Tuesday, May 9, 2023
129th Prayer this morning and usual Lifeline prayer call.
The Lord is blessing me right now
I am abundantly blessed
I am eternally grateful
I am totally undeserving
And I believe God
I promise to share in words and deeds my blessing with others.
-Posted our morning prayer via Facebook
-I met with Sarah for an hour about weekly tasks and updates.
-My great nephew Andrew is graduating from Georgetown: he was featured in a video that will be showed at Black Film Festival.
Conversation with Rev. Al Sharpton, he responded to a telephone call I had left him. At the NAN meeting Saturday, he had mentioned that he was going to Buffalo Sunday of the massacre. I was eager to go to Buffalo, not just the massacre, but hopefully i’ll get the chance to see Arthur Eve and his wife.
When Eve was running for the mayoral seat in Buffalo 1976. We send busloads to assist him. I remember we impressed everybody when we took the first bus from Brooklyn to Buffalo, rode through the night and arrived in Buffalo early the next day and immediately alighted from the bus and started registering people to vote. It was an unforgettable demonstration of our church's commitment to Arthur Eve in particular but to Black empowerment generally.
Arthur Eve won the Democratic primary election but lost the general election in a city that had voted Democratic since Methuselah was a baby. It is significant that the racist primary in Buffalo refused to elect him to be Mayor. This may help us to understand the climate of the city which could produce the Buffalo Massacre. Rev. Al stated I would receive a call from his assistant with flight details. I’ll assume we’ll leave Saturday and arrive in the evening to be ready for the ceremony Sunday morning. I look forward to the Buffalo trip as I mentioned we worked hard for Arthur Eve. I literally stayed in his home for a week campaigning with him and for him. I understand that he’s not doing so well now and I look forward to seeing him. Even in his state I'm told that one of the things he remembers is when we campaigned for him and he constantly calls my name.
Wednesday, May 10, 2023 - Friday, May 12, 2023
We heard from one of our publishers, Maystell Publishing about a sample of our book being available on Amazon Kindle: 52 Weekly Biblical Reflections for the Mastery of Life. Hard copies will be available in about 7 weeks.
We left for Augusta, Georgia by 11:30 on Wednesday on a 6:50 Trip!
I did not have any identification, although my wife had an old credit card with my name on it. While I was in Augusta, my son sent me a Fedex with my identification so that there would be no trouble returning home. While in Augusta I received important news from my publisher that the book was available on Amazon Kindle.
Waiting on word from my other three publishers: Passing of the Giants of the Human Spirit, Reflections on the Pandemic 2020-2021, Theological Reparations Thursday: This is primarily a business trip including some attention to church operations. The idea came to me that with the Arthur Miller program coming up on June 17th that we should try to produce a book.
It could be done with the compilation of articles that have already been written which will include:
Chapters 4, 6,7, and 8 from my book No Monopoly on Suffering: Blacks and Jews in Crown Heights
When Police Kill our children
A series of articles I've written for the newspaper.
Suggested Solutions another series of articles I’ve written and
Two events that impact Brooklyn and the world.
Introduction from LoLisa Miller-Bradford who was 8 ½ years old at the time and participated in the marches
The book would capture the events and personalities of the life and times of Arthur Miller. The title would be Remembering Arthur Miller on the 45th anniversary and the making of the movement.
Friday
Rev. Sharpton and I had our usual weekly early morning conversation. I was interested in going to Buffalo for the first anniversary Sunday. I knew he would be going and indicated to him that I would like to accompany him to Buffalo. His team responded affirmatively.
I continued to think about Arthur Miller and Kwame Ture. I made some notes regarding the program and personalities- what we wanted to include.
As we concluded our trip it is always a time of deep reflections. My earliest memory was in Augusta, GA and the church that still stands with my father’s gravesite and also Mother Inez Conry who was the presiding bishop who succeeded my father. First time in the history of a church where the female bishop preceded a male Bishop in 1952 and I became national bishop in 1960. And a female succeeded me, my daughter, the Bishop Leah Daughtry.
I had no problems at the airport. Thank God. Our flight was at 8:30 and we returned home at 10pm.
Rev. Sharpton and I had our usual weekly early morning conversation. I was interested in going to Buffalo for the first anniversary Sunday. I knew he would be going and indicated to him that I would like to accompany him to Buffalo. His team responded affirmatively.
Saturday, May 13, 2023
Saturday morning I attended a NAN Rally from 9:30-11am. And as always there was some special guest that was unknown to me. I never inquire because I like the surprise idea. Sure enough it was David Banks - New York City School Chancellor. He offered some disturbing figures as to our school children across the country or at least statistics in several of the large cities with predominantly people of African Ancestry. He cited Rochester 81%, Detroit 91%, Chicago 80%, New York where 51% of the children do not read at their grade level.
He pointed out that the New York City School budget is $38 billion dollars. He laid out his plan to change the situation. The school system will return to phonetics, where the sound of a word helps to learn the word or the sentence.
I was stunned by these statistics, as I looked at the future and if these statistics are not substantially lowered, I wonder where our children and we as a people are going to be in a highly competitive future. We will be competing with other nationalities and practically everybody is going to be a minority, even EuroEthnics. Hence, that means that we’re going to have to make it on our merit and the statistics say, if there’s no improvement or little improvement we’re going to be far behind. And again, it’s not all our fault. The system is still stacked against us. Racism is still at work in so many ways.
After which Sharpton gave us his usual educational speech which is always persuasive, powerful including humor. The Reverend is very witty, smart and humorous. Not only in his public speaking, but privately. It is always a fun time with him even in the midst of a serious crisis.
After NAN, around 7:15pm, we took a flight from JFK arriving in Buffalo around 9pm.
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