National Council of Elders

National Council of Elders Statement Concerning Palestine & Israel Conflict The National Council of Elders strongly condemns the ongoing assault of Israeli airstrikes and ground forces, with U.S. made-armaments, against Palestinian communities and essential communications infrastructure, including the 12-story building in Gaza that housed the offices of the Associated Press and Al Jazeera. Gaza is the most densely populated area in the world, and has been subjected to a dead...ly blockade since 2011, which has restricted the people’s access to many essentials. In the current assualt, close to 231 Palestinians have been killed, 65 of them children (as of 5/20/2021), with an unknown number wounded and an estimated 65,000 now homeless, since hundreds of neighborhoods have been rendered uninhabitable by the bombings. Israel has reported 12 dead, including two children. One life lost is one too many. We call upon the Biden administration to intervene immediately to halt this intensifying war against the Palestinians, who have been forced to defend themselves against a system of relentless dispossession of their homes and land since 1948. We denounce the repeated U.S. statement that Israel has the right to defend itself as an egregiously immoral stance in the face of a war in which Israelis are wielding overwhelming colonizing power backed by U.S. tax dollars and weaponry, while Palestinians must fight to stay alive under the repressive, violent regime of Israeli occupation. We demand an immediate end to this war, and an end to the seizure and takeover of Palestinian settlements. We call upon the Biden administration to stand with people around the world who are demanding a resolution of this crisis that every day brings greater misery and suffering to Palestinians and Israelis alike. Palestinians must be free. Their right to their ancestral land and self-determination must be affirmed. They deserve protection in accordance with International Laws. They must be full and equal participants in the negotiation of their independence and statehood. The Israeli occupation of Palestine must be brought to an end. Rachele Agoyo ~ Dorothy Aldridge ~ Dorsey Blake ~ Lewis Brandon, III ~ Candie Carawan ~ Mandy Carter ~ Roxanne Dunbar-Ortiz ~ Marian Wright Eldeman ~ John Fife ~ Aljosie Aldrich Harding ~ Gloria Aneb House ~ Shea Howell ~ Dolores Huerta ~ Phil Hutchins ~ Joyce Hobson Johnson ~ Nelson Johnson ~ Frank Joyce ~ James Lawson Jr. ~ Philip Lawson ~ Sherri Maurin ~ Catherine Meeks ~ Eugene Gus Newport ~ Suzanne Pharr ~ Lyn Pyle ~ Bernice Johson Reagon ~ Frances Reid ~ Kathy Wan Povi Sanchez ~ Charles Sherrod ~ Shirley Sherrod ~ G. Zoharah Simmons ~ Louie Vitale ~ Hollis Watkins ~ Junius Williams ~ Bob Wing ~ Janet Wolf

Happy May Day: "Marx’s materialism was not the materialism of consumerism. It was the materialism of rooting your ideas in real life and practice, going beyond ...talk and ideas alone. For example, Marx criticized Hegel for grappling only with theoretical labor and neglecting practical life-sustaining labor. And he criticized the philosopher Feuerbach for rooting ideas too much in Nature and not enough in practice and in politics. When you read Marx (or Jesus) this way, you come to see that real wealth is not material wealth and real poverty is not just the lack of food, shelter, and clothing. Real poverty is the belief that the purpose of life is acquiring wealth and owning things. Real wealth is not the possession of property but the recognition that our deepest need, as human beings, is to keep developing our natural and acquired powers and to relate to other human beings." GRACE LEE BOGGS, From The Next American Revolution. See more

Happening today! As important and relevant as ever.

Dear NCOE friends, please take the opportunity to view Aishah Shahidah Simmons' Award Winning Timeless Documentary on the pandemic of sexual violence against women and girls, "NO! The Rape Documentary." It is streaming for free until April 2nd in conjunction with Aishah and my intergenerational conversation on this never-ending scourge on the lives of women and girls, worldwide. Links to Aishah's Introduction to the film, to NO! and our moderated conversation are below. Please join us on Wednesday, March 31st at 6:00 PM.

Waking Up Is Required. You know, it is not that hard to understand. Native people were here when the Europeans arrived. But instead of trying to learn about the... folks who they found here, they set about to see how to control them and take over the land. Thus the great acts of genocide and all types of other atrocities were mapped out and millions of the folk who were here already were decimated. Then Africans were brought here for the most part as slaves and that journey of terror begin before the Declaration of Independence was done. So when the founding white men talk about "all men being created equal they were certainly not thinking of the people that they found here and the others that had been brought as slaves. Thus a country was built upon these historical realities and now we find ourselves standing on the soil in the United states in the 21st Century and we cannot seem to find a path that leads to acceptance and the willingness to accept that we are in this geographic space together and that our task is to find a path that leads to figuring out how to live together in peace. Waking Up Is Required> It is not rocket science. We can figure this out and we can do so much better than we have up to this point. But, there are many white people who do not understand or do not seem to realize or do not wish to realize the humanity in people of color. There are efforts to rewrite history while finding ways to justify despicable racist behavior as we have seen in the past few weeks. This racist stance is coupled with religion. Folks were praying at the Capitol after their violent invasion a few weeks ago. People went to church in the era of lynching and came out from the service to participate in a lynching.Of course this is not new, white supremacy has been coupled with religion for centuries in an effort to make it appear credible. As I listened to Nicole Hannah Jones speaking about the marvelous 1619 Project that she did for the New York Times and the ways in which it has been backlashed by white people, I realized again how much work we have to do. I do wonder what it will take? How do we get the white people who see people of color as their problem to reasses that position and take responsibility for their lives in order to search for a way to engage life which eliminates holding others responsible for whatever is unsettling in their lives. I do not know the answer to that question. But I know that white people who hold onto such ideas need to wake up.We have to create as many loving and compassionate arenas as possible to allow for their awakening. The overall wellbeing of this country depends upon us overcoming racism and learning to live together with respect and acceptance of one another. This is our collective challenge.

Giving Wellness A Press Agent! The Murphy Davis Let's Get Well Campaign is an initiative being launched by the Absalom Jones Center for Racial Healing which is ...designed to give Wellness A Press Agent. We have to turn a corner in this country toward a new and better way of thinking and being together before we work our way into having a violent civil war. Democracy is on trial. Meanness is prevailing far more than it has a right to do. We have to find a path to putting a stop to the patterns that we have fallen into and the ways in which we continue to reinforce those patterns. So this is a bold effort. We are working to market the idea of wellness. Wellness is about more than living with the absence of dis-ease. It is a way of life that honors physical, mental and spiritual health and wellbeing. It embodies a new way of thinking and engaging life. Seeking personal wellness will generate a new kind of energy in the land that will help to lead to collective wellbeing. People cannot seek wellness and live in the shadows of hatred and fear. We have too many folks among us who are allowing fear and suspicion of others become the ruling emotion in their lives. This approach to life leads to illness and death. It leads not only to the death of the body but of the soul. Along with this death is the additional death and decay that folks who occupy such destructive spaces bring to the community. We can do better than we are in standing up against to this challenge to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. Remember I am talking about more than the absence of dis-ease. Wellness is a wholistic approach to life that calls us to become intentional about doing what we can to have a healthy mind, body and soul. This intention will help us to avoid the negative destructive forces among us and work to help transform them. It is going to take all of us to make the difference that needs to be made. Corporations, media, religious organizations, social clubs, sports entities, political entities, health care institutions, educators and everyone who cares about creating a better world, help us to develop this awareness campaign about wellness. Let's give Wellness a good Press Agent.

Facts Matter We have lost over 400,000 of our sisters and brothers and millions are ill because we have acted as if facts d...o not matter. There are those among us who have decided that they can name reality whatever they wish it to be and that is alright. It is not alright. We do not live on an island by ourselves so that our behavior has no consequences. People have died and many more will die because some folks choose to ignore facts. The facts are that Covid-19 is real and folks are dying from it.. It is not a joke. It is killing people and is projected to kill many more in the coming days if some of us keep acting dumb about it. It is really difficult to understand how it is that folks living in the 21st Century are choosing to act like it is centuries ago when folks still believe that the earth was flat or that a woman would get pregnant if the moon shined in her face. Unfortunately, we have folks who have a 21st Century body and a primitive mind set which is contributing to the pain and suffering of us all. This week I had my Covid vaccination and I am grateful for it. I had very minimal reactions to it. It made me sleepy and I simply allowed myself to go with that and slept about 16 hours in all, my arm ached a bit and was quite sore for a day or two. I felt a bit more exhausted than usual at the end of the day for a couple of days. Today, I am back to my usual self. My arm is still a little sore. None of my responses to the vaccination were anything to give too much attention and none of them would be a reason for not taking it given the benefits of taking it. So, if anyone is reading this post who may not be sure that you want to be vaccinated, we need all of you to step up to the call and take the vaccine because we have to get this horrible bug out of our midst and all of us need to help in getting it done.. In addition to that, wear a mask. Keep the proper distance from others who do not live in the house with you. The medical folks say that these two things save lives. Believe them, I do. And, you know the truth is, even if it did not, it is an easy thing to do, just in case it could help. Facts matter. Whether or not we like the facts is not a part of the equation. Facts do not care what we think. Thus , this virus which is a fact does not care what any of us think. The fact is Covid-19 is a real virus. It has killed millions across the globe. It will kill many more. Each one of us can help. Get VACCINATED!! Be a grownup. Do whatever it takes to help liberate us. Wear your mask. Keep the proper distance. Stay in unless you absolutely have to go out until more folks are vaccinnated. We an do this. Let's do it.

"...FOR THERE IS ALWAYS LIGHT...!" These beautiful words were proclaimed last week by Amanda Gorman as she enthralled the nation at the Inauguration. And thanks... be to God that she is correct. But light is not any good if there are not folks who are willing to embrace it and to allow it to bring the healing that it is designed to support. Here we are on January 24, four days into a new administration with the opportunity to turn many corners. The light is shining. Do we wish to be in the light or not? Each of us is offered the invitation and the responsibility lies at our feet and in our hearts. It is time for mean spiritedness to be vacated! Elected officials who are poised toward destabilizing the country and undermining democartic principles should be dealt the harshes disciplines that are possible. We cannot tolerate folks carrying guns into our governmental chambers and consorting with anarcharist to destroy the basic foundations that help to support our efforts to have a free society. Futhermore we need not to be a place where elected officials think that guns are an answer to the problems that face us. The light is calling us to understand that the United States is made up of a collection of folks from many places and we are here together with little choice except to learn to live together or to choose to perish together. It does seem that choosing to learn to live together is a better option. We are being invited to choose. Hopefully, we will choose the path that leads to making this experiment work and affirming that it is possible for us to be" one nation under God seeking liberty and justice for all." Join us at centerforracialhealing.org to learn about the wellness campaign and the intention that the Center for Racial Healing is engaging to help facilitate healing in the nation. The light calls us!!!