The Temple Hills Coalition of Pastors

At Stephens Baptist Church Community Day

At Potomac Landing Elementary School drive by promotion ceremony.

If you are in need of a COVID vaccination of first or second booster, come on over to the Central Baptist Church of Camp Springs between 10:00 am and 3:00 pm.

Please bring your insurance cards, Ids, and vaccination cards.
The second boosters are approved for anyone that is age 50 and older and for those age 12y-49y who are immunocompromised.
The wait time between the first and second booster is 4 months.

Click this link to assist with our count of vaccine needed.
https://lp.constantcontactpages.com/su/xmwioLY

https://www.nbcwashington.com/news/local/faith-leaders-in-temple-hills-pool-resources-for-food-giveaway/2584393/

Faith Leaders in Temple Hills Pool Resources for Food Giveaway News4’s Cory Smith reports on faith leaders feeding families in Maryland.

David Norman Dinkins
July 10, 1927 – November 23, 2020

David Norman Dinkins was an American politician, lawyer, and author who served as the 106th Mayor of New York City from 1990 to 1993, becoming the first African American to hold the office. Before entering politics, Dinkins was among the more than 20,000 Montford Point Marines, serving from 1945 to 1946.
Born in Trenton, New Jersey, on Julyn10, 1927, David Dinkins attended Howard University and Brooklyn Law School. He began his career in New York City politics in the 1960s, ascending to city clerk and Manhattan borough president, before becoming the Big Apple's first African American mayor in 1989. While Dinkins took key steps towards revitalizing the city's economy and increasing community development, his accomplishments were offset by a recession, rising homicide rates and flaring racial tensions. In 1993, Dinkins lost his bid for reelection to Rudy Giuliani, and he later became a professor at Columbia University.
After graduating from Trenton Central High School, Dinkins attempted to enlist in the U.S. Marine Corps but was rebuffed due to his race. He was finally admitted in the summer of 1945, as one of the groundbreaking African American Montford Point Marines. Although the war ended while he was still in boot camp, he was able to use his service time to attend Howard University on the G.I. Bill. Dinkins studied mathematics at Howard, where he met his future wife, Joyce Burrows, before graduating cm laude in 1950.
David Dinkins returned to New York to attend Brooklyn Law School in 1953. After graduating in 1956, he teamed with Thomas Benjamin Dyett and Fritz Alexander to form the law firm of Dyett, Alexander & Dinkins. Additionally, with help from his father-in-law, New York State Assemblyman Daniel L. Burrows, Dinkins became involved in the George Washington Carver Democratic Club of Harlem. He subsequently was elected to the state assembly in 1965, although he served only one term before his district was reapportioned.
In 1972, Dinkins was appointed to the New York Board of Elections, and he became the first African American to serve as its president. His political rise was seemingly halted by his failure to pay taxes for three years, resulting in the withdrawal of an offer to become deputy mayor in 1973. However, he was elected city clerk in 1974 and served in the role for 10 years, until taking over as Manhattan borough president in 1985.
Mayor of New York City
Elected to a term in the state assembly in 1965, he later served as president of elections for New York City, as city clerk, and as Manhattan borough president before his successful bid for the mayor’s office in 1989. Dinkins took office at a time when New York City was racked by racial discord. Both ethnic tensions and crime statistics increased during his term, and he became the first Black mayor of a major U.S. city to be denied reelection. Dinkins subsequently became a professor at Columbia University. In 2013, he released the memoir A Mayor’s Life: Governing New York’s Gorgeous Mosaic (written with Peter Knobler).
Dinkins struggled to implement many of his plans due to a recession. He did manage to launch the New York City Safe Streets, place more police offers on the streets through Safe City Program and fostered increased community involvement through the Beacon Initiative. Additionally, he signed key development deals to revitalize the city's economy: with Disney, which led to the renovation of Time Square, and with the United States Tennis Association, which kept the U.S. Open in Queens.
However, Dinkins was also damaged by rising homicide rates and the flaring of racial tensions, which culminated in the deadly Crown Heights riots in 1991. Although many of his programs ultimately helped to reduce crime, the perception of his shortcomings as a leader lingered, and he was edged by Giuliani in his bid for reelection in 1993.
Later Career
After leaving City Hall, the ex-mayor began hosting a radio program called "Dialogue with Dinkins." He also joined the faculty of Columbia University’s School of International and Public Affairs (SIPA), through which he began hosting the annual David N. Dinkins Leadership & Public Policy Forum.
Dinkins served as a board member of numerous organizations, including New York City Global Partners, the Children’s Health Fund and the USTA. In 2012, he received a Congressional Gold Medal for his service with the Montford Point Marines, and the following year he published a memoir, A Mayor’s Life: Governing New York's Gorgeous Mosaic.
In 2015, Dinkins was honored for his decades of public service when one of lower Manhattan’s architectural landmarks was renamed the David N. Dinkins Municipal Building.
Dinkins died from natural causes on November 23, 2020, at the age of 93.

Rep. Stacey Yvonne Abrams
December 9, 1973 (47 years old)

Stacey Yvonne Abrams is an American politician, lawyer, voting rights activist, and author who served in the Georgia House of Representatives from 2007 to 2017, serving as minority leader from 2011 to 2017. Jump to Early life and education — As a Harry S. Truman Scholar, Abrams studied public policy at the University of Texas at Austin's LBJ School of Public Affairs, where she earned a Master of Public Affairs degree in 1998. In 1999, she earned a Juris Doctor from Yale Law School (1996-1999
Stacey Y. Abrams is the House Minority Leader for the Georgia General Assembly and State Representative for the 89th House District. She is the first woman to lead either party in the Georgia General Assembly at the age of 29 and is the first African-American to lead in the House of Representatives. Stacey serves on the following committees: Appropriations, Ethics, Judiciary Non-Civil, Rules and Ways & Means. She co-founded and acts as Senior Vice President of NOWaccount Network Corporation, a financial services firm. Stacey also co-founded Nourish, Inc., a beverage company with a focus on infants and toddlers, as well as other entrepreneurial ventures. Formerly, she was Deputy City Attorney for the City of Atlanta. Prior to her tenure at the City, she previously was working as a tax attorney at Sutherland Asbill & Brennan law firm in Atlanta, where she focused on tax exemptions, healthcare, and public finance. She also started two small businesses: a water bottle company and a payment company.

In 2012, Stacey received the prestigious John F. Kennedy New Frontier Award, which honors an elected official under 40 whose work demonstrates the impact of elective public service as a way to address public challenges. Stacey has been recognized nationally as one of “12 Rising Legislators to Watch” by Governing magazine and one of the “100 Most Influential Georgians” by Georgia Trend for 2012 and 2013. She has been honored as a Legislator of the Year by the Georgia Alliance of Community Hospitals, as Public Servant of the Year by the Georgia Hispanic Chamber of Commerce, Outstanding Public Service by the Latin American Association, Champion for Georgia Cities by the Georgia Municipal Association, as Legislator of the Year by the DeKalb County Chamber of Commerce. She received the Georgia Legislative Service Award from the Association County Commissioners Georgia, the Democratic Legislator of the Year from the Young Democrats of Georgia and Red Clay Democrats, and an Environmental Leader Award from the Georgia Conservation Voters. She was also Grand Champion for the Legislative Livestock Round-Up at the Georgia State Fair.

Stacey is a former term member of the Council on Foreign Relations, a Next Generation Fellow of the American Assembly at Columbia University on U.S. Global Policy and the Future of International Institutions, an American Marshall Memorial Fellow, an American Council of Young Political Leaders Fellow, a Council on Italy Fellow, a British-American Project Fellow, a Salzburg Seminar – Freeman Fellow on U.S.-East Asian Relations, a Salzburg Seminar Fellow on youth and civic engagement and a Yukos Fellow for U.S.-Russian Relations.

She is an alumnus of the Leadership Georgia, Leadership Atlanta and the Regional Leadership Institute. She has received the Stevens Award for Outstanding Legal Contributions and the Elmer Staats Award for Public Service, both national honors presented by the Harry S. Truman Foundation. She is also a 1994 Harry S. Truman Scholar.

Abrams has been publishing books in the romance genre since the early 2000s. She writes under the pen name of Selena Montgomery. Abrams latest books are political nonfiction books, entitled 2020's Our Time Is Now, and 2019's Lead from the Outside: How to Build Your Future and Make Real Change, just to name a few. Stacey was inducted into the Academy of Women Achievers by the YWCA of Metro Atlanta and was chosen by Womenetics as a 2011 POW! Winner and by Atlanta Woman magazine as one of its “25 Power Women to Watch.” Other recognition includes Georgia Trend’s “40 Under 40” list, the Atlanta Business Chronicle’s “Top 50 Under 40” list, as well as recognition as one of Georgia’s Rising Super Lawyers by Atlanta Magazine and Law & Politics Magazine. She was also named one of “30 Leaders of the Future” by Ebony Magazine.
She has published articles on issues of public policy, taxation and nonprofit organizations, including pieces with The Christian Science Monitor, Yale Law and Policy Review, U.S. News and World Reports and the Huffington Post. Under the pen name Selena Montgomery, Stacey is the award-winning author of eight romantic suspense novels, which have sold more than 100,000 copies.

Stacey currently serves on the Board of Trustees for Agnes Scott College, the Board of Directors for the Democratic Legislative Campaign Committee, the Board of Directors for the Gateway Center for the Homeless, and the Advisory Boards for Literacy Action and Health Students Taking Action Together.
Stacey received her J.D. from the Yale Law School. She graduated from the LBJ School of Public Affairs at the University of Texas at Austin with an M.P.Aff. in public policy. She earned a B.A. in Interdisciplinary Studies (Political Science, Economics and Sociology) from Spelman College, magna cm laude.

Black History Facts, Did you know . . . ?

Sports Moments in Black History
Saluting some of America's greatest athletes.

Jesse Owens became an American hero after an amazing performance at the 1936 Summer Olympics in Berlin, Germany. At the time, Germany was ruled by Adolph Hi**er who absurdly believed that blacks, Asians and other races were inferior to whites. Jessie proved how wrong Hi**er's racist ideas were by winning the gold medal in the long jump, the 100-meter dash and the 200-meter dash. He took home a fourth gold medal by running the opening leg for the US team that won the 4x100-meter relay. Jesse was nicknamed the World's Fastest Man and, in 1976, he was awarded the Medal of Freedom - the highest award a US citizen can receive.

Sports Moments in Black History
Saluting some of America's greatest athletes.

Jackie Robinson was the first African American to play major league baseball. Jackie was a star in the Negro Leagues but wasn't allowed to play in major league baseball because he was black. He finally got his chance when he was signed by the Brooklyn Dodgers in 1945. On April 15, 1947, he played his first major league game as the Dogers' first baseman. Many people booed and jeered Jackie when he took the field but by the end of the season, he won many of them over with his play on the field. He batted .297, led the league in stolen bases and was named the National League Rookie of the Year. More importantly, he broke baseball's color barrier and opened the door for other black athletes to participate in professional sports.

Willie O'Ree made history when he stepped on the ice to play for the Boston Bruins on January 18, 1958. Willie was the first African American to play in the National Hockey League. He only played two seasons for the Bruins, because of an eye injury, but he opened the door for many other African Americans to skate in the NHL, including All-Star Jarome Iginla of the Calgary Flames.

Muhammad Ali called himself The Greatest and he lived up to that name by being the first boxer to win the heavyweight title three times. Ali won his first title as Cassius Clay (his birth name) in 1964 by defeating Sonny Liston. Shortly after the fight, he became a Muslim and changed his name to Muhammad Ali because he believed that Cassius Clay was his "slave name." Ali was stripped of his title in 1967 for refusing to join the US Army because of his religious beliefs. He regained the title in 1974 by defeating George Foreman in Zaire in the famous Rumble in the Jungle. He snagged the title again in '78 after defeating Leon Spinks. He retired in 1981.

Vonetta Flowers - the former track star turned Olympic bobsledder - made history at the 2002 Winter Olympics by becoming the first black athlete to win a gold medal at a Winter Olympics. Vonetta's gold medal will hopefully inspire future black athletes to become more involved in winter sports.

LOCAL BLACK HISTORY MAKERS


DENISE ROLARK BARNES
Denise Rolark Barnes is the publisher of The Washington Informer, the award winning community newspaper serving the African American community in the Washington metropolitan area. In addition to her work at The Washington Informer, Rolark-Barnes maintains The Washington Informer Charities, a non-profit organization that promotes literacy and sponsors internship opportunities and writing competitions for students interested in pursuing careers in journalism. Rolark Barnes’ board memberships include Events DC, the United Black Fund and the Maryland, Delaware, DC Press Association (MDDC), the National Newspaper Publishers Association, the DC Martin Luther King Holiday Commission and the Commission on the 40th Anniversary of Home Rule. She is also a member of Leadership Greater Washington and an inductee into the D.C. Hall of Fame. Rolark Barnes is a graduate of Howard University and Howard University School of Law. Denise Rolark-Barnes was born in Washington, D.C. Her father, Dr. Calvin W. Rolark, Sr., was the founder and the editor of The Washington Informer; her stepmother, Wilhelmina J. Rolark, a politician and activist, served on the Council of the District of Columbia from 1976 to 1984. Rolark-Barnes was interested in writing at a young age and first wrote for The Washington Informer while she was in middle school. After graduating from Howard University in 1976 with her B.A. degree in communications, Rolark-Barnes enrolled in the Howard University School of Law where she became editor of The Barrister, the law schools’ student newspaper. Rolark-Barnes graduated from the Howard University School of Law with her J.D. degree in 1979. In 1980, Rolark-Barnes joined the staff of The Washington Informer and was assigned as the newspaper’s managing editor. After working with her father, Dr. Calvin W. Rolark, she took over as publisher of The Washington Informer in 1994. Rolark-Barnes also served as the director of The Washington Informer Charities and is the executive producer of “The Washington Informer News,” a bi-weekly television news program. In addition, she is the host of “Let’s Talk,” a public affairs program, and “Reporter’s Roundtable.” Rolark-Barnes has appeared as a guest reporter on “The Tavis Smiley Show,” “Tony Brown’s Journal,” NBC-4’s “Reporter’s Notebook,” and several local radio and television programs. Rolark-Barnes is the president of the District of Columbia chapter of AARP and is a member of the board of the National Newspaper Publishers Association and the United Black Fund, Inc. She is actively involved with the District of Columbia Black Public Relations Society Foundation, the Historical Society of Washington, D.C., and several other community non-profit organizations. Through The Washington Informer Charities, Rolark-Barns sponsors the annual Washington Informer City-Wide Spelling Bee as well as internships and writing competitions for high school and college students interested in pursuing careers in journalism. In March of 2008, Rolark-Barnes was honored by the National Newspaper Publishers Association with the Chrysler Financial/National Newspaper Publishers Association Foundation Entrepreneurial Award, which recognizes the nation’s black-owned newspapers for their entrepreneurial accomplishments and commitments to community service. In 2011, she received the Jack and Lovell Olender Foundation Generous Heart Award and the Summit Health Institute for Research and Education (SHIRE) Community Champion Award. Rolark-Barnes lives in the Washington, D.C. with her husband, Lafayette Barnes and two sons.

John Robert Lewis
February 21, 1940 - July 17, 2020

John Robert Lewis was born outside of Troy, Alabama, on February 21, 1940. Lewis had a happy childhood — though he needed to work hard to assist his sharecropper parents — but he chafed against the unfairness of segregation. He was particularly disappointed when the Supreme Court ruling in 1954's Brown v. The Board of Education didn't affect his school life. However, hearing King's sermons and news of the 1955-56 Montgomery bus boycott inspired Lewis to act for the changes he wanted to see.
Civil Rights Struggle
In 1957, Lewis left Alabama to attend the American Baptist Theological Seminary in Nashville, Tennessee. There, he learned about nonviolent protest and helped to organize sit-ins at segregated lunch counters. He was arrested during these demonstrations, which upset his mother, but Lewis was committed to the civil rights movement and went on to participate in the Freedom Rides of 1961, who challenged the segregated facilities they encountered at interstate bus terminals in the South, which had been deemed illegal by the Supreme Court. It was dangerous work that resulted in arrests and beatings for many involved, including Lewis.
In 1963, Lewis became chairman of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee. That same year, as one of the "Big Six" leaders of the civil rights movement, he helped plan the March on Washington, .and he was the youngest speaker at the event, and he had to alter his speech in order to please other organizers, but still delivered a powerful oration. The violent attacks were recorded and disseminated throughout the country, and the images proved too powerful to ignore, Bloody Sunday, as the day was labeled, sped up the passage of 1965”s Voting Rights Act. If any radical social, political and economic changes are to take place in our society, the people, the masses, must bring them about. During the civil rights struggle, Lewis was arrested approximately 40 times
After the March on Washington, in 1964, the Civil Rights Act became law. However, this did not make it easier for African Americans to vote in the South. To bring attention to this struggle, Lewis and Hosea Williams led a march from Selma to Montgomery, Alabama, on March 7, 1965. After crossing the Edmund Pettus Bridge, the marchers were attacked by state troopers. Lewis was severely beaten once more, this time suffering a fractured skull.
U.S. Congressman
Lewis left the SNCC in 1966. Though devastated by the assassinations of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. and Robert Kennedy in 1968, Lewis continued his work to enfranchise minorities. In 1970, he became director of the Voter Education Project. During his tenure, the VEP helped to register millions of minority voters.
Lewis ran for office himself in 1981, winning a seat on the Atlanta City Council. In 1986, he was elected to the House of Representatives. Representing Georgia's 5th District, he was one of the most respected members of Congress. Since entering office, he has called for healthcare reform, measures to fight poverty and improvements in education. Most importantly, he oversaw multiple renewals of the Voting Rights Act. When the Supreme Court struck down part of the law in 2013's Shelby County v. Holder, Lewis decried the decision as a "dagger into the heart" of voting rights.
In the wake of the mass shooting that took place on June 12, 2016, in Orlando, Florida, Lewis led a sit-in comprised of approximately 40 House Democrats on the floor of the House of Representatives on June 22nd in an attempt to bring attention and force Congress to address gun violence by taking definitive legislative action. “We have been too quiet for too long,” Lewis said. “There comes a time when you have to say something. You have to make a little noise. You have to move your feet. This is the time.”
The protest came just days after several measures including a bill regarding background checks and adding restrictions on the purchase of guns by people on the federal no-fly list, failed in the Senate. Senator Chris Murphy applauded the protest. Murphy had previously led a filibuster in the Senate which led to the subsequent vote.
Though the Supreme Court's decision about the Voting Rights Act was a blow to Lewis, he has been encouraged by the progress that has occurred in his lifetime. After Barak Obama won the presidency in 2008, Lewis stated that "When we were organizing voter-registration drives, going on the Freedom Rides, sitting in, coming here to Washington for the first time, getting arrested, going to jail, being beaten, I never thought — I never dreamed — of the possibility that an African American would one day be elected president of the United States."
He received numerous awards, been honored with numerous awards, including the Presidential Medal of Freedom, the NAACP's Spingarn Medal and the sole John F. Kennedy. He accepted the award with co-writer Andrew Aydin and illustrator Nate Powell and spoke of its significance in an emotional acceptance speech. “Some of you know I grew up in rural Alabama, very poor, very few books in our home,” Lewis said. “I remember in 1956, when I was 16 years old, going to the public library to get library cards, and we were told the library was for whites only and not for coloreds. And to come here and receive this honor, it’s too much.” He was elected Congress in 1986 to and received the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 2011.
Cancer Diagnosis and Death
In December 2019, Lewis announced that he had been diagnosed with Stage 4 pancreatic cancer.
Although he was "clear-eyed about the prognosis," Lewis said he felt encouraged that medical advancements had made this type of cancer treatable in many cases, adding that he intended to return to work as soon as possible.
Lewis passed away on July 17, 2020.

We thank God for keeping us in the year 2020. As we move into the year 2021, we encourage you to keep trusting God. On behalf of all the Pastors and churches of the Coalition, we would like to wish all a Blessed and Prosperous New Year!!