based Razac Products Company, New Jersey’s largest African American owned business, and manufacturer of beauty products continues a tradition of doing well by doing good. The Thanksgiving holiday was a blessing to some fortunate Orange families who received holiday gift baskets courtesy of Razac.

www.thepositivecommunity.com

FANTASIA NOW THROUGH FEB 9 Mark Your Calendars for

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Winter 2014 The Positive Community

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Decision Day at Paterson’s First A.M.E. Zion Church By: Lavene Gass-Youmans Rev. Dr. Douglas L. Maven

L

ife is all about decisions. Every choice has a benefit or a consequence, negative or positive.

Sunday, November 10, 2013 was an extraordinary day for congregants of First A.M.E. Zion Church, in Paterson, NJ as they shared the worship service with residents of Integrity House, a New Jersey based drug and alcohol treatment facility. Spearheaded by the church’s leader, Rev. Dr. Douglas L. Maven and Mr. David Kline, the event’s worship leader and local director of Evangelism, the service’s theme was “Yesterday, Now and Tomorrow: Making a Decision for Christ Now!” The service was powerful and uplifting – filled with heartfelt testimonies from residents of Integrity House, First Church’s Praise Dance ministries and choral selections from the Integrity House and First A.M.E. Zion

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The Positive Community Winter 2014

choirs. At one point during the service, a seven-year-old boy cried profusely. Asked why he was crying, Devin replied, “I can’t stop crying because this music is so good.”

Rev. John Wesley Rice, Jr., community activist, author and pastor of the Love Fellowship Missionary Baptist Church in Orange, New Jersey, was guest speaker. Rice, president and CEO of Horizons Community Development in Orange, spoke candidly about his struggles in the secular world: “I was lost in the world and caught up in drugs, became an addict, then got saved.” Rice, who penned the book From the Corner to the Corner Stone, urged congregants to stand firm in their belief in Christ “With God any struggle can be overcome,” he declared.

“The Planning Committee wanted to be intentional in seeking decisions for Christ from members and nonmembers of the congregation,” noted Pastor Maven.

Members were encouraged to bring un-churched or inactive members of their families to the service. The local Bureau of Evangelism brought the unsaved from the community.

Each worshipper received a decision card that listed many decisions such as seeking salvation, re-dedication, church membership, tithing, more consistent in bible study and/or worship attendance, seeking help for substance abuse, and answering a call to ministry. One hundred and five attendees made decisions and came to the altar for prayer.

“While Pastor Maven was on vacation during most of the month of August, the stewards and trustees proposed to invite the community to free food and a fun day in the church’s parking lot,” explained David Kline.

My evangelistic team did community outreach and over 500 people showed up and enjoyed the fellowship, food and fun. Many of those same persons returned on Decision Sunday and some are now members of our church.

To God be the glory!”

Reflecting on his 22 years of preaching and teaching to this congregation, Rev. Maven pronounced, “ I think WE finally got it! This was truly an answer to not simply weeks of corporate prayer and planning but years of strategic efforts to transform a traditional and established congregation to reclaim evangelistic ministry as a priority and paramount purpose of the Church.” www.thepositivecommunity.com

Correction In the March 2013 Issue, page 24, the writer of the article Archives, Why Bother? was erroneously credited to Bob Gore.

The writer should have been: Ms. Tracey DelDuca, Director of The InterChurch Center Library.

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Winter 2014 The Positive Community

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St. Matthew A. M. E. Church Celebrates 71st Church Anniversary and 1st Pastoral Anniversary

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embers of St. Matthew AME Church, the “Servant Church of the Oranges,” celebrated their 71st Church Anniversary in grandiose style on November 24, 2013. The theme was “Thankful for the Past, Rejoicing in the Present, and Preparing for the Future.” The occasion also marked the first year pastoral anniversary of Rev. Dr. Lanel D. Guyton, the church’s tenth pastor who was appointed by Presiding Prelate of the First Episcopal District, The Rt. Rev. Gregory G. M. Ingram.

This historic occasion featured a keynote address by former pastor The Rt. Rev. Reginald T. Jackson, now the 132nd Elected and Consecrated Bishop of the African Methodist Episcopal Church. Bishop Jackson manages the office of Ecumenical Affairs and is Presiding Prelate of the 20th Episcopal District of the African Methodist Episcopal Connectional Church.

The occasion also marked Bishop Jackson’s return to the St. Matthew pulpit since he left to serve the connectional church in the Episcopacy. With the church sanctuary and balcony filled to capacity, the choir delighted those in attendance with songs reflecting the theme of the anniversary. The liturgical dancers further ushered in Photo: Vincent Bryant

L–R: Pastor Lanel Guyton, Bishop Reginald T. Jackson and Rev. Harold L. Grant, presiding elder

the spirit of God. The atmosphere was set, and the Holy Spirit took over, as Bishop Jackson proceeded to preach a powerful, thought provoking message that spoke to everyone in attendance—members and visitors alike.

His text came from 1 Corinthians 12: 12-27, with the sermon titled: “You are the Body of Christ.” This soul stirring sermon moved the congregation throughout the message, and as he usually does, Bishop Jackson ended the sermon with the vast majority on their feet in praise and adoration for the word. This was a timely word, and only inspired pastor-leader and congregation to work together, no matter the different roles to fulfill God’s mission.

The day culminated with an unveiling of a portrait representing St. Matthew Church, past, present and future. There were images of the historic church, before the first of two expansions; Bishop Jackson and current pastor Rev. Dr. Guyton, who represents the future.

A luncheon in honor of Pastor Guyton followed and the 75 persons who joined St. Matthew under his pastorate were recognized. Sis. Verna Leath, a member for over 20 years, was recognized for her dedication and service to the church and to the community.

Service of Dedication First Bethel Baptist Church Irvington, New Jersey First Lady Sharon and Rev. H. Grady James, III cut the ribbon

R

ev. H. Grady James, III and First Lady Sharon A. James performed the ribbon-cutting ceremony to initiate the services of dedication of First Bethel Baptist Church, on October 20, 2013. The theme of the dedication was "Upon this Rock.” Rev. Dr. DeForest B. Soaries, pastor of First Baptist Church of Lincoln Gardens in Somerset, NJ, preached and performed the dedication. Rev. Dr. Lester Taylor, pastor of

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Community Baptist Church, Englewood, NJ, preached the Sacred Service of Consecration of the People; Rev. Dr. J. Michael Sanders, pastor of Fountain Baptist Church, Summit, NJ, performed the Call to Passionate Evangelism. Rev. Dr. Gerald Lamont Thomas, pastor of Shiloh Baptist Church, Plainfield, NJ, preached the Call to Faithful Discipleship and Rev. Ralph Branch pastor, Mt. Calvary Baptist Church, Newark, concluded the dedication services with the theme Living Victorious Upon the Word of God. The congregants of the 51-year-old church marched into their new building on the first Sunday in November, 2010. During the past three years the building was completely remodeled to become a state-of-the-art edifice. www.thepositivecommunity.com

My Christmas Miracle ETIQUETTE POWER continued from 58

• Use a smooth straight movement as you cut your food rather than a sawing back and forth motion. Cut only one piece at a time. After cutting the food, the knife is laid across the side of the plate with the cutting edge of the blade facing the center of the plate.

• Switch the fork to your right hand before raising it to your mouth. The fork is held the way a pencil is held, between the index finger and the middle finger, except that the thumb is turned up rather than down as when writing.

• When you are talking, drinking or blotting your lips with your napkin, your silverware is on the plate in the rest position, knife across the side of the plate and fork is in the middle of the plate, tines up. This position lets the server know not to remove your plate.

• When finished, place the fork, (tines up) and knife (blade facing the center) on the plate with the tips of the knife and fork at 10 on the face of a clock and the handles at four. This position says to the server I am finished and my plate can be removed.

Tips for the Table • In formal dining situations, your server will serve you from the left side and remove your plate from the right.

• Beverages will be poured from the right side.

• In less formal situations, you may find yourself passing food to others at the table.

• Offer some of the food to your neighbor, and then serve yourself.

• The food is then passed around the table in a counterclock wise direction (to the right).

• Salt and pepper shakers are always passed together, even if someone only requests one. This practice prevents searching for them if someone requests salt and pepper.

When you have the privilege of dining in someone’s home (family, friend or business colleague) bring a thoughtful hostess gift and send a hand written thank you note within the next few days.

In future columns we will cover the dos and taboos of dining. If you have specific questions, write to me at Doris@DorisYoungBoyer.com. www.thepositivecommunity.com

Jean Nash Wells

M

Photo: R.L. Witter

eet Rasheed Whyte, the high school student whose honesty and integrity inspired me to introduce him to readers of The Positive Community.

It was the Friday before Christmas. I finished grocery shopping and loaded my packages into the car and drove away. Minutes later, I reached for my purse and couldn't find it. I panicked! My credit cards, driver's license and some cash were in that bag. Uncharacteristically, I was also carrying my birth certificate and social security card to make copies for federal forms I needed to complete. Someone — anyone — could easily steal my identity with all of that information and wreak havoc on my life!

I prayed as I raced back to the supermarket. Customer service said no one had turned in anything. Frightened and frustrated, I began to cry as I walked away.

Then a man in a supermarket uniform asked, What's wrong?" I explained, and to my surprise he replied, "Oh, wait… Gerard has your purse! The guy who collects the carts found it in the parking lot."

My purse was returned completely intact. The money, cards, I.D., even my Galaxy S3 phone were inside, just as I had left them. I walked outside so I could thank “the guy who collects the carts” and was surprised to find that the cart man was a skinny 17-year-old kid in saggy pants, Rasheed Whyte. He was the instrument for what I call my Christmas miracle. But Rasheed was nonchalant about having turned in my purse with all of its contents.

“No problem,” he said when I thanked him profusely and explained how much his act of honesty and kindness meant to me. He had never so much as thought about doing anything else.

Rasheed attends high school about 20 miles from the supermarket. He rides the bus to work after school and then goes home across three towns. He is a wonderful example of the many young people who know right from wrong, and for me, he will always be a very special young man.

Thank you, Rasheed, for being the person that you are. I thank your mom for instilling great values in you and cannot wait to see what you will do and where you’ll go in the future.

Look for more about Rasheed on our website, www. thepositivecommunity.com and on our Facebook page in the coming months.

Winter 2014 The Positive Community

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JOANNE J. NOELLE SELAH!

Professor Joanne J. Noel, B.A., M.A., M. DIV., DMIN is Assistant Professor of English and Director, Instructional Resource Center at Somerset Christian College

Where are the Other Nine?

Fostering a Culture of Entitlement in America hankfulness proceeds from our gratefulness and gratefulness precedes thankfulness. Gratefulness is not taking for granted what we have been given as a result of God’s favor, which comes from God’s grace and goodness. Luke 17:11-19 in which Jesus heals ten lepers is a poignant lesson on thankfulness that interrupts a sense of entitlement. In order to develop a spirit of thankfulness, we must first: RECOGNIZE what God has done for us. Recognize where we were and from where God has brought us.

The text says, “And one of them when he SAW he was healed…”

The lepers didn’t ask precisely for healing, but for pity.

That could mean: ‘Help us out with some money, clothing, and food or healing…” Jesus was a King but He didn’t have silver or gold, so He gave them the best He had.

He was setting them up for a miracle — “Go show yourselves to the priest…” (Only a priest could declare a person healed of leprosy.) “And as they went, they were cleansed.”

It is not certain what biblical leprosy was; it could be any number of skin diseases. It was infectious and incurable and an alienating disease. According to the Levitical Code: "The person with such an infectious disease must wear torn clothes, let his hair be unkempt, cover the lower part of his face and cry out, 'Unclean! Unclean!' As long as he has the infection he remains unclean… he must live outside the camp" (Leviticus 13:45-46). Leprosy made a person ritually unclean and touching a leper defiled a Jew. The leper RECOGNIZED that something had happened to his skin—in his going, in his obedience, he was cleansed. And once he RECOGNIZED the miracle of his healing, he RETURNED. The narrator, Luke, doesn’t tell us how he recognized he was healed, but something about him had changed, and he knew it.

There are some places and spaces to which we need to return in order to give back as an act of thankfulness.

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And there are some of us who also need to return to those places and spaces from which God has rescued us, healed us and cleansed us, in order to serve and to give back as an act of thankfulness.

When we are not grateful, it says either that we despise what has been given or done for us, we don’t consider it consequential enough to warrant our thanks, or we become so consumed with what has been done that it blinds us from seeing the worthiness of praise of the ONE who has blessed us. In other words, we appreciate the gift more than the giver. We don’t have the good sense to recognize what has happened and return.

Several of these analyses apply to the lepers, especially the last scenario. Jesus’ instructions were “Go and show yourself to the priests… and as they went, they were cleansed…” Only one leper recognized that the

Recognize Return

Rejoice

www.thepositivecommunity.com

priests were not the source of his healing, that it was Jesus. So he returned REJOICING. He had a spirit of thankfulness.

When God has done something for us, we ought to give thanks. We ought to thank God daily just for who God is: merciful, gracious, compassionate; patient; exuding loving kindness; clothed in splendor; robed in greatness; majestically glorious; forgiving and giving.

Thankfulness is based on our recognition that God is God—supreme, sovereign, and holy.

God will always be concerned about our needs.

However, after being blessed, instead of being grateful, some of us treat God like a ginormous, celestial vending machine into which we put in a prayer and receive a prize.

There is a sense of entitlement about American Christianity. Some of us take a spiritual bucket list approach — God answered this prayer and we can scratch it off the list. A sense of entitlement eradicates the need for gratitude. Entitlement breeds ingratitude.

We are at ease in Zion because we have conformed to a culture of entitlement and wrapped the Gospel up in a neat little package with a ribbon and labeled it “prosperity Gospel.” We have taken a ‘name it and claim it’

approach to God. Instead we need to throw ourselves at the Master’s feet in thankfulness, for thankfulness interrupts our sense of entitlement.

The ten lepers had cried out loudly in unison: “Have pity/mercy/compassion on us!” Now we have this one leper—a foreigner rejoicing for what has been done – “praising/doxazo (Greek) God in a loud voice.”

Whereas he had remained at a distance, now “He threw himself at Jesus’ feet and thanked him—and he was a Samaritan.”

He didn’t ask for the next thing on the list; his heart was filled with thankfulness (Greek/eucharisteo), which manifested in loud praises—he felt entitled to give thanks.

Finally, Jesus’ response illustrates the magnanimity of God. Jesus asked, “Were not all ten cleansed? Where are the other nine? Has no one returned to give praise to God except this foreigner?” Then He said to him, “Rise and go; your faith has made you well.”

For not feeling entitled to what he had been given, but for RECOGNIZING, RETURNING, and REJOICING in his healing, this man received more than he anticipated.

West Harlem Group

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Photo: Hubert Williams

L–R: Donald C. Notice, executive director, WHGA; June Andrews-Henderson, deputy director, WHGA; Kofi Boateng, executive director, WHDC and Stanley Gleaton, SNG Concepts and Consulting

www.thepositivecommunity.com

est Harlem Group Assistance Inc. recently hosted its annual gala at Mist Harlem.

This year’s honorees included Rev. Georgette Morgan-Thomas, Community Board # 9 and C. Virginia Fields.

West Harlem Group Assistance, Inc. (WHGA), a community based development corporation, was established in 1971 to revitalize the under-invested West and Central Harlem communities riddled with dilapidated and abandoned buildings. However as Harlem over the past several years has experienced substantial economic growth, WHGA has expanded its supportive and social service programs to residents facing displacement.

WHGA's core efforts include affordable housing development and preservation as well as asset building initiatives such as homeownership and small business development.

Winter 2014 The Positive Community

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The Positive Community Winter 2014

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MWANDIKAJI K. MWANAFUNZI THE WAY AHEAD

Incarceration, Emancipation and Beyond Rejoice always, pray without ceasing, give thanks in all circumstances; for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus for you. — 1 Thessalonians 5:16-18 (New Revised Standard Version)

And the Word became flesh, and dwelt among us…

— John 1:14 (New American Standard Bible)

esus Christ’s life was the most influential life in world history. For Christians this is an easy statement to agree with, since we know that “. . . God so loved the world, that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him shall not perish, but have eternal life.”

(John 3:16, NASB) Christ’s birth was the Incarnation when God, the supreme Spirit, took human form.

In 21st century America, folks generally view the day after Thanksgiving through New Years’ Day as the Christmas Season. For non-Christians and marginal Christians, the Christmas season primarily connotes evergreen trees, greeting cards, gift exchanges, and pandering to Santa Claus mythology. But Christians’ time would be better spent celebrating Christ’s entry into the world.

On a different note, throughout the entire year of 2013, The Positive Community and others have encouraged folks to commemorate the 150th anniversary of the Emancipation Proclamation. I recommend that from 2014 through 2020, we continue to recall and evaluate the ending of chattel slavery in the United States, which, despite the signing of the Emancipation Proclamation in 1863, did not completely take effect until after the North defeated the South in 1865, and after the 13th, 14th, and 15th amendments to the Constitution were enacted during 1865 through 1870.

Digging deeper historically, according to the book Black Cargoes, written by Daniel P. Mannix in collaboration with Malcolm Cowley, the transatlantic slave trade, which extended from the early 1500s through the middle 1800s, was highly lucrative for slave traders, including the whites who transported our ancestors across the Atlantic and the blacks who captured folks and marched them to slave ships waiting on the West African coast.

And the whole process was richly evil. God’s law states in Exodus 21:16, “Whoever kidnaps a person, whether that person has been sold or is still held in possession, shall be put to death.” (New Revised Standard Version).

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www.thepositivecommunity.com

Moreover, Jesus Christ said in the Sermon on the Mount, “You cannot serve God and wealth.” (Matthew 6:24, NRSV,).

The “chattel slavery” that the transatlantic slave trade enabled in the Western Hemisphere — “chattel” meaning that enslaved people were treated like “things” – was, arguably, the worst slavery in world history. Yet, despite marginalization and brutalization by other human beings, blacks enslaved in America came to Christ in droves during the period called “The Great Awakening,” beginning in the middle 1700s.

It was not the first time that blacks had come to Christ.

An African was among the first Gentiles in the Bible reported to accept the Gospel. Acts Chapter 8 reports that the chief treasury officer of Kush, an African country that was situated south of Egypt and was ruled in the 1st century A.D. by queen mothers called “Kantakes” (“Candaces” in ancient Greek), was baptized after first worshipping in Jerusalem, then studying the Book of Isaiah, and finally being witnessed to by Philip, the deacon/evangelist. Later in the 1st century A.D., non-Biblical sources indicate that Barnabas, accompanied by John Mark, evangelized in Egypt. In a subsequent century, Syrian evangelists led Abyssinia’s ruler to worship God through Jesus Christ, and the faith spread among the Abyssinian people. Abyssinia is today called Ethiopia, and is perhaps the longest-standing predominantly Christian population in the world. Around the 6th century A.D., people in Nubia, situated along the Nile River south of Egypt, adopted Christianity. The Christian faith remained strong in that region for 1,000 years.

Later, during the Civil War, whites in the South as well as the North claimed that God was on their side. After the South won a major early battle, the Confederate general nicknamed “Stonewall” Jackson claimed God’s hand had facilitated the victory. But on a different occasion, when someone expressed to President Abraham Lincoln that God was on the North’s side, the President reportedly replied, “Sir, my concern is not whether God is on our side; my greatest concern is to be on God’s side, for God is always right.”

During 2014 and beyond, as we reflect on the 150 years since African-Americans’ liberation from chattel slavery, let’s do our best to evaluate the raw facts of history from the perspective of the Word.

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GOOD NEWS FROM THE CHURCH AND COMMUNITY

www.thepositivecommunity.com January 2014

™

BY R.L. WITTER

Vol. 14, No. 1

2014 IS NOT ABOUT ME

Publisher Adrian A. Council, Sr.

appy New Year! Yes, I know it’s a bit late for New Year’s felicitations, but mine is more of a declaration than an annual or seasonal greeting. Each year we countdown to January 1st with great anticipation and celebrate the accomplishments of the year just past as we plan to make changes in the year just begun.

This year, I skipped recycling my annual resolutions to lose weight, eat more quinoa and write the great American novel. I decided that the world has more than enough resolutions each year and frankly, I didn’t want to deal with the pangs of failure around March or April as I’ve done in the past. Instead, I vowed to make 2014 the year whose resolutions would reflect my true desires and goals, rather than the trite resolutions we’re told we “should” make. I figured out that the best way to stick to my resolutions was to make them both attainable and enjoyable, so quinoa wasn’t going to do it for me.

In 2013, the one resolution I actually kept was to learn to crochet.

My grandmother crocheted when I was a child. She made fabulous sweaters, afghans, hats and myriad other beautiful projects that I treasure to this day, cherished heirlooms through which she lives on more than 30 years after her death. My mother-in-law crochets currently and I admired her work and thought it might be a nice way for us to bond, so she gave me a few lessons and I purchased an instructional book and shortly thereafter, I was crocheting!

The first two items I made were a hat and a scarf and I have felt a sense of pride wearing them because I made them with my own two hands.

H

Editor-in-Chief Jean Nash Wells

Associate Editor R. L. Witter

Sales Angela Ridenour Adrian Council, Jr. NGS Communications, Inc. Satori MPR

Contributing Writers Mwandikaji K. Mwanafunzi g.r. mattox Patricia Baldwin Doris Young Boyer Rev. Theresa Nance Rev. Reginald T. Jackson Glenda Cadogan Helene Fox Rev. Dr. Joanne Noel Photographers Bob Gore Wali A. Muhammad Seitu Oronde Rev. Dr. William L. Watkins, Jr. Darryl Hall Vincent Bryant Hubert Williams

Art Direction & Layout Penguin Design Group Martin Maishman

The Positive Community Corp.

133 Glenridge Avenue Montclair, NJ 07042 973-233-9200 Fax: 973-233-9201 Email: news@thepositivecommunity.com Website: thepositivecommunity.com All contents © The Positve Community Corporation. All Rights Reserved. This publication, in whole or in part, may not be reproduced, stored in a computerized or other retrieval system, or transmitted in any form, or by any means whatsoever without the prior written permission of The Positive Community Corporation. Any opinions expressed herein are solely the opinions of the writer(s) and not necessarily those of The Positive CommunityTM, its management or staff. The Positive CommunityTM reserves the right to retain all materials and does not assume reponsibility for unsolicited materials.

70 The Positive Community

The Last Word

Winter 2014

One morning during the recent cold snap of frigid temperatures, I saw an older gentleman at a bus stop wearing a thin coat and no hat or scarf, so I greeted him and then took off my hat and scarf and offered them to him. He was shocked. He protested saying I needed them as much as he did, so I explained that I made them and would make another set that weekend for myself and it would truly please me if he would take them and hopefully, feel a bit warmer. He accepted them with a hug, and my feelings of pride were replaced by humility, gratitude and warmth.

In that moment, I realized the power of making and keeping a resolution and that my resolutions didn’t have to be about my diet, my appearance or my professional aspirations. That man didn’t care that I was carrying a few extra pounds or that I had been suffering from writer’s block for a couple of weeks… He didn’t even care that there might have been a few wayward stitches in the hat and scarf because after all, they were the very first items I made.

I realized that I could resolve to be a more thankful and generous person by sharing my blessings and passing them on to others. I realized the unadulterated joy of not focusing on myself in a world of social media, selfies and being a brand rather than a person. In that moment I resolved to make at least two items monthly that will be donated to a charitable group or given away to someone who needs them. It was then that I realized that 2014 would truly be a Happy New Year for me; a year full of promise, gratitude and love… likely my best year yet.

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“Human progress is neither automatic nor inevitable. Every step toward the goal of justice requires sacrifice, suffering, struggle; the tireless exertions and passionate concern of dedicated individuals.”

– Martin Luther King, Jr. – February 10, 1961, New York University

The members of the New Jersey Education Association ... working for great public schools for every child.

Wendell Steinhauer, President Marie Blistan, Vice President Sean M. Spiller, Secretary-Treasurer Edward Richardson, Executive Director Steven Swetsky, Assistant Executive Director Photo courtesy of Keith Grady

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