Black Church to the Rescue?

The new civil rights movement for Black people is the Self Sufficiency Movement. Will the Black Church once again provide the primary leadership in this new civil rights struggle?

I've got to say, I am a little uncomfortable with the idea that an institution whose main purpose and reason for being is to pray and "serve God", would be the focal point for Black economic survival. But that does seem to be the case. The Black Church, once again, is coming to the rescue of the general Black public.

We all know about the church's role in the civil rights movement, and in providing a place of solace and activism during the long march out of slavery. But now, in contemporary America, when so many of us are skeptical about the role of religion in civic life, and who bristle at the thought of an institutional interloper in our spiritual space, is this a model that can do justice to the church and our social survival simultaneously? What about all of the charlatans that gravitate to the church for the purpose of making a living? And what about all of those zealots whose every other phrase is "praise God"? Are we giving them too much power over our secular selves?

These are some of the conundrums that are part and parcel of a movement that depends on the institution of God as its primary impetus. But the evidence doesn't' lie. The Black church remains the only example of Black people working together in large numbers to achieve broad social progress.

Over the last 20 years or so, Black churches of any significant size have built an economic development operation. These ECD's are involved in everything from housing and credit unions to owning supermarkets. If you are a Black person with a penchant for self-sufficiency, these ECD's are pretty much the only game in town with regard to being employed by Black people, working on a Black agenda. That's the good news. The bad news is that these organizations can't employ nearly enough of the Black talent that is ready, willing and able to devote itself to the cause of Black self-sufficiency, or can they?

Another concern I have has to do with where these ECD's get their money. Many of these organizations are getting money from the government, and private corporations run by the usual White suspects. Naturally, there is a price to pay in terms of how far they can go in representing the true interest of Black people when their money is coming from White folks with their own agenda. However, from what I can tell, there seems to be a number of progressive Black congregations and ministers out there that really do understand the survival challenge that Black communities face across the nation, and they are stepping up to provide jobs and opportunities for Black people in response.

It is worth mentioning a few of the efforts that, in my mind, deserve to be highlighted because they are charting their own course and using their own money and talent to get there. In Meridan, Mississippi, Bishop Luke Edwards started off with a small group of members who were all on welfare. By pooling their food stamps they were able to start selling groceries out of the basement of their church. Eventually, they elevated their game and opened more than one restaurant, a bakery, an auto repair shop, a cattle farm and a plant to process the meat. Now that's a vertically integrated business infrastructure!

And then there are people like Rev. Gerald Austin, Sr., of Birmingham, Alabama, who founded the nonprofit ECD, Center for Urban Missions, and is involved in an annual conference called the A.G. Gaston Conference, where the specific discussion is about the Black Church's role in economic development of Black communities. This year's speaker was one of my homeboys, Rev. Floyd Flake of Queens, NY, where he has built a formidable economic infrastructure that employs, houses and develops Black human capital. Rev. Austin published a 12 page report for this year's conference, in it he goes right to the heart of the challenge: "the black community faces a new struggle just as daunting as the civil rights struggle - community and economic revitalization," and he challenges the Black church to step up and meet the challenge head on.

Considering the fact that there are so many churches, from storefronts to grand cathedral-like structures, in Black communities all over this country, I can see an opportunity for churches to extend their type of self-sufficiency into businesses that can provide the foundation for more advanced 21st century type opportunity to the cash starved entrepreneurial class of Black folks. I can tell you from my 20 years of experience as an entrepreneur focused on Black self-sufficiency, that there are a lot of Black folks out here with ideas, skills and in-the-trenches experience competing in the mainstream. We all eventually run up against the same brick wall that stands in the way of our ability to build substantial businesses in the 21st century economy (see my article "Managed Mobility" for stats on the pervasive insolvency of Black businesses): capital with a vision for Black power.

The information/entertainment business is a good example. People that invest in companies like New Line Cinema, and now Lions Gate Entertainment, two companies with a history of producing coon comedies and urban malaise movies, are simply not interested in a Black media company that is focused on "three-dimensional images and stories from the African Diaspora" (the motto of KJM3 Entertainment Group, a Black film distribution company involved in Black film classics like, Daughters of the Dust, Sankofa, The Man By The Shore). Wall Street doesn't have a vision for creating a Black business infrastructure that can provide financing, employment and prosperity for the Black community. In fact, they see such efforts as competition for the power to ascribe value to our goods, services and ideas, which they understand is the kind of influence that could change the whole power dynamic in America and the world. The White investor class is simply not interested in relinquishing that kind of power.

Another Achilles heal in church based development is their tax exempt status. When you talk about changing the power dynamic, you must consider that for every action, there is a reaction. How will Uncle Sam respond to a Black business infrastructure anchored by tax free religious institutions? Well, we are already starting to see some push back by the government in its interest in the finances of the mega churches. Creflo Dollar (a Black minister named "Dollar", LOL), along with a number of big White churches have received supeonas from a congressional committee interested in all that money and influence. Remember Marcus Garvey? They finally got to him on a trumped up mail fraud charge. Can you imagine how hard they will come at a tax-exempt, vertically integrated Black business infrastructure capable of disseminating a parallel narrative that can compete with the New York Times and CBS for the hearts and minds of between 40 and 400 million people camped out in major cities around the country and the world (I've been to Africa where they were so thirsty for Black images they sucked up BET like it was water in the desert)?

In some ways, it all seems like a set up. Why is it that all of this economic activity is being led by institutions that regularly deal in the ephemeral? Sometime ago I came across a document purporting to be a National Security Council memo to Richard Nixon. It talked about the rising radicalism in the Black community and ways in which to blunt the efficacy of the radicals' message. One of the suggestions was to sow division in the Black community by appealing to the business-minded Black people with government contracts to help them get started in business.

The idea was that these people represented the best and brightest and could be separated from the lumpen mediocrity with opportunities to build their own wealth. A classic divide and conquer strategy. One very similar to the colonial strategy of identifying a minority ethnic group within a larger society, prop them up with education and privileges not available to the majority, and then let them fight amongst each other over a vision for the future. Naturally, the favored group needed the colonialist's power and weapons to continue to enjoy their artificial advantage over the majority, thereby creating the "massa, our house is burning" symbiotic relationship that Malcolm X talked about. Is there some element of a colonial set-up in the availability of capital and opportunity to all of these individual religious institutions? Does the parochial nature of each individual church prevent them from having broader efficacy? Will a competition for available resources stymie the movement for self-sufficiency and prosperity as it builds momentum? Will secular resentment make it impossible for these ECD's to get beyond their own congregations? Only time will tell.

Right now, though, I am absolutely applauding all of these Black church ECD's involved in the mundane and practical upon which the Black masses live. However, in order to guarantee Black participation in the next iteration of human existence, we will still have to find a way to put together the venture capital to support our entrepreneurs that are trying to keep pace with the evolution of society. We have to play in the 21st Century and a sandwich shop is not enough sustenance to keep our best and brightest minds focused on our future.
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