Category Archives: Culture

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PBS & WETA Announce New Documentary Series from Dr. Henry Louis Gates, Jr. THE BLACK CHURCH: THIS IS OUR STORY, THIS IS OUR SONG to Air Feb. 16 & 17 at 9 p.m. EST

Hello World,

PBS and WETA has announced THE BLACK CHURCH: THIS IS OUR STORY, THIS IS OUR SONG will premiere February 16 and 17, 2021 at 9:00 p.m. EST on PBS stations nationwide (check local listings). This moving four-hour, two-part series from executive producer, host and writer Henry Louis Gates, Jr., the Alphonse Fletcher University Professor at Harvard University and director of the Hutchins Center for African and African American Research, traces the 400-year-old story of the Black church in America, all the way down to its bedrock role as the site of African American survival and grace, organizing and resilience, thriving and testifying, autonomy and freedom, solidarity and speaking truth to power. The documentary reveals how Black people have worshipped and, through their spiritual journeys, improvised ways to bring their faith traditions from Africa to the New World, while translating them into a form of Christianity that was not only truly their own, but a redemptive force for a nation whose original sin was found in their ancestors’ enslavement across the Middle Passage.

Renowned participants in the series include media executive and philanthropist Oprah Winfrey; singer, songwriter, producer and philanthropist John Legend; singer and actress Jennifer Hudson; Presiding Bishop Michael Curry of The Episcopal Church; gospel legends Yolanda Adams, Pastor Shirley Caesar and BeBe Winans; civil rights leaders Rev.Al Sharpton and Rev. William Barber II; scholar Cornel West;and many more. Through their interviews, viewers will be transported by the songs that speak to one’s soul, by preaching styles that have moved congregations and a nation, and by beliefs and actions that drew African Americans from the violent margins of society to the front lines of change.

For many, the Black church is their house of worship. For some, it is an engine for social justice. For others, it is a place of transcendent cultural gifts exported to the world, from the soulful voices of preachers and congregants, to the sublime sounds of gospel music. For the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., going to church in America also was “the most segregated hour” of the week. THE BLACK CHURCH: THIS IS OUR STORY, THIS IS OUR SONG will explore the changing nature of worship spaces and the men and women who shepherded them from the pulpit, the choir loft and church pews. The churches are also a world within a world, where Black Americans could be themselves; and the epicenter of the freedom struggle that revolutionized the United States across slavery and abolition, Reconstruction, Jim Crow and the Great Migration, and the civil rights movement.

“Our series is a riveting and systematic exploration of the myriad ways in which African Americans have worshipped God in their own images, and continue to do so today, from the plantation and prayer houses, to camp meetings and store-front structures, to mosques and mega-churches,” says Dr. Gates. “This is the story and song our ancestors bequeathed to us, and it comes at a time in our country when the very things they struggled and died for — faith and freedom, justice and equality, democracy and grace — all are on the line. No social institution in the Black community is more central and important than the Black church.”

“We are proud to join forces again with PBS, CPB and our longtime production partner Henry Louis (Skip) Gates, Jr., to share this illuminating new series with the public,” said Sharon Percy Rockefeller, President and CEO of WETA. “Skip beautifully weaves meaningful history and cultural stories that illustrate the complex social fabric of our uniquely American experience.”

“Representing the full range of the American experience is core to our mission and work in public television,” said Paula Kerger, President & CEO of PBS. “PBS is thrilled to partner with WETA, CPB and Dr. Henry Louis Gates, Jr. to present this series, which sheds important light on the central role that faith has played and continues to play in the African American community. Once again, Dr. Gates has created an extraordinary film which deepens understanding, fosters conversation and so beautifully connects our country’s past to our present.”

“We are honored that for many years Skip Gates has partnered with WETA and PBS to present his remarkable documentaries that reinforce public media’s commitment to serving diverse audiences and reflecting the people of our nation,” said Pat Harrison, president and CEO of the Corporation for Public Broadcasting (CPB). “CPB is pleased to be part of this powerful documentary that beautifully illustrates the preeminent role church, faith and spirituality have played in shaping the Black American experience.”

Throughout the series, viewers will witness much of this world expand out to politics, culture and education, as churches are born, denominations are fractured, and leaders are made and critiqued in their quest to bring the Word to the world and the world to a higher ground. At once a liberating and traditional center of power, the church in Gates’s telling is at a crossroads today, torn between social issues and justice, human rights and inequality, secular and spiritual trends, the past and future, prompting many to wonder whether the churches of their parents and grandparents have become closed off to the most important issues of the time. The Black church has taken people from the valley to “the mountaintop” and, as some of the most influential Black voices today reflect on the meaning of the church in their lives and to the country, the series will contemplate where the “promised land” is for this generation and the next.

Please see the trailer below:

PART ONE – Tuesday, February 16, 2021 at 9:00 p.m. ET on PBS (check local listings)

Host Henry Louis Gates, Jr. explores the roots of African American religion, beginning with the trans-Atlantic slave trade and the extraordinary ways enslaved Africans preserved and adapted their faith practices under the brutal realities of human bondage. As an awakening of Protestant Christianity spread in the 18th century, Black Americans embraced a vision of a liberating God and Black churches that would become bedrock institutions in the long struggle to dismantle slavery, culminating in the Civil War. With Emancipation and Reconstruction, independent Black churches flourished and helped the formerly enslaved navigate a perilous freedom by fulfilling the social, educational, financial, cultural and political needs of​ African Americans. Dr. Gates speaks with noted scholars, public figures and religious leaders about faith and the struggle for rights in the midst of growing racial violence that would continue well into the 20th century. Key figures include founder Richard Allen and preacher Jarena Lee of the African Methodist Episcopal Church; abolitionist Frederick Douglass; influential religious figure Henry McNeal Turner; and pioneers Virginia Broughton and Nannie Helen Burroughs of the National Baptist Convention.

PART TWO – Wednesday, February 17, 2021 at 9:00 p.m. ET on PBS (check local listings)

The series continues with the Black church expanding its reach to address social inequality and minister to those in need, from the exodus out of the Jim Crow South during the Great Migration to the heroic phase of the civil rights movement in the 1950s and ‘60s. After the violent loss of leaders like the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., many Black churches found themselves at a crossroads — struggling to remain relevant in an era of increasing secularization while reckoning with urgent social and cultural issues within their congregations and broader communities. The series brings the story of the Black Church up to the present — a time of renewed struggle for racial justice in America. Host Henry Louis Gates, Jr. interviews prominent figures across African American society, including celebrities Oprah Winfrey, Jennifer Hudson, and John Legend; Bishops Michael Curry, Yvette Flunder and Vashti Murphy McKenzie; Rev. William Barber, and more.

With THE BLACK CHURCH: THIS IS OUR STORY, THIS IS OUR SONG, Gates continues a tradition of producing sophisticated documentary films for public media about the African and African American experience for a broad audience, including the Emmy Award-winning documentary THE AFRICAN AMERICANS: MANY RIVERS TO CROSS, as well as the documentaries AFRICAN AMERICAN LIVES,BLACK AMERICA SINCE MLK: AND STILL I RISE,AFRICA’S GREAT CIVILIZATIONS and RECONSTRUCTION: AMERICA AFTER THE CIVIL WAR.

THE BLACK CHURCH: THIS IS OUR STORY, THIS IS OUR SONG is a production of McGee Media, Inkwell Media and WETA Washington, D.C., in association with Get Lifted. Henry Louis Gates, Jr. is the writer, host, and executive producer. Dyllan McGee is executive producer. John F. Wilson is executive producer in charge for WETA. Bill Gardner is the executive in charge for PBS. Stacey L. Holman is the series producer and director. Christopher Bryson and Shayla Harris are producer/directors. Deborah C. Porfido is the supervising producer. Kevin Burke is producer. Robert L. Yacyshyn is the line producer. Christine Fall is the archival producer. Major corporate support for THE BLACK CHURCH: THIS IS OUR STORY, THIS IS OUR SONG is provided by Johnson & Johnson. Major support is also provided by Lilly Endowment, Inc., Ford Foundation, and by the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, PBS and public television viewers.

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A 31-Year-Old Virgin When She Married, Kim Wilson Promotes Sexual Abstinence as a Way to Stop the Spread of Coronavirus!

Hello World,

As TODAY is Valentine’s Day, I think this sponsored post is very timely!

Below is my interview with Kim Wilson, founder of The Loretta Johnson Global Abstinence Movement and God’s Active People/G.A.P Ministries.

Through The Loretta Johnson Global Abstinence Movement, Kim focuses on the urgency of promoting abstinence especially to black and Hispanic women and girls, who need it the most, but receive it the least. She also develops and presents specific workshops and seminars, such as “Experiencing God’s Best for Your Life through Abstinence” (for women and girls), “Abstinence is the Cure” (for leaders and parents) and “Making Money God’s Way” (for women and girls). The information from these workshops and seminar has been presented throughout the United States and in over 20 countries on 3 continents, to approximately tens of thousands of women and girls.

Her “The ABSTINENCE Handbook: For Women and Girls Throughout the World” is available in four languages: English, Spanish, French and Kiswahili and is in a FREE audiobook format as well! Click HERE to listen. Kim earned her bachelor’s degree in Marketing from Indiana University in Bloomington, Indiana and an MBA in Marketing from Clark Atlanta University in Atlanta, Georgia. She lives with her husband in Peachtree City, Georgia (a suburb of Atlanta) and has one son.

1.Why did you create The Loretta Johnson Global Abstinence Movement?

First of all, The Loretta Johnson Abstinence Movement started 11 years ago in 2010 and is named after my late mother, who was a nurse. So, I’m really carrying on her legacy too. My mother did a lot to help women – single women who could barely feed their children by the end of the month. She would take part of her checks and give them money to buy food for their kids. I saw that growing up. I remember when my mother was in nursing school, and I was a little girl of about eight or nine years old, I would actually go around with her, through a program she was involved in,  to very low-income areas, the projects, and provide healthcare for young girls who were pregnant and only about 12 and 13 years old. I saw that and it just impacted me a great deal.

And now as an adult, I see the consequences of not being abstinent and premarital sex. And how it was destroying the Black family and Black kids and all of the issues that come along with it. (According to a 2020 report from the United States Congress Joint Economic Committee, The Demise of the Happy Two-Parent Home, “although unwed childbearing has increased a great deal across all racial groups, it is higher among Black and Hispanic women than White women. Over two-thirds of births to Black women (69 percent) are to unwed mothers, and over half (52 percent) of births to Hispanic women are. Among non-Hispanic White women, the figure is just 28 percent, though that was up from only 2 percent in 1960.”)

2.What have you done to promote the movement?

I have done a lot of traveling and seminars for women’s groups and youth and leadership groups. My book is a key part of what I’ve done.  Because the book is written in Kiswahili and French, we have a huge following in Africa. And we started what we call The Loretta Johnson Abstinence Center, so we give the women over there the option of not having to do ungodly things such as prostitution in order to make a living. And to be able to abstain from sex before marriage and to be able to learn different vocational skills. There are several leaders over there who promote abstinence, and we call them Abstinence Ambassadors. My book has sold thousands of copies, but I also promote promote it by giving away thousands of copies. And we’re in six different continents. All except Antarctica.

3.Your mother advocated for sexual abstinence with the young women that she cared for as a nurse. Did she communicate that same message to you?

I married as a virgin at 31 years old.

4. How were you able to remain abstinent?

Honestly, my love for my mother first. And my commitment to her because she sacrificed so much for me to have a good education and to go to top colleges and get my MBA and so forth. I had an intense love for her. And she passed on to me her love for Jesus. That’s what I saw in her. So, it was for my mother at first. I didn’t want to bring home any baggage, any unwanted babies. Or put any stress on her because she had already sacrificed so much for me. And once I actually developed a personal relationship with Christ, that’s when I began to do it for Jesus, which I did up until the time I got married.

Did your father influence you in this decision at all?

Although I wish my father had been there more for me during my childhood, I love him very much, and I’m happy to say that he did accept Christ and became a Christian when he was in his 50s, way after my mother did.But he did sit me down as a young teenage girl and taught me how men think or how boys think and how their bodies work differently than girls’ bodies. I was just beginning to obviously like boys. I’m originally from Alabama, but I grew up in Nashville and I finished high school in Atlanta at St. Pius. We moved here in my junior year. Men don’t have the same emotions or feelings or attachments as women. They can actually have sex with you and then just cut it off. They don’t have that connection or emotional attachment. They can just walk away and many of them do, especially if that’s all they wanted. And if you have a child from that, you’re stuck. So that was a lesson that he taught me, that I understood. And it helped  me to say no because usually that person was not interested in loving me. They just wanted sex to meet their physical need.

5. You wrote“The ABSTINENCE Handbook: For Women and Girls Throughout the World” Why? And tell me more about what will readers will learn.

It’s based on Christianity. First of all, I tell them that premarital sex is wrong in the sight of God. Teenagers and even grown women don’t know that premarital sex or sex outside of marriage is wrong. They have no idea. And they’re Christians. Many of them I’ve met at Christian conventions. Many pastors at black churches and Hispanic churches won’t address this issue because it drives away people. Many of these women, if not the majority, who have had children outside of wedlock, they are also at church. A black church is typically about 80 percent women so the women run the church and fund the church, even if the pastor is male. So, a lot of the pastors don’t want to lose the majority of their congregation. The typical church is only about 90 people.  About half of those show up on a Sunday and even fewer than that are involved. If you’re a pastor of a small church, about 80 of the people in a church of  100 people are women. And a large number of those women are having sex outside of marriage.

So, when you tell them that premarital sex is a sin, and you go to hell because of this sin like what is said in Galatians 5 and Revelation 21, they don’t want to hear that. So that’s when many of them will leave or they will stop giving the money. And the church won’t be able to survive. And the black church is not dealing with this like they should. But what they should understand is that if this issue is not addressed, these same women and girls in their church could die from HIV or AIDs and will never be able to attend church again. And black men aren’t going to church. We’ve probably reached more of them online since COVID-19 than we have for years.

6. You believe that two-parent black households are expected to continue to decrease. Why?

I’m a marketing person and I don’t just look at what I read. When I’m out and about, I do a lot of observation. Around Father’s Day, I look and see how many black kids are buying Father’s Day cards. I don’t see that many. At Christmas time, I don’t see that many black families with a mother and father and kids going to shop. I only see the mother and the kids. I only see the mother typically with a grandmother or whatever. When I go to restaurants around Peachtree City or Fayetteville or Atlanta or throughout the U.S, you don’t see black families. You may see a woman and man together but when it comes to a mother and father, who are married with kids, you don’t see it. It’s almost like they’ve become celebrities.

I’ve experienced that myself. With my husband and my son, we do volunteer work at my church, which is out in Fairburn. We do it in a pantry, giving out food. Sometimes, we come together, but sometimes we go individually. My son is a senior in college so he’s grown and so forth. And one time, there was this particular man who saw us, and he had no idea we were married. But one day, all three of us were together. So he just exploded with joy. He said, ‘So you guys are married and this is your son?’ And I was like, ‘Yeah,’ and he was like ‘Wow, that’s great!’ That should not be this rare. It’s almost like you become a celebrity. And I often feel the same when I see or meet a Black or Hispanic family with children with 2 married parents.

7. Why do you feel that the coronavirus pandemic has made your work more critical?

When I started hearing those percentages of Blacks and Hispanics dying the fastest. (According to The Brookings Institution, “COVID-19 is currently the third leading cause of death for Black Americans” in the Racial Economic Inequality Amid the COVID-19 Crisis Report.) We’re talking about days. And then it got closer and closer to home for me. Relatives being affected. I look at the overall picture. What I do is very global. So I began to do some research. And I said, I know we’re frontline workers, but it’s something else that’s got this going. I researched through the CDC and I saw that premarital sex breaks every rule that they tell you to do to stay safe or to keep from getting infected. I have been promoting abstinence for all of these years based on avoiding HIV and AIDS because of the high number of Black and Hispanic people who die from that.  (According to a 2019 report from the CDC, Disparities in Incidence of Human Immunodeficiency Virus Infection Among Black and White Women — United States, 2010–2016, “although Black women accounted for 13% of the U.S. female population, 60% of new HIV infections among women were in Black women.”) And they can die in about two years or so from that. But with COVID, you can die in two days.

For more information about The Loretta Johnson Global Abstinence Movement & G.A.P. Ministries and Founder, Kim Wilson, visit the website at www.gapmovement.net or contact us by phone/text at 678-491-8583 or email at kimwilson125@att.net.

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Kirk Franklin & Sony Music Entertainment Debut New Podcast Series ‘Good Words With Kirk Franklin’

Hello World,

Sixteen-time GRAMMY-winning artist, songwriter and producer Kirk Franklin and Sony Music Entertainment today announced the launch of “Good Words with Kirk Franklin,” a new podcast series that welcomes people from every cross section of life who seek inspiration and empowerment. Through intimate conversations exploring faith, redemption, and the realities of today’s world, Franklin invites listeners into shared moments with some of the biggest names across entertainment, beginning with Pharrell Williams. The first episode is available now. See a snippet below!

In a deeply personal and introspective conversation that explores shared common experiences, Franklin provides listeners with fascinating insight as Pharrell discusses his approach to life and his relationship with God. Pharrell explains the lasting impact of Gospel music and the Pentecostal Church on his formative years, and his discovery of “purpose” and how it informs his life. The wide-ranging, candid conversation spans discussion around the COVID-19 pandemic to lighter moments that touch upon Pharrell’s well-known skincare regimen and his new series, Voices of Fire, that recently launched on Netflix.

Throughout the season, Franklin will lead thought-provoking conversations with some of the most impactful thought leaders, artists and activists, including Chance the Rapper, Chris Paul, Glennon Doyle, H.E.R, Kelly Rowland, and more. Together, they engage and explore their thoughts around race, religion, politics, music and self-expression. The conversations will make space for laughter, joy and lighter moments and Franklin will offer original music penned for the series.

Franklin said, “Good Words is a podcast where culture meets faith, and a place where my guest can be real and open like you have never heard before.”

“Good Words with Kirk Franklin” is produced in partnership with Spoke Media. The executive producer is Keisha “TK” Dutes.

Listeners can subscribe to “Good Words with Kirk Franklin” on all major podcast platforms, including Apple Podcasts, Spotify and Stitcher. For more information on other Sony podcasts, follow @SonyPodcasts on Twitter and Instagram.

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