Today is a TWO day=20th and the 13th=
Was looking for the cover of Black Business ink for August 13, 2013-[in which there is a picture of S. Wayne Patterson=which is the name of the authority person who came when an authority officer was called ahead of putting up mailbox that GWYN male had knocked down; and he is the WS NAACP president-in which have heard African American authors/leaders say that the NAACP is a joke to real AFrican Americans seeking justice; because white males have bought off the NAACP; so only African American's who have or are married to an African American female prostitute are allowed to benefit from the services of the NAACP]; but instead located article that was in Business Ink in previous months about Rev. Mendez and his crusade to save the mentally ill[code for any African American that complains about abuse by white males/white male systems] from secret killings; At least this time they did not put pictures around the article with funeral parlor limosicine[sp];
The title of the article is :
Rev. John Mendez: At the Intersection of Social Justice and Faith
The compromise is that African Americans complaining that they want social justice will be that they are directed towards anything that registers as mentally ill-they get a check, white folks keep making money off of them= problem solved;for the people who resolve conflict in/between ?; BUT for the person who KNOWS that they are being abused, and then being turned around and being used, and most importantly=NOT recognized as a human being with the full rights of white males=they end up living in man's hell.
****************
Rev. John Mendez: At the Intersection of Social Justice and Faith
By Jeanna D. Rutledge
A heartbreaking conversation with three troubled young men turned a minister’s attention to mental health, inspiring him to become an advocate in the field and create services that work to heal and empower hurting individuals and families. In the early 1990s, the Rev. John Mendez, pastor of Emmanuel Baptist Church in Winston-Salem, received a call from a high-school teacher requesting he speak to three students who were repeatedly acting out in her class. Mendez met with the young men, and within fifteen minutes of their discussion, the 16-year-olds were in tears. One had a father in jail, one had a mother addicted to crack cocaine, and another contemplated joining a street gang.
“These guys were not bad; they were hurting,” Mendez says. “And we’re not addressing the pain that these guys and hundreds of others like them are going through every day.”
Realizing he didn’t know enough to offer solid guidance at the time, Mendez enrolled in the Postgraduate Center for Mental Health in New York City, where he earned a certificate in pastoral counseling and psychotherapy. From there, he began conducting pastoral counseling and mental health advocacy work at Emmanuel Baptist and throughout Winston-Salem. He established the Howard Thurman Counseling Center at the church where members and students of the institution’s after-school program can receive free short-term resolution counseling and attend workshops on mental health issues like grief and depression.
He also became a board member of the Darryl Hunt Project for Freedom and Justice, providing mentoring and counseling to former inmates as part of the organization’s ex-offender re-entry program.
He graduated in June from the Institute of Contemporary Psychotherapy and Psychoanalysis in Washington, D.C. Mendez dreamed of creating a mental health program to help individuals like the troubled teens and so many others – children, adolescents and adults – whose paths he crossed throughout the years. That dream became a reality in August, when Mendez and colleagues Carolyn Burns-Speller and Karen Harris established MindSight Counseling and Consultation Services. The program was created to serve as an additional resource in the local mental health arena, providing counseling and a source of advocacy for those in the broader community who suffer from mental health challenges and trauma. Services are available to address the gamut of mental health topics, including but not limited to anger management, chemical dependency, depression, grief and loss adjustment, problematic attachment patterns, and sexual abuse.
He graduated in June from the Institute of Contemporary Psychotherapy and Psychoanalysis in Washington, D.C. Mendez dreamed of creating a mental health program to help individuals like the troubled teens and so many others – children, adolescents and adults – whose paths he crossed throughout the years. That dream became a reality in August, when Mendez and colleagues Carolyn Burns-Speller and Karen Harris established MindSight Counseling and Consultation Services. The program was created to serve as an additional resource in the local mental health arena, providing counseling and a source of advocacy for those in the broader community who suffer from mental health challenges and trauma. Services are available to address the gamut of mental health topics, including but not limited to anger management, chemical dependency, depression, grief and loss adjustment, problematic attachment patterns, and sexual abuse.
From the psychoanalytic approach, early childhood experiences can influence behavior. Deprivation and a lack of positive feedback from caretakers during early development can have a negative impact on how individuals relate to others as adolescents and later as adults, and can lead to self-destructive behavior, Mendez says. The experience of oppression can also have a negative impact on the psyche, he says. MindSight helps individuals to become self-aware, empowering them to work through inner issues to heal and transform their lives.
“It’s about freeing the person from within, so that they can be fruitful, productive, cohesive and well without,” Mendez says. “We want to be able to address that inner part of the person; to move them from being against themselves, to being for themselves.”
Burns-Speller and Harris, the state-licensed clinicians of MindSight, are also members of Emmanuel Baptist, serving in the counseling ministry. Burns-Speller, chairperson of the Howard Thurman Counseling Center at the church, says long-standing societal stigma and shame attached to mental illness keeps individuals, particularly within the African American community, from seeking treatment. It’s her hope that through programs like MindSight and others, that seeing a counselor becomes normalized.
“We all have concerns in our lives from time to time, and it’s OK to seek the help that you need to get past those concerns,” Burns-Speller says. “I think it’s commendable that people take the initiative to move on and move forward, as opposed to remaining in a place where they are not happy.”
Mendez says that there’s a history of mistrust in the African American community concerning mental health treatment, and the medical establishment in general, which serves as a barrier to seeking help. Not to mention, he adds, some may be unaware of any problems or in denial. The costs of care can be a challenge as well. His advocacy surrounding mental health is about helping individuals and families get the help they need.
“As a pastor I deal with people all the time and I see what they struggle with,” Mendez says. “I get some insight into their emotional life as well as their spiritual life. There’s a lot of pain we have to deal with.”
Ministry of Faith and Good Works
In the coming year, Mendez will celebrate his 30-year anniversary as pastor of Emmanuel. He’s led the congregation in establishing a number of ministries, and supporting local, national, and international causes – drawing faith and social justice together as one. His journey with Emmanuel began when he took the helm in December 1983 after leaving Pleasant Grove Baptist Church. He says the honeymoon period was short-lived as he “walked into a storm.” Seven months after stepping into the pulpit, Mendez found himself involved in a local uproar over the Darryl Hunt case. Hunt, an African American man, was wrongfully convicted of the rape and murder of a white newspaper editor. He spent nearly 20 years in jail before being exonerated.
“(Hunt) had really gotten a bum deal,” Mendez says. Mendez co-founded the Darryl Hunt Defense Fund and helped raise money to assist with Hunt’s appeals. Just completing seminary, Mendez also at the time became immediately involved with several international issues as part of the World Council of Churches and the National Council of Churches, including the apartheid struggles in South Africa and the wars of El Salvador, Nicaragua and Guatemala.
Fighting on the Block to Fighting for Freedom
Growing up as a teenager in Harlem, Mendez was beaten frequently by members of an area gang. In efforts to stop the beatings, he and his younger brother arranged for Mendez to fight the gang leader over the course of several days. Mendez won and inherited the group. But he didn’t stay; he says he “turned around and never looked back.” He credits civil-rights activist, the Rev. Fred Shuttlesworth, with inspiring him to make the change and enter ministry.
“When I heard him preach it created a crisis of conscious,” Mendez says. “I couldn’t do it anymore; I couldn’t fight anymore.”
Mendez felt he wanted and needed to make a difference. He began in Harlem and the South Bronx working to help free individuals from drugs, pimps and police brutality. As part of a group of young people and with the aid of a teacher, he wrote letters to the mayor and police department concerning injustices he witnessed around him – particularly involving corruption within the police department.
“They weren’t going after the drug dealers,” he reflects, “they were coming after me for exposing them.”
Where Church and Social Justice Meet
Mendez grew up attending Mount Olivet Baptist Church in Harlem, where preachers like Shuttlesworth and others were frequently present. The pastor was Dr. O. Clay Maxwell, an international figure who was very close to the family of Rev. Martin Luther King. He also was president of the National Congress of Christian Education of the National Baptist Convention.
“It was a very powerful church because he was president,” Mendez says. “We heard some of the greatest orators and preachers and leaders in the world.”
Exposure to ministers who applied the teachings of their faith to social-justice efforts greatly influenced Mendez. In addition to Shuttlesworth and Maxwell, other influencers included the reverends Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., Gardner C. Taylor and Adam Clayton Powell, to name a few. “Activism as a part of ministry was all I knew,” Mendez says. Mendez left New York for North Carolina to attend Shaw University in Raleigh where he studied philosophy and African American history. He joined the Pan-African Movement and participated in struggles to end segregation. He attended graduate school at the Interdenominational Theological Center in Atlanta. He wasn’t ready for seminary then, he says, because he was heavy into the Pan-African Movement at the time so he dropped out after a year and traveled to Africa. Along with other members, he organized a national African liberation support committee that provided material and moral support for the liberation struggles in South Africa, Zimbabwe (then Rhodesia), Namibia, Angola and Mozambique.
Mendez has served on several international fact-finding commissions, including investigations of war crimes in Angola, Nicaragua and El Salvador, and sacred land-rights struggles in South Dakota and Arizona. He also served with other religious leaders on a special peace commission to Iraq. He earned a Master of Divinity degree from Southeastern Baptist Theological Seminary in Wake Forest and a Doctor of Ministry degree from United Theological Seminary in Dayton, Ohio. He serves on national and international boards and committees, and conducts speaking engagements throughout the country.
‘Liberation, Bottom Line’
Reflecting on his nearly 30 years of service as pastor of Emmanuel, Mendez says he’s thankful for the freedom the congregation has given him to lead and participate in worldwide causes and events. It wasn’t easy for them.
“We had a lot of criticism and a lot of political leaders and churches and preachers thought I wasn’t doing ministry, that I was causing trouble,” he says. He’s also thankful for his wife, the former Sarah Lee Howard, and adult children Sekou and Jamila, who were always supportive.
One of his proudest moments at Emmanuel was participating in the national program Strategic Approaches to Community Safety Initiative, also known as SACSI, which brought together local law enforcement, clergy and members of the community to reduce gun violence. The church continues to focus its ministry on counseling and education, Mendez says. It houses the Benjamin Mays Academy and Kemet Kids for youth after-school tutorial and cultural programs. The church, in collaboration with the city of Winston-Salem, also is in the planning stages to build senior housing and basic facilities in east Winston-Salem.
“It’s not about blessing the status quo, it’s not about blessing people to feel like they got to accommodate their own oppression and suffering and pain – that they got to take it and there’s a better world when you die. We want that better world before you die,” Mendez says. “So it’s about liberation, bottom line; liberation, healing and giving people hope.”
No comments:
Post a Comment