Washington Informer

The Northeast Performing Arts Group held their 19th Annual Candlelight and Memorial Vigil & Rally in Loving Memory of D.C. Youth who lost their lives through homicide in 2009. The vigil was held on Thu., Dec., 31 at the Northeast Outreach Youth Center on Benning Road in Northeast.

Melvin Deal, Director of the African Heritage Dance and Drummers, recited the names of the deceased youth, along with the following prayer. “For the past 19 years we have held this memorial vigil, and hope it will be the last. We are sending a message of hope and peace for the future and the lives of our youth living in Washington, D.C. to come together in peace to homicide.”

The Reverend Kimberly Brown Barnes was appointed pastor of Gethsemane African Methodist Episcopal  Church in Landover, Md., during the 60th Session of the Washington Annual Conference, April 20-24 at  Reid Temple AME Church in Glen Dale, Md. She joins the ranks of nearly a dozen women who pastor AME churches in the Washington conference of the Second Episcopal District.

“This is my first pastorate  and it is very humbling but at the same time very exciting,” Barnes told the small congregation as she led her first service Sun., April 25.

“We have come open, excited,  and a little nervous, but we are so excited about what God is going to do here at Gethsemane,” she said.

Family members and friends joined Barnes and nearly 30 members of the Gethsemane congregation at the worship service currently held in the auditorium at Kenmoor Elementary School, 3211 82nd Avenue in Landover. Among them was the Rev. Marie Braxton, of Metropolitan AME Church in the District, where she co-pastors with her husband the Rev. Ronald Braxton.

“This is a new day for Gethsemane and for Metropolitan because we have had to send our baby out of the nest, and we know she is going to do great things for the Lord,” Braxton said. Barnes joined Metropolitan 15 years ago and she has served with the Braxtons as the assistant pastor to Pastoral Care and Youth Ministry for 12 years.

“This is the day we had to let her go,” Braxton said, before handing Barnes a preaching handkerchief as a gift for her new appointment.

“You know that in the ministry you have to walk a journey sometimes that will require you to shed some tears. Use it to preach and then use it to dry your tears. We’ve taken good care of her and she is prepared.”

In addition to her ministry to young people, Barnes has extended her reach globally particularly in Africa where she has advocated on behalf of the people of Darfur in Sudan and the Democratic Republic of Congo. Her advocacy led her to serve as the co-facilitator of the Darfur Interfaith Network, leading to events she has coordinated in the D.C. area, along with appearances on NBC4’s Viewpoint. She coordinated a joint vigil between Metropolitan AME Church and Washington Hebrew Congregation in front of the Sudanese Embassy in the District in which 300 people participated.

Due to her activism on behalf  of the people of Darfur, Barnes was nominated by the Washington Chapter of the American Jewish Committee to travel to Israel with a delegation of Protestant clergy. Her experience in Israel and Palestine further enhanced her commitment to humanitarian efforts.

As an advocate for the women of the Democratic Republic of the Congo, who have been victims of abuse with the recent war, Barnes participated in
the Third Black Women’s International Congress in Kinshasa.

Barnes holds a Bachelor of Arts from Loyola Marymount University in Political Science and a minor degree in French. She holds a Master of Arts from  Howard University in Political Science and graduated Magna Cum Laude. She also holds a Master of Divinity from Wesley Theological Seminary. She is enrolled at Wesley Theological Seminary in pursuit of a Doctor of Ministry.

She is married to the Rev. Rodney Barnes, a Washingtonian, who will serve as Gethsemane’s assistant pastor. His ministerial responsibilities will include the men’s ministry, music ministry and evangelism. He is also a member of the Montgomery County Police Department.

Organization Says “The Institution of Family Suffered a Blow”

The District of Columbia Court of Appeals narrowly upheld same-sex marriages recently by ruling that the DC City Council was within its legal rights and negating the possibility of allowing District residents to vote on the matter. Bishop Harry Jackson and Rev. Anthony Evans argued forcefully for the opportunity to allow DC citizens to speak for themselves and sadly, lost.

The National Black Church Initiative, a coalition of 34,000 churches with 800 churches in DC alone, is frustrated by this loss but encouraged that the complainants will appeal this case to the U.S. Supreme Court in an effort to overturn this travesty.

There are some events that leave you breathless. There are musical, theatrical, and dance performances that offer total engagement of the heart, mind, and body.

Such a happening is what is in store for those lucky enough to catch a performance of “Monk The Play” every Sundays through June 28 at the Blair Mansion Restaurant in Takoma Park, Md.

New York (AFP) –Naomi Sims, a Black model who opened the White-dominated fashion industry to African Americans in the 1960s, has died, reports said Tuesday. She was 61.

Sims, sometimes dubbed the first Black supermodel, died of cancer on Sat., Aug. 1 in Newark, N.J., the New York Times and TheFashionInsider.com reported.

Born in racially segregated Oxford, Miss. in 1948, Sims made history in August 1967 as the first Black model on the cover of Fashion of the Times, a supplement to the New York Times.

JAN 28 – FEB 3

ARIES
You'll be energizing others this week as you speak what's on your mind regarding spiritual matters and masters. The quality of your thoughts is very pure; write yourself a love letter. Soul Affirmation: My imagination is the source of my happiness. Lucky Numbers: 17, 23, 29

TAURUS
Surprises are in order this week, and you can roll with everything that comes at you unexpectedly. Healing can happen in a relationship if you just show up. That's power! Use it for the good of others. Soul Affirmation: This week is the week the Lord has made. I rejoice in it. Lucky Numbers: 12, 16, 18

Thousands brave the cold for hours to witness a history making day. Many arrived as early as 2:30 in the morning to ensure that they a good place in line. The gates did not open until 8:00am and once the gates opened, the National Mall grew from hundreds to thousands within in hour. Some people in the crowd were upset that they waited hours to get into the secure area of the National Mall with hopes of seeing President-elect Obama in person only to learn that they had to view the entire program via Jumbotron.

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Thousands brave the cold for hours to witness a history making day. Many arrived as early as 2:30 in the morning to ensure that they a good place in line.

The gates did not open until 8:00am and once the gates opened, the National Mall grew from hundreds to thousands within in hour. Some people in the crowd were upset that they waited hours to get into the secure area of the National Mall with hopes of seeing President-elect Obama in person only to learn that they had to view the entire program via Jumbotron.

Scenes from Monday, January 19th's Martin Luther King, Jr. March and Celebrations

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Week of March 5 to March 11

 

March 6

1857 – Perhaps the most thoroughly racist decision ever rendered by a United States Supreme Court is released on this day in 1857 – Dred Scott v. Sanford. Scott and his wife Harriet had sued in St. Louis Circuit Court claiming they were free because their slave master had taken them from a slave state to the free territory of Missouri. However, in a majority opinion written by Chief Justice Roger B. Taney (a strong supporter of slavery) the Court ruled:

            1) Blacks, be they slave or free, were not and could not be U.S. citizens and thus were not entitled to file suit in U.S. courts,

            2) Denied Congress the power to restrict slavery by declaring the 1820 Missouri Compromise unconstitutional,

            3) Declared that where the Constitution said “All men are created equal,” the phrase did not include Blacks, and

            4) Told African Americans that they “had no rights the White man was bound to respect.”

            However, reflecting the law of unintended consequences, the Dred Scott decision was so harsh and so angered anti-slavery forces that it helped pave the way for the Civil War which ended all slavery in America.

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March 7

1965 – On this day in Black history, the first leg of the Selma-to-Montgomery march is completed as thousands joined Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr. in protesting racial injustice in Alabama. An earlier attempt to complete the march had been disrupted by a police attack. The Alabama National Guard was federalized and U.S. Army troops were called in to protect the marchers. It was shortly after this march that a White female supporter of the civil rights struggle, Viola Liuzzo , was shot and killed by Ku Klux Klan–style terrorists opposed to civil rights for Blacks.

 

March 9

1841 – The U.S. Supreme Court rules that Joseph Cinque and his fellow mutineers are free men. Along with several of his Mendi tribesmen, Cinque, son of an African king, had been captured and sold into slavery. But in 1839, he led a revolt on the Spanish slave ship Amistad, killed the captain and seized control of the ship. However, a U.S. military ship seized the Amistad off the coast of Long Island, N.Y. The seizure led to protracted court battles in which Cinque and his men were charged with murder. But in an unusual ruling for its day, the high court held, in effect, that the men had a human right to try to escape bondage and allowed them to return to Africa.

 

 

March 10

1913 – The “greatest conductor of the Underground Railroad” Harriet Tubman dies on this day in Auburn, N.Y. Born in slavery in Dorchester County, Md. in 1819 or 1820, Harriet was raised in harsh conditions including being whipped as a small child. As a child she was a person of strong will and principle. Around age 30, fearing she was about to be sold into the Deep South, Tubman escaped to Canada, but returned to Maryland on numerous occasions helping family members and over 300 other slaves escape to freedom via the Underground Railroad. She frequently threatened to shoot any slave who became frightened and wanted to turn back.

 

March 11

1959 – Lorraine Hansberry’s play, “A Raisin in the Sun,” opens on Broadway at the Barrymore Theatre with Sidney Poitier and Claudia McNeil in the starring roles. With 530 performances, the play became the longest running African American written play in Broadway history. It was also the first Broadway hit written by an African American woman. It became a movie in 1961. Hansberry’s promising career was cut short by cancer in 1965. She was only 34.