Mixing religion & business:
Reiland, Ralph R
REPORT FROM MISSISSIPPI
MIXING RELIGION & BUSINESS
SOMETIMES IT WORKS
What are the chances of upward mobility
for a group of poor, black church people-
96 percent on welfare-in rural Missis-
sippi,...
...No, the playing field isn't even, but we make it even...
...What's at work in Meridian, Mississippi, and Utaw, Alabama, is the basic belief that every person is created in the image of God, a bottom-line conviction that values both the Ten Commandments and the 3-Rs, starting with people's spiritual values before their skills, and emphasizing less dependence and more plain business sense...
...We stopped the 'crayfish syndrome': when you put all the crayfish into a pail, one starts out, and all the others reach up and pull him down," says Bishop Luke Edwards, the pastor of the church...
...Welfare broke up the families, put the father out of the home, and let another man lay up there all he wanted...
...What is their prospect for economic success if they don't get a dime from the Ford Foundation, the Fortune 500, or from rich celebrities and athletes...
...It's a song...
...The school's rules aren't complex: no drinking, no smoking, no drugs, no weapons, no TV, and no dating...
...I lived in those neighborhoods...
...Midnight basketball isn't needed here...
...The bottom line at reach is to focus on opportunities rather than on obstacles, says Edwards...
...We're saving the federal government $300,000...
...Maybe it is a prescription to reverse the deadly disease gripping America's inner cities...
...Now they own a gas station, two motels, three restaurants, a housing development, four thousand acres of farmland, a thousand head of cattle, a hog operation, two chicken farms, two meat-processing plants, a construction company, a steel fabricating plant, a school, a clinic, and a nursery...
...Eleanor Walker, office administrator at reach, says that "investigations and regulations by the welfare department and the Department of Human Services have forced us to spend a tremendous amount of money" on things like restroom changes and more fire equipment...
...In 1977, it initiated its reach program for economic independence...
...One-hundred-and thirty-two homes are being built for sale to the public...
...Think what we can do in New York or Chicago...
...And it's lights out for students at 8:30...
...That was the situation of the Greater Christ Temple in Meridian, Mississippi, a church founded in 1959...
...As Bishop Edwards likes to note, "There's no easy road to success...
...He owns Amel's Restaurant in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.gh, Pennsylvania...
...Racism is an excuse...
...Also in Utaw, the church runs a motel...
...Some of it," she says, "seems like harassment...
...Heritage Construction-a business owned and operated by the congregation's members-supplies the heavy equipment: eighteen-wheelers, backhoes, dump trucks...
...They regularly outscore their counterparts in state schools...
...Look at the Cubans out in the ocean coming here...
...It is the land of opportunity...
...Black people," says Edwards, "can be just as successful as anyone else, but our leaders have entrapped us in government handouts...
...But maybe it is the rest of the flock that is off the track...
...To those watching from the ground, any bird that is out of formation risks being seen as misguided...
...Or assistance and set-aside contracts from the Department of Housing and Urban Development or the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission...
...Still, blacks come out here and look around and say, 'Some white man must be behind all of this.'" Green Acres is the congregation's new fifty-four-acre housing subdivision in Utaw, Alabama...
...The local government, for example, has served up costly mandates and even conducted investigations...
...She adds that a big disappointment has been tensions with some leaders in the local naacp: "It's an ideological split...
...We proved we can make it in Mississippi, the poorest state in the nation, and Alabama isn't far behind...
...Then there is ace (Accelerated Christian Education), the congregation's K-12 boarding school...
...Bishop Edwards believes that self-reliance comes from a conservative approach, self-help, and less dependence on government...
...There's no welfare or food stamps now...
...RALPH R. REILAND Ralph R. Reiland is an associate professor of economics at Robert Morris College...
...The naacp is totally the opposite...
...Recently, the local juvenile courts ordered twenty-six kids to enroll for a straight dose of rehabilitation...
...A black bishop who doesn't look beyond the poor community itself for salvation, who sees potential business success in the faces of his flock, may seem naively out-of-step...
...There have been setbacks along the way...
...Handouts robbed our people, robbed them of their self-respect...
...The program began with peanuts-literally: Church members bought peanuts with their food stamps and resold them in the church basement...
...REPORT FROM MISSISSIPPI MIXING RELIGION & BUSINESS SOMETIMES IT WORKS What are the chances of upward mobility for a group of poor, black church people96 percent on welfare-in rural Mississippi, the poorest state in the nation...
...On top of math and reading, students learn how to run a hog farm and operate restaurants...
Vol. 122 • June 1995 • No. 11
