Black Freedom from Poverty

            The liberty principle for this Freedom Friday is the need to change the topic of discussion from the illegal aliens crossing our southern border to the African-Americans living in the inner cities of America. Democrats have all but abandoned Black Americans in their rush to welcome more potential – but illegal -- voters into the United States. African-Americans in the inner cities are crying for help. Who will step up to be assistance to them.

            Walter E. Williams, professor of economics at George Mason University, wrote an article titled “Too Many Black Americans Live in Horrible Conditions.” His article is about the living conditions in “the dangerous high-crime and poor-schooling neighborhoods of cities like Chicago, Baltimore, Detroit, or St. Louis.” He says that it is time for higher priorities in our nation.

Which is most important to you: doing something about public safety and raising the quality of education or, as most black politicians do, focusing energies upon President Donald Trump and who … will lead the Democratic Party?

The average American has no inkling about the horrible conditions in which many blacks live. Moreover, they wouldn’t begin to tolerate living under those conditions themselves.

            Williams says that neither white nor black politicians will wade into the problems of the Black communities. There is so much lawlessness there that law enforcement officers are threatened and even killed on a somewhat regular basis. There are not too many people who want to enter the ghetto areas. Yet, some help has arrived.

            Tad Walch at The Deseret News wrote an article titled “How the NAACP and Latter-day Saints are working together to address inner city problems” in which he describes a joint project to serve the people living in the inner city of Chicago and San Francisco. President Russell M. Nelson, along with his associates in the leading councils of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, saw a great need and set forth to help some of the “most under- privileged African Americans.” The Church provided “self-reliance manuals [which] had been specifically rewritten and adapted for inner-city blacks by the church and the NAACP.”

            The first manuals were delivered in March, and 100 students graduated in late June. Ten out of twelve students that graduated in Chicago, and one woman took three buses each week in order to attend the class. There were bumps along the way, but the graduates and leaders are to be congratulated on their efforts. The “graduates, who learned to budget, reduced or eliminated debt and came to recognize the pitfalls of payday lending.”

            The Church and the NAACP may be considered as “strange bedfellows,” but they are working together to fill a need. The effort “is rooted in a fundamental common belief that all people are children of God. To show how unified they are, the NAACP invited President Nelson to speak  at their national convention last Sunday. 

We are all connected, and we have a God-given responsibility to help make life better for those around us…. We don’t have to be alike or look alike to have love for each other. We don’t even have to agree with each other to love each other. If we have any hope of reclaiming the goodwill and sense of humanity for which we yearn, it must begin with each of us, one person at a time.

            According to Walch, the relationship between the NAACP and the Church is just getting started. “The NAACP and BYU law school alumni are organizing a project to help previously incarcerated men and women expunge their public criminal records so they can regain the right to vote and improve their employment opportunities.”

            There is hope for the people living in African American communities. They need to know that someone cares about them and is willing to help them get started. Even though politicians refuse to become involved in the cause, there are good people who are willing to do so.