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 Let's Talk
Denise Rolark Barnes
Columnist Page
Friday, March 4, 2005; Page 22
Does Black America Need a Plan?
Do African Americans need a contract with America? This was the question Tavis Smiley posed to a panel of African American leaders in the second half of the State of the Black Union annual event held this weekend at the New Birth Missionary Church in Lithonia, Georgia, where Bishop Eddie Long serves as pastor. This year’s theme was Road to Health and Defining the African American Agenda.
For the past five years, Tavis Smiley has hosted these day-long events at public venues with notable African American leaders who delve into thought-provoking and oftentimes impassioned debates over topics that have included the role of the Black Church, strengthening black families, and educating the black community. Last year, Tavis brought the event to Washington, D.C. where it was held at the National Theatre. Included on the program with Tavis and Tom Joyner, was yours truly, Denise Rolark Barnes, who contributed to the program by asking questions from the audience to the impressive panel of opinion-makers and thought leaders about educating Blacks in the 21st century. Each year the program receives an even larger audience thanks to the consistent commitment from C-SPAN which televises the nearly six-hour broadcast several times following its original airing.
Smiley said he posed the question involving a “contract with Black America” to the panel in order to ascertain from the likes of Reverend Al Sharpton, Reverend Louis Farrakhan, Reverend Jesse L. Jackson, Sr., and Reverend Joseph Lowery, to name only a few, whether such a document should be created and presented to both major political parties prior to the next presidential election. Smiley said he wanted to know if a Black agenda could be created and what would be the issues that should be included in it. Should this agenda, Smiley asked further, be put into a form of a contract and would the issues include items that Black leaders could all agree on.
It was an awesome task to attempt in such a public forum, in front of live cameras, with so many Black leaders who are clearly skillful at inciting an audience like the nearly 2,000 highly-spirited on lookers at New Birth, who responded accordingly. These leaders have spent much of their political lives drafting agendas and fighting for promises that were never delivered due to broken contracts, both verbal and written.
Such is the case with Reverend Lowery, chairman of the Black Leadership Forum and the Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC) who offered to substitute the term “covenant” over “contract” because “it introduces a spiritual context,” he said.
Reflecting on the past presidential election where religion dominated the political agenda, Lowery argued that Blacks need to reassert their spiritual connections and strengths. He said “we have let others assume the moral high-ground, but we have to assert our spiritual connections because our power is in the Creator and in each other.”
Reverend Louis Farrakhan, who is presently planning this October’s 10th anniversary of the Million Man March, has also talked about a plan for Black America that he hopes will be a by-product of the march. He wants the best and brightest minds in Black America from every discipline, he said, to devise a plan that will “lift our people out of the condition we are in.”
As for a covenant with America, Farrakhan raised the issue of America’s broken treaties with the Native Americans and, he said, “Remember the 40 acres and a mule?” He believes that black leaders need to enter into a covenant with Black people with whom many of them have become disconnected.
In all honesty, fatigue got the best of me and I never learned whether Tavis received the answers to his questions. It was clear, however, that within the first three hours the biggest challenge was agreeing on what to agree on. From healthcare to shared power among the next generation of leaders, everyone had an issue that needed to be addressed. However, Minister Farrakhan made it clear, that a plan is a good thing so long as so long as it is based upon the fact that “God has given you everything you need; you just have to begin to use it.”
For Denise Rolark Barnes send email to drbarnes@washingtoninformer.com |
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