Steward Marie Johns’ story is featured as part of the White House Black History Month series which highlights African Americans from across the Administration whose work contributes to the President’s vision for winning the future.
Marie Johns’ Story: Supporting Small Businesses and Growing the Economy
I come from a family of small business owners and have seen firsthand how important they are to strengthening our communities and our economy. My grandfather owned a landscaping company in my hometown of Indianapolis, Indiana. As one of the first African-American owned business in Indiana to win a statewide contract, his company maintained the land around state highways. After my uncle earned his degree in pharmaceutical science at Howard University, my grandfather helped him start his own pharmacy, which served the city’s African-American community. Their spirit of entrepreneurship has always inspired me. Following a 21 year career in the telecommunications industry, I founded my own small business: an organizational effectiveness and public policy consulting practice.
Perhaps you’ve seen the refined African textiles that grace our church each year during Black History Month. Perhaps you have wondered who this person is who has graced our sanctuary with such rich and colorful décor. For this we give gratitude to Rufus T. Stevenson.
Mr. Stevenson’s illustrious history with African art started in l962 when he joined the Peace Corps and set out for his assigned destination — Sierra Leone. As one of the second set of Peace Corps volunteers, it was love at first sight –love for the people, for the art, culture and the land. “The spirit of the ancestors harnessed the moment and I was seduced by the richness of the culture,” is the way Mr. Stevenson described his early ties to the Motherland. In the nearly fifty years since he first placed foot on the Continent, he has traveled to every country in Africa except three.
Don’t think that Metropolitan A.M.E is the only edifice that has been dressed with Mr. Stevenson’s collection. For more than a decade, he has dressed the stage at the Kennedy Center for the Washington Dance Institute‘s annual Spirit on Kwanzaa celebration. The Greater New Hope Baptist Church, the Lincoln Theatre, Union Temple Baptist Church and 19th Street Baptist Church have also been graced with Stevenson’s African textiles that evoke the beauty of the continent.
Stevenson has also been asked to share his textiles and talents at historic events in the Nation’s Capital. Over 15 years ago, Louis Farrakham asked him to drape the platform at the historic Million-Man March. Mrs. Coretta Scott King also asked Stevenson to display his African fabrics for the fortieth anniversary of the March on Washington at the Lincoln Memorial in 2003.
Mr. Stevenson is so drawn to the Motherland that he takes tour groups to Africa nearly every year. Each time he returns to Washington with additional pieces to share his African experiences with others. When asked which his favorite country is, he responds with deep excitement in his voice, “Mali – its history is so rich, deep and dynamic.”
His collection, called the Tiefing (pronounced like chafing) Collection, is named in honor of the Bambara People of Mali. The textiles, masks and other objects in his collection surround one with jaw-dropping awe. It displays his devout dedication to a remarkable people in a land that still beckons many of us with outstretched arms. It is a collection all should see.
For persons who consider themselves history buffs, Stevenson’s story of African history will grab your curiosity and keep you hooked like an exciting movie. While Stevenson is considered a curator, he is equally a historian and a true storyteller. Through his artifacts, mud cloths, Kente cloth and cultural roots, he weaves remarkable events of a fascinating land filled with even more fascinating people and places that make one long to see the Continent. For those who have never made the journey, your bags may be packed and you may be on your way before you can say Tiefing.
There’s a saying, “We don’t know where we going unless we know from whence we come.” Rufus Stevenson has done a great service in elegantly preserving a part of our past. By his wisdom of preservation, he guides us on the path to remember and respect the history of our forefathers, foremothers and motherland.
Metropolitan Steward Ernest Green addressed the Washington Hebrew Congregation’s Martin Luther King Shabbat Service on Friday, January 14. Prior to the service, members of the WHC congregation, Metropolitan and other local churches, and invited guests gathered for a festive dinner to honor Steward Green and remember Dr. King.’s fight for civil rights.
Below is the way Steward Green was introduced that evening.
“It was on September 23, 1957 that Ernest Green and eight other teenagers walked into their high school. For most, this act would have been unremarkable — just another part of a daily routine. But for these Black youth, who became known as the ‘‘Little Rock Nine,’’ entering Little Rock, Arkansas’ Central High School was an act of courage and a defining moment in our nation’s civil rights movement
“Racial tensions were high in the 1950s South, and despite the 1954 Supreme Court decision in Brown v. Board of Education that declared segregation illegal, many schools remained closed to Black students. Although protected by the 101st Airborne Division of the U.S. Army, these nine students endured harassment, threats and abuse throughout the school year. Against odds, Green graduated from Central High that following June, the first African-American to do so. He then went on to receive his BA and MA degrees from Michigan State University as well as honorary Doctorate degrees from Michigan State, Tougaloo College and Central State University.
At the age of 17, Green was the youngest recipient of the NAACP’s Spingard Medal; and in 1999 President Clinton presented Green, along with the rest of the Little Rock Nine, with the Congressional Gold Medal, the highest honor that can be given to a civilian for their outstanding bravery during the integration of Central High in 1957.”
Congratulations to Metropolitan member, Shirley Love, who was selected as one of the Top 100 minority women owned entrepreneurs for Mid-Atlantic region. She will be honored at a dinner, Oct 21 at the University of Maryland Conference Center. To purchase tickets, go to http://www.top100mbe.com/ or call 410-489-7098.
Bill and Flavia Walton in Worship at Metropolitan AME
Metropolitan member Bill Walton has suffered with kidney disease for eight years. His wife, Steward Flavia Walton was not a compatible donor. This summer the “Waltons were part of the world’s largest kidney swap to date, sponsored by Washington Hospital Center and Georgetown University Hospital. It involved a complex chain of 28 surgeries at four different hospitals. ”
The Walton’s hope to encourage more African Americans to donate organs since the majority of patients who need transplants are non-white. Say’s Flavia Walton, “ If God could give his son for me, or for us, I could certainly give a kidney to keep someone else alive.”
From the Washington Informer: [Metropolitan Steward] Ernest Green, vice president of Lehman Brothers and a member of the Little Rock Nine has agreed to serve as honorary chairperson of a capital campaign committee established to raise $11 million to restore Metropolitan AME Church in Northwest. The 124-year-old church that’s often referred to as the “National Cathedral” of African Methodism at 15th and M Streets in Northwest has fallen into disrepair.
This year, the church was listed among the nation’s 11 most endangered historic landmarks by the National Trust for Historic Preservation. Last month, the D.C. Preservation League also placed Metropolitan on its roster of endangered sites in the District. However, the designation places the church in a favorable position to apply for federal funds to help fulfill its $11 million fundraising goal. “The designation tells funders that this is a place of historical significance that’s worth saving,” said Dena Curtis, co-chair of the Capital Campaign to Preserve Metropolitan. Read more. . .
Congratulations to our own Rev. Kimberly Barnes who has been named the pastor of Gethsemane AME Church. We will miss her!
From the Washington Informer:
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. Read more . . .
Dorothy Gilliam to be presented with the Washington Press Club Foundation Life Time Achievement Award at the 66th Annual Congressional Dinner
WASHINGTON, DC _ The board of directors of the Washington Press Club Foundation is pleased to announce that Dorothy Gilliam has been selected to receive its 2010 Lifetime Achievement Award. The award will be presented at the 66th Annual Congressional Dinner on April 21, 2010 in Washington D.C.
Dorothy was a trailblazer for women and minorities in the media. The first black woman to report for The Washington Post, she founded the Post’s young Journalist Development Program and the George Washington University Prime Movers program, which partners established journalists with student journalists to start and revitalize high school media. In addition to her long career as a Post columnist, she was an activist dedicated to public service, from her days helping to organize protests against the New York Daily News after it fired two thirds of its African-American staff, to her tenure as president of the National Association of Black Journalists and the board of the Maynard Institute for Journalism Education. Throughout her career, she always emphasized the importance of diversity in the newsroom so that all Americans were represented in the press.
The Washington Press Club Foundation Lifetime Achievement Award is based on the ideals of the founders of the WPCF, the Women’s National Press Club. For almost 70 years, these pioneers in journalism fought for equal status in the newsroom and within journalism organizations because they believed that the voice of the press should be as diverse as the readers it promised to serve. Today their work continues through the Foundation’s major programs, funding paid internships available to women and minorities in Washington, D.C. newsrooms, and producing oral histories of the female journalists who broke new ground in the profession.
Previous winners of the Lifetime Achievement Award include Mary McGrory, Helen Dewar, Nan Robertson and Helen Thomas. The Foundation’s signature event, the annual Congressional Dinner, allows for the working press corps and the members of Congress they cover to gather for a light-hearted nonpartisan, evening. For more information about the dinner contact wpcf@wpcf.org or the Washington Press Club Foundation on Facebook.
The Washington Press Club Foundation is an organization of journalists from the nation’s print and broadcast media working as a group to promote the ideals of equality and excellence that inspired that small band of its founders, the Women’s National Press Club.
The Congressional Dinner is the primary fundraising activity for the Foundation. If you would like to purchase a ticket to attend this year’s dinner please see the invitation for more information (Note: This event was originally scheduled for February 10th but had to be postponed due to the snow storm).
Metropolitan member MacKenzie Green was crowned this year’s Miss DC USA 2010. She has published an article in the Jan/Feb 2010 edition of Popcorn Magazine about her journey to the crown asking “Is it the girl that makes the crown, or the crown that makes the girl?”
Entries
Steward Marie Johns’ story is featured as part of the White House Black History Month series which highlights African Americans from across the Administration whose work contributes to the President’s vision for winning the future.
Congratulations to our own Rev. Kimberly Barnes who has been named the pastor of Gethsemane AME Church. We will miss her!
