Posted on 10/15/2003 5:36:09 PM PDT by Libloather
Black churches asked to donate
Black leaders start drive to give colleges $11 million
By John Railey
JOURNAL REPORTER
Wednesday, October 15, 2003
Local black leaders have started a landmark drive to get black churches statewide to give $11 million to North Carolina's 11 historically black colleges and universities over the next five years.
'There can be no greater connection in the African-American community than through the black church,' said the Rev. Carlton Eversley of Dellabrook Presbyterian Church in Winston-Salem.
Eversley will serve as the unpaid director for N.C. Black Churches for N.C. Black Colleges and Universities.
The nonprofit agency, based in Winston-Salem, will announce its plans today and hopes to give $1 million to each of the state's historically black colleges and universities, ranging from relatively prosperous state schools, such as Winston-Salem State University, to private schools that have undergone financial struggles, such as Barber-Scotia College in Concord.
Organizers say they don't want any North Carolina schools to go the route of historically black colleges in other parts of the country that have come to the brink of closing in recent years.
'There's still a lot of money out there and none of our schools should go under,' said the Rev. John Mendez of Emmanuel Baptist Church in Winston-Salem, who helped organize the program.
The push comes as some churches struggle for money and historically black colleges face their own set of challenges brought by the economic downturn.
Some of the schools wrestle with identity and try to attract nonblack students to increase enrollment, even as predominantly white colleges often lure black students away from historically black schools.
At the same time, a few critics even say that historically black schools, at least in their present form, are an idea whose time has passed.
Jacqueline Pollard, the vice president for institutional advancement at Bennett College, is tired of such criticism.
'We're always putting forth the argument for why historically black colleges and universities should exist,' Pollard said. 'The question should be, 'Why not?''
Supporters say that historically black schools produce successful graduates by providing a supportive environment that black students, sometimes the first in their families to attend college, need. The schools give students a sense of identity and history, supporters say, and that history includes close ties with churches.
The Rev. Brad Braxton, a professor at Wake Forest University, said that the push to help historically black schools 'is calling us back to the best in the black-church tradition.'
'In our better and best moments, the black church has always understood the value of education.'
But others say that support from those black churches has not always been strong.
'
There has been a disconnect,' said the Rev. LeBaron Taylor, a local Episcopal priest and the former chaplain of St. Augustine's, a historically black college in Raleigh.
And churches are having their own economic struggles.
The Rev. Jerry Drayton of New Bethel Baptist Church in Winston-Salem said that raising the money for the historically black schools 'is going to be difficult, particularly with the economy being what it is now. It's really a massive undertaking - good in intention, but practically, I have some reservations about the abilities of the churches to raise that kind of money.'
His church and the others that belong to the General Baptist State Convention of North Carolina already donate to Shaw University, he said.
Harold Martin, the chancellor of Winston-Salem State, said that, overall, he likes the push proposed by N.C. Black Churches for N.C. Black Colleges and Universities, but he wants to be sure that it's coordinated with capital campaigns at his school and others.
Organizers emphasize that the program will coordinate efforts to reach black churches. That is important, said Terence Boyd, the vice chancellor for institutional advancement at Elizabeth City State University.
A lot of people are pulling at churches' purse strings, he said.
'It's just a question of you getting in there and pulling,' Boyd said.
Only $15,000 to $25,000 of the $900,000 his school raised last year came from churches, Boyd said.
Organizers with the program say they plan to get more donations by working across ecumenical lines. They will solicit new dollars by asking churches to either start new fund-raising campaigns or include donations in their annual budgets. The organizers say that churches can also donate to the statewide campaign by purchasing products through MATAH, a black-owned distribution company based in New Jersey.
When churches and their members buy such products as laundry and dish detergent and hair-care and beauty products from MATAH, the company will give rebates that can then be donated to N.C. Black Churches for N.C. Black Colleges and Universities, according to the agency.
Eversley said that his group plans to solicit donations from those outside of black churches through another group, Friends of N.C. Black Churches for N.C. Black Colleges and Universities.
Mendez is the president of the Ministers' Conference of Winston-Salem and Vicinity, a predominantly black group. The Rev. William Fails of the conference came up with the idea for the program to help the historically black schools, and Mendez said that members of the group talked about a similar push recently started by a group of black ministers in Charlotte.
That group of 10 churches plans to raise $10,000 apiece for the next 10 years for the United Negro College Fund.
'What's unique here is it's statewide, it raises the ante,' Eversley said.
Money for the schools will be designated for scholarships, operations and endowments, he said.
John Hood, the president of the conservative John Locke Foundation in Raleigh, said that giving each school the same amount of money 'sounds like a political deal rather than a rational approach to financing higher education.'
Some schools need the money much more than others, critics say.
Organizers shrug off the criticism.
'We're just trying to go right down the middle, because everybody can use the money,' Mendez said.
He and other organizers hope churches will continue the push after the initial five-year drive.
'It's not the ultimate panacea,' Mendez said. 'But it will certainly go a long way.'
• John Railey can be reached at 727-7288 or at jrailey@wsjournal.com
And not one mention of racism or the separation between church and state. Hmmmm...
Or so RAT campaign ads say.
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If 'Black' Churches had given 10% of the money they have given to the Democrat Party, to the 'Black' colleges, this country would be a better place.
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