Black child liberation theology: A contemporary Christian model for mentoring black boys and girls

2 MB·English

by  Edwards, Daryl W.

BLACK CHILD LIBERATION THEOLOGY: A CONTEMPORARY
CHRISTIAN MODEL FOR MENTORING
BLACK BOYS AND GIRLS

Daryl W. Edwards

Bachelor of Science, Saint John’s University, 2003
MDiv, Morehouse School of Religion, 2014

Mentors

Lucius Dalton, DMin
Lisa Weah, DMin

A FINAL PROJECT SUBMITTED TO
THE DOCTORAL STUDIES COMMITTEE
IN PARTIAL FULFILLMENT OF THE REQUIREMENTS
FOR THE DEGREE OF DOCTOR OF MINISTRY

UNITED THEOLOGICAL SEMINARY
Dayton, Ohio
January 2020
United Theological Seminary
Dayton, OH

Faculty Approval Page
Doctor of Ministry Final Project

BLACK CHILD LIBERATION THEOLOGY: A CONTEMPORARY

CHRISTIAN MODEL FOR MENTORING

BLACK BOYS AND GIRLS

by

Daryl W. Edwards

United Theological Seminary, 2020

Mentors

Lucius Dalton, DMin
Lisa Weah, DMin

Date: ________________________________

Approved:
_____________________________________

_____________________________________
Faculty Mentor:

_____________________________________
Associate Dean of Doctoral Studies:
Copyright ã 2020 Daryl W. Edwards
All rights reserved
CONTENTS
ABSTRACT .................................................................................................................. iv
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS ........................................................................................... v
INTRODUCTION .......................................................................................................... 1
CHAPTER
1. MINISTRY FOCUS ................................................................................ 9
2. BIBLICAL FOUNDATIONS ................................................................ 30
3. HISTORICAL FOUNDATIONS ........................................................... 58
4. THEOLOGICAL FOUNDATIONS ....................................................... 76
5. INTERDISCIPLINARY FOUNDATIONS ........................................... 99
6. PROJECT ANALYSIS ........................................................................ 117
APPENDIX
A. PRE- AND POST-PROGRAM ASSESSMENT RESULTS ................. 142
B. PHOTOS OF THE YOUNG KINGS MENTORSHIP PROGRAM
PARTICIPANTS ................................................................................. 153
BIBLIOGRAPHY ....................................................................................................... 155
iii
ABSTRACT

BLACK CHILD LIBERATION THEOLOGY: A CONTEMPORARY
CHRISTIAN MODEL FOR MENTORING
BLACK BOYS AND GIRLS

by
Daryl W. Edwards
United Theological Seminary, 2020

Mentors

Lucius Dalton, DMin
Lisa Weah, DMin

The context for this project is The Young Kings Mentorship Program, in Atlanta,
Georgia. The impetus for the venture is the American epidemic, a national decline in
some young Black children’s zeal for spiritual, intellectual, and emotional development.
The hypothesis is if young Black children experiencing despondency are strategically
mentored by positive Black Christians, as early as the third grade; then they will instead
exhibit the behavioral patterns and dispositions of inner strength, courage, boldness,
passion, limitless potential, beneficence, and community contribution in a word,
liberation. The instruments used to address the problem will be weekly, curriculum
guided mentorship sessions.
iv
ILLUSTRATIONS
Figures
1. Promotional flyer for The Young Kings Mentorship Program .......................... 128
2. Take-home example from “We Are Investors” session .................................... 134
3. Questions with highest ratio of improvement in frequency/amount .................. 136
4. Improvement on each question between pre- and post-program assessments .... 137
v
INTRODUCTION

'Cause we're a winner
And everybody knows it too
We just keep on pushin'
Like your leaders tell you to
At last that blessed day has come…
— Curtis Mayfield and the Impressions

Late one-night, vaunted soul musician Curtis Mayfield awakened from a dream,
sensing an urgent impulse to pen a lifting ballad for the Black community beginning with
the words that also became the song title, “We’re a Winner.” Upon recording that
midnight inspiration with melodic eloquence in RCA Victor Studios in Chicago, could
Mayfield have known that his 1967 lyrical message of supreme identity designation,
valuation of mentorship, encouragement to carry on, emphasis on unity, declaration of
victory, and calling on a gracious God would be a preeminent and obligatory theological
message for Black children, today? The answer to such a question is debatable. That his
classic canticle is rich with solutions to today’s challenges in the Black Christian and
non-Christian community is not debatable.
The Black community in general and the Black church in specificity are facing a
tragic pandemic: young Black men are being marked ‘new member’ behind bars and in
morgues more frequently than at houses of worship and halls of higher education.
President Barack Obama said in a February 27, 2014, afternoon speech in the East Room
of the White House, about the “My Brother’s Keeper” Initiative, “…by almost every
1
2
measure, the group that is facing some of the most severe challenges in the twenty first
century in this country are boys and young men of color.”1
This challenge is due to the massive shift from Black men of faith and substance
being present in the lives of Black boys in times past, to some currently being absent.
These young men grapple with the absence of positive role models in the media they
spend hours viewing each day as well as in interpersonal relationships at home and at
school. The void of positive images is destroying the perspectives and dreams of young
Black boys. America is a country where a mass incarceration strategy against Black men
is designed to ensure that there are more Black men locked in prison chains today than
were locked in chains of slavery 170 years ago.2 Christian and non-Christian Black men
and women must do everything possible outside of the Black community to fight
injustice. That work must carry on. However, this research argues for co-laboring effort
that must be done inside the Black community, the development of Black children.
One’s mentality creates one’s reality. The scriptural law of reciprocity teaches
that what is sown is what is reaped. Thoughts become things; whatever are the contents
of the mind eventually become the status of the life. Contemporary spiritual and
intellectual giant and gift to Christendom, Rev. Dr. Jeremiah Wright quoted these words
in the Foreword of Adam! Where Are You?, “You can’t be what you can’t see!”3

1 Barack Obama, “My Brother’s Keeper Initiative,” White House Press Conference, Washington,
DC, February 27, 2014.

2 Michelle Alexander, The New Jim Crow (New York, NY: The New Press, 2012), 179.

3 Jawanza Kunjufu, Adam! Where Are You? (Chicago, IL: African-American Images, 1994), viii.
3
The ancient proverb teaches, “As a man (or woman) thinketh in his heart, so is
he.”4 In other words, what people (or in the hypothesis of this dissertation, children) see
is what they become. This irrefutable reality appears in the fact that children born in
China often speak Mandarin or Cantonese dialect. Why? Most obviously, because they
were exposed to the language and as a result learned to use it as the normative means of
communication. They also often eat rice, some wear Han Chinese clothing, and bow for
formal greetings. Varying cultural expressions exist for children of all nationalities as a
result of what they are exposed to during formative years.
If children become what they see, producing positive images and relationships
will result in children forming positive spiritual and cultural habits. When black boys are
exposed to positive black men of faith, the church and university will welcome more
black boys than do prisons and morgues. As such, the spiritual and cultural mentoring of
black boys by black men of faith are the objective of the Doctor of Ministry Project. The
process is simple in theory, complex in praxis: establish virtual and interpersonal
relationships between Black men of faith and virtue and young Black men willing to
learn from them. The goal is for young boys who are often not regular church attenders
to recognize their regal value as children of God and to obtain goals that empower them
and their communities. Young Black boys (as is true for young Black girls) can, should,
and must be spiritually, mentally, socially, emotionally, and physically liberated persons.
Specific methodology includes creating film and establishing a rites-of-passage
mentoring program that allows young Black men to develop a God-centered mentality
and subsequently a God-centered reality. The supposition is if young Black boys are

4 Proverbs 23:7, New Revised Standard Version. Unless otherwise noted, all scripture references
in this document are from the NRSV.
4
strategically affirmed and instructed by the words and actions of mentors, they will
exhibit behavioral patterns that directly resemble the content of that encouragement and
instruction.
The area of ministry to be addressed in the doctoral project will be that of service
to youth. The theme is that some young Black boys in the West End of Atlanta were
having difficulty sustaining desire and effort toward educational excellence and personal
goal achievement. While serving as a Youth Advocate in Atlanta Juvenile Courts, I wrote
over one-thousand letters to youth and families, changing the salutation from Ms. to Mr.
less than five times. Was the lack of men in the household actually the reason children
were in trouble with the juvenile court system? As I connected with each family, it
became apparent that for some youth the answer was, “Yes” and for others, “No.”
Whether a missing father contributed to negative behavior or not, one thing was sure,
each child could benefit from having access to a positive male role model.
The first challenge of the project will be to define freedom and liberation as it
relates to the following five categories: spiritual, mental, emotional, social, and physical.
The second problem will be to prove that these types of freedom can be quantified or
measured. The third task of the project will be to fashion a data set that legitimately
quantifies the growth of spiritual, mental, emotional, social, and physical freedom in
black boys. The fourth, and most significant aspect of the project will be to foster the
development of this defined “freedom” in students within the five to twenty-session time
frame. The parents (and students) will serve as human research subjects to compile
statistical data. The data sets will be based upon their perceptions regarding specific