n October
8 - 12, the House of the Lord Church convened its 73rd Holy
Convocation, entitled "The Promises of God: Preparing … Pursuing …
Possessing" (Joshua 1:11).
Ministers
and church members came from Ohio, Michigan, Georgia, North and South
Carolina, Virginia, Washington DC, Pennsylvania and New Jersey to join
the Rev. Herbert Daughtry and his Brooklyn congregation in listening to
former Georgia Congresswoman Cynthia McKinney, New York City Council
Member and mayoral candidate Charles Barron and others examine this
year's theme: "the things that keep us in the wilderness," the way out
of that wilderness, and "how to finally possess the abundance of the
promise."
While solidly based in theology, workshops grappled with such vital
down-to-earth issues as how to emerge from the wilderness of fatigue,
sickness and obesity to better health, and how to rise from the
wilderness of debt, poverty, and "never enough" to prosperity.
One whole day was given to consideration of the question of
where we are 40 years after the historic march on Washington and Dr.
Martin Luther King's famous "I Have a Dream" speech. Have we fully
possessed the promise of his dream, or are we still wandering in the
wilderness?
The morning workshop, titled "The Arts and Civil Rights," was
moderated by the exceedingly dynamic Sharon Daughtry. The panelists were
as follows:
Greg Coakley who has over 25 years in the music industry as a
music manager, tour manager and concert promoter and has produced
events around the world; the young, up-and-coming rap and spoken word
artist, Tylibah, who is currently working on a single with Lil' Kim and
expecting her first book, Streets in Poem Form, to be released
next month; and Opuruiche Miller, a DJ, music producer and
manager for an independent hip hop label. He is also active in the
growth of the music scene in South Africa.
This engrossing workshop began by asking whether artists should be
held responsible for the messages put forth in their material. It soon
blossomed into a rich dialogue about the fact that yes, artists most
certainly should be held accountable - but so should the big
money people behind them, the stores that sell their CDs, the radio and
TV stations that play them, and we in the community must take
responsibility as well. As Miller said, "If we allow our children to
watch and to sing and to do certain things, then we're pretty much in
the same boat as the artists and the record companies putting them out."
This led to a very substantive discussion of what we as concerned
activists can do. Stated Coakley: Everyone in this room controls the
music industry. The unfortunate thing is, we don't take advantage of
that. We allow them to represent us any way they want - they can call
our daughters hookers and our sons wanna-be gangsters. If we inundate
the radio stations with phone calls saying, 'My son is not a
gangster and if you put a record out there calling him one, I'm shutting
you down!' they'll listen. We can contact their advertisers and say, 'If
you advertise while this music is playing we won't buy your products.'
But if we don't take control they'll feed us whatever they want."
Tylibah
pointed to the necessity of supporting people who are doing something
positive. "You may not even like rap," she said, "but buy that record
for your child or someone else. If there's an overwhelming response to
the positive ones, then that will definitely make a difference."
Following this very practical and constructive workshop, everyone had
lunch and then returned for the afternoon session. This workshop,
skillfully moderated by Council Member Charles Barron, dealt with "The
Political and Economic Reality" 40 years after Dr. King's speech. It,
too, generated much lively and profound discussion and tangible means
for action.
In her diverse comments covering many important topics, Cynthia
McKinney said as to Dr. King's dream, "If Dr. King were to awaken, he
would wake up to a nightmare because he would find out that the people
closest to him, who'd promised to remain true to the mission, abandoned
it within days of his murder. He would probably celebrate the election
of thousands of Black officials," she continued, "but he would lament
that the approximately 4,000 haven't substantively changed the
political, economic and social conditions of Black people."
She spoke, too, of how appalled King would be to see the war on Iraq
being led by "Black faces in high places" and to see various other
well-placed Blacks being part of the system of oppression at home and
abroad.
Larry Holmes, co-founder and spokesperson for International ANSWER,
thanked Rev. Daughtry for his leadership in the anti-war movement and
spoke about how crucial it is for the Black community to take part. He
also said that we must revive and reinvent the movement and reconnect it
to all levels of politics. "Our leaders have to be willing to put it all
on the line," he stated. "They can't be worried about polls and money
and losing office. We need to push leaders like that into retirement."
Omar Wilks, a youthful member of the House of the Lord Church, was
thinking along the same lines. "We no longer need Blacks in office, we
need the right Blacks in office - the Cynthia McKinneys, the
Charles Barons," he commented. "We need to stop compromising."
Viola Plummer's message came down to 2 crucial words: create chaos.
This leader of the December 12th Movement stated, "Our
community has been misled, mis-educated and bamboozled, and the only
thing left for us now is to wreak chaos on those who have perpetrated
those crimes. We must call for a halt to the continued operation of this
government, and we've got to make it chaotic across the board. We run
it, we can stop it!
Barron
also addressed the necessity of voting "no" on non-partisan elections.
These elections would make it so that in the primaries you
wouldn't know who a candidate is affiliated with politically or
ideologically. "This is their way of busting up the Democratic Party,"
he explained. "Giuliani and Bloomberg are for non-partisan elections.
That should be enough to tell us that we should be against them.
Non-partisan elections is how they got Cynthia McKinney out," he
continued. "We need to reform the system, not get rid of it."
McKinney
concurred, calling these elections dangerous. "If you want to be able to
maintain some kind of authority within the political system, stick with
the one you have now so you don't end up with nobody in office who can
represent you," she warned.
During
the convocation Rev. Daughtry made it plain that talk and philosophizing
have their place, but he always wants to know who's doing
something to change things. This convocation certainly met its goal in
preparing people with valuable insights so they can more actively,
forcefully go forth to pursue and possess the future.
