AME and CME churches unite to get out the vote

Black churches form alliance to energize Georgia voters in 2024 race

AME and CME churches unite to get out the vote

Two Black religious denominations with a combined 140,000 Georgia parishioners joined forces Monday to counter what polls indicate is a lack of enthusiasm among African American voters.

The alliance between the Christian Methodist Episcopal Church and the African Methodist Episcopal Church creates a faith-based turnout effort among Black voters.

Black churches need to take on a stronger leadership role as they did during civil rights and voting rights movements, said Bishop Reginald Jackson, who leads more than 500 African Methodist Episcopal churches in Georgia.

“The Black church has got to correct itself and become more socially active,” said Jackson, who was surrounded by faith leaders inside the Georgia Capitol. “When young folks see that the Black church also cares about what’s happening to them, you’ll see a response and a return of millennials and Gen Z.”

The election-year engagement effort includes Sunday voter registration events, church town halls, training of faith leaders, voter guides and assistance for voters getting to the polls.

“We’re going to be struggling and fighting for voting rights,” said Bishop Thomas Brown Sr., who presides over 300 Christian Methodist Episcopal churches in Georgia. “Combining our resources — human, financial and otherwise — will help us to help others across the state to realize that, yes, we can make a difference.”

Exit polls from the 2020 presidential election showed that about 88% of Black voters in Georgia supported Biden, but that high level of support might be slipping.

About 59% of Black Georgia voters said last month that they’d support Biden and 20% would back Republican Donald Trump, according to a poll by The Atlanta Journal-Constitution. The remaining 21% of Black voters surveyed said they preferred a different candidate, don’t plan to vote for president, or didn’t know who they would support.

Outreach to Black voters will highlight why priorities such as police oversight and student loan forgiveness have fallen short while calling attention to successes, such as funding for historically Black colleges and low unemployment rates, Jackson said.

“The fact of the matter is ... there are not enough votes in the Congress,” Jackson said. “The only way you’re going to change that is to change the people who are making these decisions. You have to put people in office who represent your interests.”

This year’s effort by Black churches will be more organized than previous voter mobilizations, combining the resources of two major congregations under a unified election strategy. Black churches also worked together in previous elections in Georgia.

Conservative churches have also become more politically active, including rural voter turnout efforts after Sunday services.

“We stand with our A.M.E. and our C.M.E. bishops to get the vote out and to make sure that there’s no votes left behind so that we aren’t left behind,” said state Rep. Lydia Glaize, a Democrat from Fairburn.

Author: Mark Niesse AJC.com

Bishops with the AME and CME Church made the announcement at the Georgia State Capitol Monday

ATLANTA — Two historically Black church denominations in Georgia are joining forces to increase voter engagement in this year's presidential election. The leaders emphasize their particular concern for reaching young voters, an area they've struggled with in recent years.

A few weeks before Georgia's March primary, pastors and bishops from the African Methodist Episcopal (A.M.E.) and Christian Methodist Episcopal (C.M.E.) churches announced a concerted effort to drive political engagement.

Bishop Reginald T. Jackson, alongside Bishop Thomas Brown of the Christian Methodist Episcopal Church, unveiled plans to pool resources, including human and financial, to assist others across the state in realizing their potential impact when it comes to voting.

"We believe that combining our resources, human, financial, and otherwise, will help us to help others across the state to realize that, yes, we can make a difference," Bishop Jackson said.

Their initiative involves training pastors and developing voting plans for members, aiming to increase engagement, especially among voters like Shenita Binns, who voiced concerns about unfulfilled promises and the perception of individual votes not mattering.

Bishop Thomas Brown echoed Jackson's sentiments, emphasizing the importance of intertwining faith with civic responsibility, particularly when engaging younger voters on pertinent issues.

"Too often we, who are seniors, feel like we've got the monopoly on the knowledge and expertise, but we do not in the long run. This is a day when we have to be intergenerational," Bishop Brown stated.

With their sights set on Election Day in November, these leaders emphasize the urgency of switching tactics to ensure every voter in their community makes their opinion known.

The collaboration between the A.M.E. and C.M.E. churches underscores a concerted effort to bridge generational gaps and drive meaningful change through increased voter participation.

Author: Karys Belger 11 Alive News

Is It Not Time For Us To Move Beyond Martin's Dream? by Retired Bishop Othal H. Lakey

From The Christian Index

December 2023 Issue



Is it not time for us to move beyond Martin’s dream?

By Othal Hawthorne Lakey

In a sermon at the CME Unity Summit in New Orleans a few days before the commemorative March on Washington marking the 60th Anniversary of the 1963 March, Bishop Sylvester Williams used an illustration that provides an appropriate lens for viewing both events. He said that the human tendency is picture events as a still photo rather than a video. Though the photo brings forth precious memories it does not capture the circumstances that brought it about nor subsequent events it might have precipitated. A biblical text validating the truth of the bishop’s illustration is Matthew 17:1 – 4, known as the transfiguration of Jesus.

Jesus had carried Peter, James, and John to a mountain where he was “transfigured”: clothing become as bright as the sun, and Moses and Elijah appeared with him. The biblical meaning is that Jesus fulfills the Mosaic law and the message of the prophets. When the disciples awoke from shock, Peter cries out, “Lord, let us build three shrines here: one for you, one for Moses and one for Elijah.” Peter wanted to capture the moment, make it a holy shrine to which they might come and worship. But Jesus said, “No”. He knew that the realities of the valley below, as well as the powers and principalities of a world beyond, awaited them.

In many ways our commemorations of that August 28, 1963, reflect Peter’s desire on the Mount of Transfiguration. Like him, we want to capture that moment when 250,000 black Americans caught, at least for a little while, the attention of a nation, for an instant pricked its conscience, and, maybe for a moment, inspired its soul. There is no blame for the insatiable desire of a people so beleaguered and oppressed to capture the ethos of that day, erect a shrine around its memory, and enhanced by his martyrdom, listen incessantly to Martin Luther King’s memorable, “I have a dream!”. But as Bishop Williams cautions, that memorable scene at the Lincoln Mall is not a still pht0; and as Jesus curbed Peter’s impulse to enshrine his moment of revelation, the vicissitudes of history bids us to move beyond Martin’s dream.

In 1963 segregation by race was legal in the South and a de facto reality in many other parts of the nation. “Colored” or “White Only” signs designated if and where Negroes, as we were known, could eat, ride, live, go to school, get care when sick -and even use the rest room.

Though a significant part of the population, Negroes were virtually invisible in public arenas such as movies and television Roles in movies were as menial servants or comedic buffoons. Television, coming into its own was Lilly white, as per Leave it to Beaver” and The Brady Bunch epitomized. And black faces in advertising commercials were unheard of. The national presence of Negroes was primarily through Ebony magazine Jet.

In the world of professional and collegiate sports African American participation was tokenism for the one and virtual non-existent for the other.

Presence in the body politic consisted of Adam Clayton Powell, Jr. and Charles Diggs, Jr. in congress; no black senators; nor the Supreme Court.

In 1963, the major cities of America— New York, Los Angeles, Atlanta, Houston, Chicago— all had white mayor and dominated by white city councils even though populations were becoming increasingly black.

These were the realities in 1963 when 250,000 Negroes gathered at the Lincoln Memorial. It was within that context that Martin Luther King, Jr. proclaimed a dream, deeply rooted in the American dream, that one day America would live up to its creed, "We hold these truths to be self-evident: that all men are created equal." His dream of the day his children would be judged by the “content of thein character rather than the color of their skin” moved, all who heard to rejoice and be glad. And his cry, “Let freedom ring” from Stone Mountain, Georgia to Look Out Mountain, Tennessee, bespoke for a people a hope though unborn had not yet died.

However, that was sixty years ago. The “course of human events” —to use Abraham Lincoln’s phrase— altered decisively conditions out of which Martin’s dream came as well as the people to whom it was directed.

Tragically, in 1968 Martin Luther King, Jr. himself was assassinated in Memphis, Tennessee.

Legal segregation and impediments to the right to vote were eliminated in the Civil Rights acts signed into law by President Lyndon B. Johnson in 1964 and 1965.

The prominence of black Americans in all areas of the public arena is ubiquitous. Virtually every movie made features African Americans as stars or co-stars —not to mention block-buster films produce by and featuring blacks. Television is saturated with black news reporters and anchors, hosts, and hostesses on every network, in all sit-coms, popular series, and commentators. It appears that in every TV commercial (or at least every other one) some black or blacks make an appearance.

From all indications, blacks are the sine qua non of the world of music. Almost monthly the majority in the top ten in virtually every music genre are black.

African Americans dominate professional and collegiate sports —including golf, tennis, and gymnastics. (The exception is hockey, which, one observer commented, will also be the case as soon as someone figures out how to warm up the ice! In 2019 the quarterbacks in the NCAA college football championship game were black, and the quarterbacks in the 2023 Superbowl were black.

In 2008 Barack Obama was elected the 44th President of the United States —and re-elected in 2012. And he, it must be noted was judged by the content of his character rather than the color of his skin!

Presently, Kamala Harris, black woman, is Vice-President of the United States, and Hakeem Jeffries is the Minority Leader in the House of Representatives. The Secretaries of Defense, Housing and Urban Development; U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations, Chair of the Council of Economic Advisers, and the White House Press Secretary are African American.

There are now 62 members of the Congressional Black Caucus, three members of the U. S. Senate, and two black Supreme Court Justices. The mayors of New York, Los Angeles, Philadelphia, Chicago, and Atlanta are African American.

From the vistas of 2023, then, much of that for which our fathers and mothers sighed and the dream Martin articulated so eloquently that August day has come to pass. Freedom does ring from Stone Mondain in Dekalb County, Georgia of which most of its citizens and the CEO are African American and Congressman Hank Johnson is the representative. And even in Tennessee where Lookout Mountain can be found the peals of freedom are heard in the state legislature as two young black members were expelled, not for agitating for the civil rights of black people, but for gun legislation to save the lives of white children.

It is said that as Martin Luther King was preparing to close his speech, Mahala Jackson, sitting on the platform with him whispered; “What about the dream, Martin? What about the dream?” That might be our question sixty years later. But when we look closer, the answer might be in the dream itself. Martin said that his dream was rooted deep in the hope that America would live up to its creed. It might be that God’s call to African Americans is to move beyond Martin’s dream by helping America remember and rekindle its foundational creed: All persons are created equal.

A year or so before the March on Washington, this writer served as chair of the educational committee of the Urban League of Portland, Oregon. It so happened that our committee invited Martin Luther King, Jr. to speak In Portland. The event was held at the Municipal auditorium, which was packed. Following the event my wife, Narsis and I were invited by Dr. O. B. Williams, Pastor of the Vancouver Avenue Baptist Church, and a friend of Dr. King, to a small reception in his home as we waited for time for Dr. King’s plane to depart. To top it off we were invited to ride to the airport with him. It was a unique privilege to share “small talk” with such a personality during his “down” time. As Dr. King gathered his bag and shook our hands in farewell and walked into the airport, the stirring climax of his address that night came to mind. For some 30 minutes he had described his hope of brotherhood for this nation, closing with the assurance. that when that day comes, “The morning stars will sing together, and the sons of God will shout for joy.”

Though that day has not yet come, were he alive today he would be pleased with the progress we have made.