The leaders of three black Methodist denominations are joining together — for the first time in 45 years — to address unemployment, crime and other problems that disproportionately affect black men.

“`When people talk about us being in an economic downturn, that’s nice talk for the general community, but for the African-American community, we are in depression,” said Senior Bishop John R. Bryant of the African Methodist Episcopal Church.

“Our people are hurting. They’re hurting financially and we want to put our heads together and our hearts together to see what we can do to try to ease that kind of pain,” he said.

Bryant’s church, along with the African Methodist Episcopal Zion Church and the Christian Methodist Episcopal Church, are planning a “Great Gathering” for March 1-3 in Columbia, S.C. that is expected to attract thousands of church members.

The meeting, organizers say, will spearhead projects such as minority mentoring programs in local congregations across the country.

It marks the first time in 45 years that the three denominations — with a combined total membership of more than 5 million — have come together in such a concerted way to address social ills affecting African-Americans.

Follow the buzz and read more via blog.beliefnet.com

Get your head straight – Combing the headlines to get the buzz behind the buzz.
– www.DryerBuzz.com  | What Women Want | What’s Up with that Brother
Insert Your News In Our Buzz - Click Here

Spike Lee and John Singleton are great—and significant—but neither blazed the trail or overcame the odds that the Father of African-American Cinema did. Indeed, they owe their careers to him, though few of the folk who go to see movies today even know who he is, or that he, a black man born less than 20 years after the Civil War, was an innovator and major influence in American cinema.

According to Wikipedia , “The Producers Guild of America called him “The most prolific black – if not most prolific independent – filmmaker in American cinema.” During his illustrious career, Oscar Micheaux wrote, produced and directed forty-four feature-length films between 1919 and 1948 and wrote seven novels, one of which was a national bestseller.”

Oscar Micheaux, the child of former slaves, and king of independent cinema, was born in 1884, in Metropolis, Illinois. One of 13 children, Oscar left home for the big city of Chicago at the age of 17. He was able to get one of the only good jobs available to black men at that time, a Pullman porter. Constantly thinking of a way in which he could make change, he became a big fan of Booker T. Washington and the “Go West” pioneer philosophy of Horace Greeley. Micheaux saved his money and purchased 320-acres of land in Gregory County, South Dakota, in 1905.

Get your head straight – Combing the headlines to get the buzz behind the buzz.
– www.DryerBuzz.com | What Women Want | What’s Up with that Brother
Insert Your News In Our Buzz – Click Here 

Kathleen Wells: Okay, let me start by asking you some specifics about President Obama’s first year. We know he’s completed his first year, and I know you’ve been a critic — or rather, I’d like to say, you’ve critically analyzed his campaign and his presidency. How do you feel that his first year has impacted the black community specifically and America as a whole?

Dr. Cornel West: Well, I think on a symbolic level I would give him an A in terms of uplifting the spirits and providing a sense of hope and possibility going into the inauguration and sustaining it up to a certain point.

On a substantial level I would give him a C- when it comes to policy, when it comes to priority, when it comes to focusing on poor people and working people — which has to do with the vast majority of black people — that he has really not come through in any substantial and significant way. We’ve got an interesting dynamic going on that at a symbolic level you’ve got this tremendous impact that is beginning now to run out of gas and on a substantial level, the C- — jobs, homes, education, health care — he has not been able to come through, and so he’s at a very pivotal moment in terms of black people. He can no longer take the black base for granted.