H OnOring D r . M ArTin L uTHer K ing , J r .
‘Occupy the Dream’ Aims to Grow Black Businesses
By Hazel Trice Edney
TriceEdney Wire
Originally posted 12/28/2011
A
national group of Black clergy, led by former
NAACP Executive Director Benjamin Chavis, is
aiming to reverse the Black unemployment rate by
changing the economic mindset of Black people.
“You’d be surprised that a lot of people ask why we are
the most unemployed. They say we need jobs,” Chavis said,
in an interview with the Trice Edney News Wire. “But, the
truth of the matter is that in order to get jobs, we have to
have employers. We need more Black business people to
hire Black people. If we are waiting for somebody else to
hire us, it’s the consciousness, our mindset has to change.
Empowerment means what you do for yourself; not what
somebody constantly does for you.
The mission, which is being called “Occupy the Dream”,
will start on Monday, Jan. 16 in commemoration of the Dr.
Martin Luther King Jr. birthday holiday. On that day
preachers, who are part of the “Occupy the Dream” move-
ment, will connect with the
well-known “Occupy Wall
Street” group to hold
protests at Federal Reserve
Banks in 10 cities around
the nation, Chavis said.
The strategy will be to
raise the conscious level of
African-Americans starting
in church pulpits by spread-
ing the message of income
equality, economic justice
and empowerment leading
up to Jan. 16. “It starts in the
pulpit and then we’re going
to go to the community at
large,” he said.
Then, the ministers will grow and sustain a movement
with monthly activities focused on transforming the Black
mindset from consumer to owner, he said.
“And so, I see ‘Occupy the Dream’ as first – and to some
extent, challenging the mindset of over 40 million Black
Americans who various stats show will spend a trillion dol-
lars in 2012. So how is it that we’re spending a trillion dol-
lars on the one hand, but we are the most unemployed on
the other hand? Our children are not finishing high school
on the other hand. We’re losing homes; we are the most
foreclosed on the other hand. That’s a contradiction,”
Chavis said. “And so, Occupy the Dream is going to chal-
lenge that. That’s something internal in the Black commu-
Politically we’ve made some
significant gains, but
economically, we have not
nity that we need to face. And the Black preacher is strate-
gically placed to meet these challenges because we meet
with the Black community every week.”
The new group has set up a website for more detailed
information: www.occupydream.org. It is also on Facebook
and Twitter.
Chavis and the Rev. Dr. Jamal-Harrison Bryant, pastor of
the 10,000-member Empowerment Temple AME Church in
Baltimore, are working together along with a list of other
clergy and participants in the Occupy Wall Street movement
which has held protests in cities across the nation for the
past eight months. The focus of Occupy Wall Street has
mainly been, “We are the 99 percent”, meaning the com-
munity of 1 percent wealthy in American appear to wrong-
Page 6 The Portland and Seattle Skanner Martin Luther King Edition January 11, 2012
ly hold the balance of power. Chavis said the Occupy the
Dream movement will simply take that message to the next
level by activating the reversal of that 1 percent vs. 99 per-
cent power – especially in the Black community, which is
most affected by poverty and unemployment.
“We have made tremendous progress politically in terms of
Black elected officials – we have more Black state legisla-
tors than ever before, at one time we had Black people who
were mayors of just about all the major cities, we have over
40 members of the Congress– and so politically we’ve
made some significant gains, but economically, we have
not,” Chavis says.
When Dr. King was assassinated on April 4, 1968, he was
planning a poor people’s march and campaign because of
economic inequity and economic injustice across America.
That movement never fully took off. A former foot-soldier
of Dr. King who was a South Carolina state wide youth
coordinator for the Southern Christian Leadership
Conference in the 1960s, Chavis said the Occupy Wall
Street message reminded him of Dr. King’s vision.
Occupy Wall Street was started by mainly White youth
who were not only conscious of the economic inequities,
but has specifically called attention to the suffering of com-
mon people while those largely responsible for America’s
disastrous economy appear to benefit by bail outs and busi-
ness as usual. The movement started in September with
protests on Wall Street in lower Manhattan and has since
spread into cities across the U. S.
Chavis, who will turn 64 on Jan. 22, has been a mentor to
the 40-year-old Bryant, who served as NAACP national
youth coordinator during Chavis tenure as NAACP execu-
tive director in the early 1990s. Chavis, who has worked the
past 15 years for Russell Simmons’ Hip Hop movement,
says the Occupy the Dream movement will combine older
seasoned leaders and youthful leaders to assure that people
See OCCUPY page 15