A Message From The Publisher
From the opening motivating plea of Dr. Benjamin F. Chavis, President/CEO of the NNPA and former National President of the NAACP, out of all the things, to include the impressive people young and older, that I’ve met here at the National Conference of the NAACP, buttress with the encouraging messages from the passionate speakers which pleaded for our need to come together with a unified voice to speak truth to power. Clearly for me, the National Newspaper Publishers Association (NNPA), Black Press of America is needed now more than ever. The bonding agent that crossed generational and organizational territorial bounds was the invocation offered by Pastor Brandon Crowley, PhD. With my head bowed and my eyes closed, the Spirit that permeated the room was like that, explained in the book of Isaiah in Chapter 6, “…and the train of His robe filled the room,” His presence was there. This invocation truly summoned a message we needed to hear. All one must do is to replace in this prayer any organization’s name of that of the NAACP and you will hear our call to action. — Bobby R. Henry, Sr.
By Reverend Brandon Thomas Crowley, PhD For the 2023 NAACP National Conference in Boston
Oh, great GOD, whom we know by many names.
We beseech you in this moment, with a mindset of gratitude and thankfulness.
We thank you for being benevolent and merciful unto us, and for introducing us to the universal logic of love!
In a world filled with hate and divisiveness, we pause this morning to magnify and acknowledge your compassionate divinity that embraces our humanity with grace, teaching us the importance of empathy.
God, we thank you for the NAACP. Thank you for the tireless efforts of our brothers, sisters, and siblings in the struggle who strive every day to co-create a world of peace, equity, and Justice.
This morning we ask you to bless our national president and regional presidents. Bless every worker in this national organization and those on the local levels.
And may every laborer in the facilities that we now inhabit experience your unmerited favor and the benefits of economic stability.
Oh God, in this moment I pray that you will give more strength to those of us gathered in this room.
Give us the strength to face the overwhelming evils of this country that have caused irreparable damages to our souls because of the structural sins of racism, sexism, fascism, Heteronormativity, classism, colonialism, and the white American psychosis of patriotism.
We, like the characters of Toni Morrison’s The Bluest Eye, have
passionately and vividly, experienced the sheer pains of oppressive violations with fewer and fewer victories.
And it is for this reason that many of us are fatigued. We are fatigued because we feel as if America is regressing back to the oblivion of white supremacist violence that we thought we had defeated.
But sadly, the evil progenitors of religiously sanctioned genocide that birthed this nation, have reemerged as weaponized legal schemes by a Supreme Court that represents wickedness in high places!
But in this moment, oh God, it is your great Compassion that illuminates the piercing darkness that surrounds us.
For this reason, we look beyond the hill towards you, the God from whence cometh our help, knowing that our help does not come from Capitol Hill, but it comes from the Lord.
Oh, God, our hope is in you, the great God of our ancestors, the God of Harriet, Fannie Lou, and Claudette Colvin. It is in you oh God that we trust. You are the one who made heaven and earths!
Oh Lord, show us your wisdom and show us your way and let your will be done on earth and let your great kingdom come.
Your kingdom, in the words of Paul Tillich, is a place where there is a universal integration of all peoples. Come oh Lord and establish your throne of Justice upon the earth.
God, we thank you for being what James Cone called the God of the oppressed. And for that reason, we believe that, although we are downtrodden, you are for us.
And it is for this reason that we who believe in freedom cannot rest until liberty is no longer a benefit of being a part of or assimilation to whiteness, but rather as an opportunity of equality for all.
Lord, give us and America a mind to do right, and give us all the strength to do thy will. And in the words of Howard Washington Thurman, we present this prayer to you oh God as the hunger of our hearts and the movement of our souls.
In your name, we pray, amen!
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