Bianca is described as a 2 year old African-American, 2 feet, 5 inches tall, 25 pounds, brown hair, and brown eyes. She was last seen wearing a pink dress, pink tights, pink shoes, and a purple coat, according to an Amber Alert issued last week by the Michigan State Police.

Detroit Police Chief Ralph Godbee Jr. said that the “authenticity and credibility of the original version of events is under intense scrutiny by our investigative team,” seeming to suggest that police do not believe what the father told them happened. Bianca’s father,D’Andre Lane, failed a polygraph test. However, he gave the police permission to enter his home to search for anything suspicious. He claims that he doesn’t have anything to hide and that he would never hurt his own child. He is cooperating with the police in this investigation.

 D’Andre Lane appeared on Nancy Grace’s show saying: “My daughter is a beautiful little girl. She has a bright personality. She’s the type of person that lights up a room when she walks in it. She’s very intelligent. She’s just a wonderful little girl to be around.”

 On December 5^th approximately 150 volunteers turned out to help look for Bianca. The police are still looking for her. I am urging anyone with information on the possible whereabouts of this precious little girl to contact Detroit police. Let’s bring Bianca Jones home.

Love, peace, hope, and joy,

Rachel Araya

The issue in the hearing was whether profits from Kilpatrick’s tell-all book would be forfeited to pay off the remaining $860,000 in restitution Kilpatrick still owes Detroit.

In court, Assistant Prosecutor Robert Spada told the judge that a company owned by Kwame Kilpatrick’s sister, Ayanna, signed the book deal one day before the former mayor was sent to prison in May 2010.

“We have a contract between Ayanna Kilpatrick’s company, and the publisher, and we don’t know where Mr. Kilpatrick figures in there, and where all the profits are going,” said Spada.

Prosecutors then questioned the man named on the book’s cover as a co-author, Khary Turner. Turner’s wife is one of Kwame Kilpatrick’s cousins. Turner testified he hasn’t been paid yet, and he’s still negotiating his contract with Ayanna Kilpatrick’s company, AKtion Enterprises, LLC.

“My understanding is, she [Ayanna] has assumed control of Mr. Kilpatrick’s rights, so in our deal, she is presenting herself as an acting co-author. That’s part of what’s still being negotiated,” said Turner.

Under the Michigan Crime Victim’s Rights Act, someone convicted of a crime cannot profit from the crime until victims are compensated. Kilpatrick attorneys, Daniel Hajji and Kevin McCallister, tried to argue that the law at issue is unconstitutional. But at times, that only seemed to anger the judge.

“You’re not helping his case – you’re not answering the question — that’s the problem. You’re making things worse, now I’m more confused than ever,” said Judge Groner.

In the end, Judge Groner ruled that an escrow account must be set up to collect book profits, so Kilpatrick’s restitution can be paid to the city of Detroit.

The judge also said he would sign an order to set up an escrow account for the Michigan Department of Corrections, because the state can go after Kilpatrick to re-pay the cost of his incarceration.

Some may argue that the idea that anyone would profit from a crime is an affront to our system of justice and is something that every crime victim should be protected from. While many find it despicable that there is a market for stories and other ways criminals may be able to exploit their crimes for profit,  a market does exist.

The Michigan law was designed to prevent criminals from profiting from their crimes through the commercial exploitation of their stories. Any money that could potentially be earned by a criminal resulting from the commission of a crime would first be used to compensate their victim and others who have the right to sue under the law.

Is this law fair?

Some questions that may come to Kwame Kilpatrick’s mind:

1. Does this mean you will own the publishing copyright on my life?
2. At what point will I stop ‘paying’ for my crimes?
3. Where does my future career lie as a former criminal trying to help other criminals rehabilitate and earn a living through writing?

Convicted criminals already ‘pay’ for their crimes through sentencing and where the conviction is sound, rightly so. But the government is now trying to impose secondary punishments and a further removal of liberty, specifically the freedom to profit from memoir writing.

Please read this brief description about “Surrendered:”

Learn the truth behind his meteoric rise in politics, the crippling controversies surrounding his administration, his downfall and, ultimately, his redemption.

The saga that led to Kwame Kilpatrick’s imprisonment is widely known. He was convicted and served time for lying under oath about an affair with his chief-of-staff, a long-time friend. He was sentenced to prison after being convicted of probation violation. In his soon-to-be released memoir, Surrendered: The Rise, Fall and Revelation of Kwame Kilpatrick, he chronicles his rise and demise while offering a revealing intimate look at his family, his current surreal life in prison and his hopes for the future.

I’m ordering a copy of the book. Are you?   

Love, hope, peace, and joy,

Rachel Araya

The Michigan House and Senate passed legislation approving a four-year lifetime limit on welfare benefits. If you have been on welfare for four years, you are automatically cut off.

Come October 1, 12,600 families will be cut off the rolls. The family unit will also lose their insurance and their food stamps. Then every month, more people will be eliminated. If you have been on welfare for say three years, you only have one year left. Ohio is also going through this process — they are trying to legislate a three-year time limit. These are examples of the wholesale cuts that are taking place in the Rust Belt against that section of the working class that has the least. If allowed, it could eventually affect the whole working class.

The four-year time limitation is part of TANF (Temporary Assistance to Needy Families), the welfare “reform” bill that was passed in 1996 under the administration of Bill Clinton.

However, it was left up to the states as to when they would implement this part of the bill. Some states rushed to implement it and others tended to leave the time limitation alone.

Now, the present administration in Lansing—via Gov. Snyder—is not only implementing the time limitation with the blessing of the legislative branch of the government, he is going back retroactively.

However, the original legislation establishing the four-year limit was signed by Governor Jennifer Granholm at the beginning of her second term. She promised during her campaign that she would not sign it. She used as an excuse that the legislation only cut off adults, not children in the family. It is unclear from the legislation whether that provision is still maintained.

The Governor says people are to get a job. How can you get a job in an economy that is not producing jobs for the vast majority of people? People are getting thrown off the job rolls by technology. People are going into the Michigan Welfare Rights Office who are trying to match up two or three jobs. They still can’t survive. They are not grossing the amount of money they would have realized if they had their old jobs. They need assistance.

The Michigan government claims that by moving to do the four-year time limitation, an estimated $77.4 million will be saved. There is no consideration given to what will happen to people without money to buy food or shelter. They will be out on the street.

If the masses of people do not rally against these particular cuts, it will set the foundation for the cuts to go deeper. They will continue the taxation on the pension, eat away at other benefits of the workers, and eliminate certain programs not relevant for the corporate interests. If we allow this to go forward, what is it going to do for social security on a federal level? Will there be a time limit for social security? We have to think about this. Enforcement of this bill would set the foundation for all of our benefits to be eliminated.

Something to think about.

Peace, love, hope, and joy,

Rachel Araya

 A computer forensic expert testified in the Casey Anthony murder trial that she found Internet searches for chloroform on the Anthony family’s computer. The chemical chloroform can be used to knock someone unconscious, or at very high levels, can kill someone especially a toddler.

The prosecution claims that Casey Anthony, 25, used chloroform to render her 2-year-old daughter, Caylee, unconscious before wrapping three pieces of duct tape around the toddler’s nose and mouth to suffocate her. Moreover, the prosecution claims that Anthony searched the internet for instructions on how to make chloroform.

Police computer forensic expert, Sandra Osborne, testified that she was able to find Google searches for chloroform on the family’s computer in spite of the deletions.  

The searches were found in a portion of the computer’s hard drive that indicated they had been deleted. Detective Sandra Osborne of the Orange County Sheriff’s Office testified that the deleted material remains on a computer’s hard drive and can be retrieved until it is overwritten by new data. It had not been overwritten on the Anthonys’ computer, she said, and “a complete Internet history” was obtained.

Defense attorney, Jose Baez, challenged Osborne during cross-examination, asking her if it was possible that another computer user could have searched for the term chloroform besides Casey. Osborne affirmed that possibility. She also said that there were searches for, Zenaida Fernandez-Gonzalez, whom Anthony claimed to be Caylee’s nanny, on July 16, 2008. Notably, there were no previous searches for that name before that day.

The prosecution team is building up its case against Anthony with a heavy emphasis on the chemical chloroform. The foremost expert on human decomposition science, Dr. Arpad Vass, said the amount of chloroform in the air and carpet sample from Anthony’s trunk was nearly 10,000 times that found in normal human decay. Prosecutors claim the test proves that Caylee’s dead body was in her mother’s car trunk. Vass affirmed that storyline, “I can find no other plausible explanation other than that to explain all the results we found.” Vass has studied human decay for 20 years.

Caylee Anthony, the doe-eyed toddler that stole the nation’s heart after family photos were released, died on June 16, 2008. The medical examiner ruled it a homicide by undetermined means.

The defense claims that Caylee died in the family’s pool in an accident and that George Anthony, Casey’s father, helped keep the death a secret and helped his daughter dispose of the body. I don’t believe that line of defense at all.

Casey Anthony is accused of first degree murder. If convicted, she could be sentenced to death. Given the evidence of chloroform and human decomposition in the trunk of Casey’s car, Casey Anthony may very well be a dead woman walking. Chloroform has a sweet smell. Given this fact, the sweet smell of justice might be just around the corner.

Love, hope, peace, joy,

Rachel Araya

It might be of interest for you to know that a relative called police to report a dispute at the home of Lashanda Armstrong who was only 25 years old. Shortly afterward, she drove off a boat ramp several blocks away from her apartment approximately 60 miles north of New York City.

Officials believe Lashaun Armstrong hit the button on a power window to escape from the driver’s side as the minivan began to sink in the 45-degree water. Fire Chief Michael Vatter said that the vehicle went under within two minutes. “He got out of the car, got up onto the boat ramp, turned around and it was gone,” Vatter said.

A passer-by found a soaked and cold Lashaun Armstrong along the shore and took him to a firehouse for help. The boy was so distraught that he had difficulty talking but ultimately told firefighters what happened, the fire chief said. Rescuers went immediately to the river.

Divers searched for about an hour before finding the minivan submerged in 10 feet of water about 25 yards from the shore. They used a tow truck to pull it up the ramp. Everyone inside was dead.

Before this tragic incident occurred, Armstrong appeared stressed-out when she picked up the children at the Young and Unique Christian Development Child Care, said Shaniesha Strange, who is a supervisor in the infant room.

“The only thing she’d say was that she was so alone,” Strange said. “She’s a single parent. She takes great care of her kids, goes to school and works. She really needed a helping hand.”

The man police identified as the father of the three dead children, Jean Pierre, was questioned. Police would not give details. He apparently didn’t live with the mother and children, and he could not immediately be located for a comment.

Hetty Minatee, another teacher at the day care center said that Armstrong enrolled the four children there in September. At first Jean Pierre would come in with Armstrong in order to pick up the kids. “A couple of weeks ago, she came in a little upset,” Minatee said. “She said, ‘Miss Minatee, I don’t want the father to pick the kids up or have any contact with them.’ She said she was trying to get a court order so he could never see the kids again.”

Why did LaShanda want the court order against her ex? That is the question! This mother intentionally killed herself and her children. People want to know why a seemingly loving mother would resort to suicide-murder.

Before everyone judges her, consider this: when people are dealing with domestic situations often there’s no one to step in and help resolve the issue. People like to instigate or standby on the sidelines and talk about you more than help you. I know this to be true because I have spent a considerable amount of time talking and working with battered women and their children. Not to mention the fact that I was a battered woman myself. Fortunately for me, I decided not to have children with my abusive ex-husband.  I couldn’t imagine having children with a man who was violent towards me. Obviously, I didn’t care what happened to me but I do care about children. I couldn’t put them in harm’s way. As a matter of fact, I think that I would protect them from an abusive man by any means necessary. I know this about myself. Would I send them to GOD if my man or my ex began abusing them? I don’t know. I don’t think so but the truth is no one knows what they are capable of in a hostile environment, which reminds me of Toni Morrison’s book—Beloved.

In Beloved, the mother, Sethe , feels that it is her moral duty to rid the children of a life that cannot be tolerated. In order to save her children, she feels as if she must kill them, so that they will never be able to experience the hardships and trouble of slavery that she went through. Even though she overcame slavery, she doesn’t want her children, her ‘best things,’ to even have to think about going through what she went through. It is especially important “that the girl-children be made safe, first and foremost. They are the ones who can grow to have their milk stolen, their wombs defiled, their womanhood mocked” (Morrison 179). In Beloved, we see the constant idea of the stealing of a woman’s milk. In order to prevent this from happening, to protect her children, Sethe’s “best things,” from experiencing what she did, she begins by killing her first-born daughter in an attempt to unify them together on the other side where they will be safe from all the dreadful outcomes of slavery.  The concept of protection and destruction comes into play whole-heartedly throughout Beloved.

 As Sethe speaks and explains to Beloved why she had to kill her “best thing” she says, “My plan was to take us all to the other side. They stopped me from getting there, but they didn’t stop you from getting here. Ha ha. You came right on back like a good girl, like a daughter” (Morrison 240). Here, we see the story coming full circle. Sethe had to get her daughter out of this world in order for her to be safe… She had no intention of leaving her oldest daughter cold and alone in an unfamiliar place. Rather, she had every intention in joining her, along with her other children, had she not been interrupted. Sethe clearly values her children as is evident in her descriptions of them, and she does for them what no person can do.  Clearly, Sethe does not want to hurt her children. Instead she wants to protect them from the almost unbearable life of slavery. Sethe’s love was so “thick” that she was the only person able or strong enough to cause her daughter pain so that she could not be dirtied, but would always be clean and safe, on the other side.

Sethe killed her daughter as a means of protecting her. Morrison makes that clear. Again, no one knows what they will do in a hostile situation until it happens so it is an act of futility to say I would never do this or that. The mind is a powerful entity. Sometimes it plays tricks on you. I do not advocate or condone this kind of behavior. Killing yourself or others is just flat-out wrong. The Bible tells us that it is a sin so I don’t think that I would intentionally go against the commandment—“Thou shall not kill.” However, I am not certain because I have never been in that particular situation because I don’t have any children. I am merely explaining that the mind and heart will make you do things that are seemingly out of your known character. I will say that Lashanda and Sethe were two loving mothers who wanted to protect their children by any means necessary. Let me just say for the record that there is a season and a period for everything. And you will find your seasons and periods in the Bible in “ Ecclesiastes Three.”

Love, hope, peace, and joy,

Rachel Araya

I’ve come to realize that you can’t attract a healthy love as long as you are holding on to all of his STUFF. I am not a professional love guru by any stretch of the imagination. However, I have had my share of men cluttering up my life with their self-serving STUFF. In a way, I am definitely a self-proclaimed expert; I know how to throw out that messy man.  Clutter makes attracting a loving man either difficult or just flat-out impossible.

The first step to decluttering your love life is to break up with your no-good man. If you have a good man, hold on to him for dear life. If you do not have a man who completely adores you, it is time to get rid of him and all of his STUFF! I don’t mean possessions either; I mean all of the mental STUFF that he deposited in your mental bank account.

Try the completely honest approach. This is perhaps the best way to break up with your partner. In order to avoid a messy break up, you must be brutally honest with him. I have learned through my own trials and tribulations that breaking up with someone via e-mail, phone, or text are generally considered rude and tacky. It is best to schedule a meeting with him so you can address your issues face to face. It is real simple: Just tell your man that you are no longer interested in seeing him. It works! Trust me. Be careful. Don’t let him drag out the issue at hand. You are under no obligation to explain exactly why you are ending the relationship. If he has any pride at all, he will simply accept defeat and back off. Oh, ladies, please do not be the bearer of bad news. It is not necessary to crush his ego with news that you are sleeping with his best friend. Just a joke!!!! Please ladies, seriously, have some compassion.

Try the avoidance approach. If you would rather avoid a discussion about the relationship, it is okay to simply disappear. Perhaps he doesn’t deserve an explanation. If this is the case, don’t answer the phone, set up a filter in your e-mail to delete his messages automatically, block him from seeing your facebook page, and change your phone number. Without a doubt, he will get the not so subtle hints and he will move on without you. Of course, a persistent man might show up at your job or at your home. If this happens, please do not be scared to call the police. Statistics prove that some men turn violent after a break-up. If your man is abusive or turns abusive, please consider filing a police report and obtaining a personal protection order. The PPO is not just a piece of paper. The PPO gives you some power. Please call the police and put his ass in jail. You deserve better. Get rid of that piece of trash!

The break up with me approach works too. You can either tell him how horrible you are, or you can start doing things to show him how horrible you are. Please refrain from violence. Violence is not necessary. My advice is simply to get on his nerves so doggone bad that he will leave skid marks.  The one advantage to taking this approach is you probably won’t hurt his feelings or crush his fragile ego.

Once you declutter your life institute the “no contact rule.” Please give your ex some time to get over you. We all need time to heal after a break-up. Spring is in the air. Don’t just clean your home. Dig deeper! Clean up your love life: Throw out that unhealthy relationship, go into therapy, and plant new seeds. Remember, bloom time is almost here.

Love, hope, peace, and joy,

Rachel Araya

Since Detroit 1-8-7 aired on September 21, 2010, Detroiters have been worried about their reputation. After watching the show, I would say that we need not worry any longer. The show has evolved from episode to episode as a gripping survival tale of the blue on the tough streets of Detroit.

Unfortunately, there are a lot of haters and naysayers who are complaining that the depiction of Detroit is negative. A television show based out of Detroit does not tell the entire story of Detroit; it’s about the crime that is trying to corrupt Detroit but to no avail. The show’s brilliant writers found a way to make Detroit a strong supporting character to the heroic main characters. We see Detroit (as a character) overcoming tragedies and reviving itself through its diverse police force.

Detroit 1-8-7 is telling a story of redemption. Detroit’s finest are triumphant in their mission to save the city from the unscrupulous individuals who try to give Detroiters a bad name. The ABC procedural is in no way declaring that all Detroiters are bad guys. Rather, it is telling stories about Detroit’s finest homicide detectives catching the bad guys and putting these scumbags in jail in order to keep the city safe.

The cast of Detroit 1-8-7 includes Michael Imperioli as Detective Louis Fitch, James McDaniel as Sergeant Jesse Longford, Aisha Hinds as Lieutenant Maureen Mason, Natalie Martinez as Detective Ariana Sanchez, Shaun Majumder as Detective Vikram Mahajan, D.J. Cotrona as Detective John Stone, Jon Michael Hill as Detective Damon Washington, and Erin Cummings as Dr. Abbey Ward.

On top of the street drama, the main characters secret lives unfold slowly as they try to balance work with their personal dilemmas.  The storyline for each character is growing from one episode to the next, which is keeping the show fresh and clean. The characters’ gruff compassion is enough to captivate our minds and our hearts.

Detroit 1-8-7 is employing a lot of people in the city. From the crew to extras, many Detroiters are happy to see a check in this economy. As a viewer and an extra on the show, I hope that ABC will listen to Detroit and all of the fans of Detroit 1-8-7 when we stand up for this show.

We have been given the opportunity by executive producers Jason Richman, David Zabel, Kevin Hooks, David Hoberman, and Todd Lieberman to show the world what we are made of. It would be a travesty if all we did was complain about the nuances in the show such as the odd backdrops. We really need to accept Detroit for who she is—the old and dilapidated as well as the beautiful historic landmarks. I understand that the media has been cruel to us. Sometimes we can be cruel to ourselves as well. We cannot turn our backs on the city of Detroit. We should support the show. It is an awesome television drama that is generating a lot of revenue for the city of Detroit.

I would be remised if I didn’t tell the readers that Detroit 1-8-7 was nominated for Outstanding Drama Series at the 2011 NAACP Image Awards for portraying African-Americans in a positive light. If outsiders can see our metamorphosis on camera every week, perhaps we should take a second look for ourselves.

Please sign the Renew Detroit 1- 8-7 petition. Go to http://www.petitiononline.com/detro187/petition.html.  This is a golden opportunity to show the world what we are made of! We must stand up for Detroit!

Love, hope, peace, and joy,

Rachel Araya

Slavery was “an unqualified evil to the negro, the white man, and the State,” said Abraham Lincoln in the 1850s. Yet in his first inaugural address, Lincoln declared that he had “no purpose, directly or indirectly, to interfere with slavery in the States where it exists.” He reiterated this pledge in his first message to Congress on July 4, 1861, when the Civil War was three months old.

What explains this apparent inconsistency in Lincoln’s statements? And how did he get from his pledge not to interfere with slavery to a decision a year later to issue an emancipation proclamation? The answers lie in the Constitution and in the course of the Civil War. As an individual, Lincoln hated slavery. As a Republican, he wished to exclude it from the territories as the first step to putting the institution “in the course of ultimate extinction.” But as president of the United States, Lincoln was bound by a Constitution that protected slavery in any state where citizens wanted it. As commander-in-chief of the armed forces in the Civil War, Lincoln also worried about the support of the four border slave states and the Northern Democrats. These groups probably would have turned against the war for the Union if the Republicans had made a move against slavery in 1861.

Most Republicans had become convinced by 1862 that the war against a slaveholders’ rebellion must become a war against slavery itself. They put increasing pressure on Lincoln to proclaim an emancipation policy. This would have comported with Lincoln’s personal convictions, but as president he felt compelled to balance these convictions against the danger of alienating half of the Union constituency. By the summer of 1862, however, it was clear that he risked alienating the Republican half of his constituency if he did not act against slavery.

Moreover, the war was going badly for the Union. After a string of military victories in the early months of 1862, Northern armies suffered demoralizing reverses in July and August. The argument that emancipation was a military necessity became increasingly persuasive. It would weaken the Confederacy and correspondingly strengthen the Union by siphoning off part of the Southern labor force and adding this manpower to the Northern side. In July 1862 Congress enacted two laws based on this premise: a second confiscation act that freed slaves of persons who had engaged in rebellion against the United States, and a militia act that empowered the president to use freed slaves in the army in any capacity he saw fit—even as soldiers.

By this time Lincoln had decided on an even more dramatic measure: a proclamation issued as commander-in-chief freeing all slaves in states waging war against the Union. As he told a member of his cabinet, emancipation had become “a military necessity…. We must free the slaves or be ourselves subdued…. The Administration must set an example, and strike at the heart of the rebellion.” The cabinet agreed, but Secretary of State William H. Seward persuaded Lincoln to withhold the proclamation until a major Union military victory could give it added force. Lincoln used the delay to help prepare conservative opinion for what was coming. In a letter to journalist Horace Greeley, published in the New York Tribune on August 22, 1862, the president reiterated that his “paramount object in the struggle is to save the Union, and is not either to save or destroy slavery.” If he could accomplish this objective by freeing all, some, or none of the slaves, that was what he would do. Lincoln had already decided to free some and was in effect forewarning potential opponents of the Emancipation Proclamation that they must accept it as a necessary measure to save the Union. In a publicized meeting with black residents of Washington, also in 1862, Lincoln urged them to consider emigrating abroad to escape the prejudice they encountered and to help persuade conservatives that the much-feared racial consequences of emancipation might be thereby mitigated.

One month later, after the qualified Union victory in the Battle of Antietam, Lincoln issued a preliminary proclamation warning that in all states still in rebellion on January 1, 1863, he would declare their slaves “then, thenceforward, and forever free.” January 1 came, and with it the final proclamation, which committed the government and armed forces of the United States to liberate the slaves in rebel states “as an act of justice, warranted by the Constitution, upon military necessity.” The proclamation exempted the border slave states and all or parts of three Confederate states controlled by the Union army on the grounds that these areas were not in rebellion against the United States. Lincoln had tried earlier to persuade the border states to accept gradual emancipation, with compensation to slave owners from the federal government, but they had refused. The proclamation also authorized the recruitment of freed slaves and free blacks as Union soldiers; during the next 2 1/2 years 180,000 of them fought in the Union army and 10,000 in the navy, making a vital contribution to Union victory as well as their own freedom. Emancipation would vastly increase the stakes of the war. It became a war for “a new birth of freedom,” as Lincoln stated in the Gettysburg Address, a war that would transform Southern society by destroying its basic institution.

Meanwhile Lincoln and the Republican party recognized that the Emancipation Proclamation, as a war measure, might have no constitutional validity once the war was over. The legal framework of slavery would still exist in the former Confederate states as well as in the Union slave states that had been exempted from the proclamation. So the party committed itself to a constitutional amendment to abolish slavery. The overwhelmingly Republican Senate passed the Thirteenth Amendment by more than the necessary two-thirds majority on April 8, 1864. But not until January 31, 1865, did enough Democrats in the House abstain or vote for the amendment to pass it by a bare two-thirds. By December 18, 1865, the requisite three-quarters of the states had ratified the Thirteenth Amendment, which ensured that forever after “neither slavery nor involuntary servitude … shall exist within the United States.”  Finally, the evil institution of slavery was abolished in the United States forever.

Love, hope, peace, and joy,

Rachel Araya

Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr: “Giving Thanks for a Committed Life”

 O GOD, our Heavenly Father, we thank thee for this golden privilege to worship thee, the only true GOD of the universe. We come to thee today grateful that thou hast kept us through the long night of the past and ushered us into the challenge of the present and the bright hope of the future. We are mindful, O GOD, that man cannot save himself, for man is not the measure of things and humanity is not GOD. Bound by our chains of sin and finiteness, we know we need a savior. We thank thee, O GOD, for the spiritual nature of man. We are in nature but we live above nature. Help us never to let anyone or any condition pull us so low as to cause us to hate. Give us the strength to love our enemies and do good to those who despitefully use us and persecute us. We thank thee for thy Church, founded upon the word, that challenges us to do more than sing and pray, but go out and work as though the very answer to our prayers depended on us and not upon thee. Then, finally, help us to realize that man was created to shine like the stars and live on through eternity. Keep us, we pray, in perfect peace, help us to walk together, pray together, sing together, and live together until that day when all of GOD’s children—Black, White Red, and Yellow—will rejoice in one common band of humanity in the kingdom of our LORD and of our GOD, we pray. Amen.

Our most celebrated leader, the Reverend Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., walked everywhere in Montgomery, Alabama during the bus boycott. He was sidestepping snarling dogs, swinging billy clubs, and torrential house fires in Birmingham. We remember the gentle, patient courage of Dr. King as he made the teachings of Jesus the literal rule for loving, which is evidenced in this prayer.

Sojourner Truth: “Do For Me GOD”

O GOD, you know I have no money, but you can make the people do for me, and you must make the people do for me. I will never give you peace till you do, GOD. Amen.

The indefatigable Sojourner Truth, a former slave, who became outspoken in her defense of human dignity, often spoke to GOD in a no-nonsense way. She believed that if she was to do GOD’s work on earth, Divine Providence should be with her each step of the way.

Harriet Tubman: “Unconditional Affirmation”

I’m going to hold steady on YOU, an’ YOU’VE got to see me through. Amen.

This ejaculation was recited regularly by Harriet Tubman when she led runaway slaves to freedom to the North. The nineteenth century “Moses,” herself having been enslaved, never lost a person along the Underground Railroad and attributed her success to her deep belief in GOD. She would say this prayer just as she began to engineer one of her daring escapes.

W.E.B. DuBois: “Give US Grace”

Give us grace to dare to do the deed which we well know cries to be done. Let us not hesitate because of ease, or the words of men’s mouths, or our own lives. Mighty causes are calling us—the freeing of women, the training of children, the putting down of hate and murder and poverty—all these and more. But they call with voices that mean work and sacrifices and death. Mercifully grant us, O GOD, the spirit of Esther, that we say: I will go unto the King and if I perish, I perish. Amen.

Educator and civil rights activist W.E.B. DuBois became the first African-American to receive a doctorate from Harvard. He was an agnostic for much of his life. Nonetheless, he wrote dozens of exquisite spiritual entreaties. In the above prayer, he recalls the Old Testament figure of Esther, who daringly confronts her husband, King Xerxes, and demands that he overturns his court’s order to kill all the Jews of the Persian Empire.

Malcolm X: “Prayer to Allah”

I submit to no one but Thee, O Allah, I submit to no one but Thee. I submit to Thee because Thou hast no partner. All praise and blessings come from Thee, and Thou art alone in Thy kingdom. Amen.

This prayer, which stems from the teachings of the Koran, has had some significance in recent U.S. history. To Malcolm X, who was an avowed racist for a good portion of his adult life, it became the catalyst for his personal conversion. On a pilgrimage to the Mecca in 1964, he witnessed tens of thousands of Muslims, including “blond-haired, blue-eyed men I could call my brothers,” reciting these words, and he realized that he could no longer adhere to his prejudices.

Mary McLeod Bethune: “Symphony of Life”

Father, we call Thee Father because we love Thee. We are glad to be called Thy children, and to dedicate our lives to the service that extends through willing hearts and hands to the betterment of all mankind. We send a cry of Thanksgiving for people of all races, creeds, classes, and colors the world over, and pray that through the instrumentality of our lives the spirit of peace, joy, fellowship, and brotherhood shall circle the world. We know that this world is filled with discordant notes but help us, Father, to so unite our efforts that we may all join in one harmonious symphony for peace and brotherhood, justice and equality of all opportunity for all men. The tasks performed today with forgiveness for all our errors, we dedicate, dear Lord, to Thee. Grant us strength and courage and faith and humility sufficient for the tasks assigned to us. Amen.

Born into a family of seventeen children whose parents had once been slaves, Mary McLeod Bethune became one of the most indefatigable voices for global equality and understanding in the immediate years before and after World War II. She was a self-assured educator, activist, and columnist. She found that prayer was one of life’s great comforts. Here she expresses her firm belief in the beauty and diversity throughout the world.

Duke Ellington: “The Duke’s Prayer”

L

    GOD

V

E

In the last years of his life, musician and composer Duke Ellington realized that his time was short and he regretted that he had not fully conveyed in his music his deeply held spirituality. In his quest to add to his legacy, he wrote a series of ecumenical pieces that became part of his Sacred Concerts. In his last Christmas card to his friends, he personally designed this prayer as a personal expression of GOD’s inextricable love for mankind.

Frederick Douglass: “In Search of Freedom”

You are loosed from your moorings and are free; I am fast in my chains and I am a slave! You move merrily before the gentle gale and I sadly before the bloody whip! You are freedom’s swift-winged angels that fly round the world; I am confined in bands of iron! O that I was free! O that I were on one of your gallant decks, and under your protecting wing! Alas! Betwixt me and you, the turbid waters roll. Go on, go on. O that I could also go! Could I but swim! If I could fly! O, why was I born a man of whom to make a brute! The glad ship is gone; she hides in the dim distance. I am left in the hottest hell of unending slavery. O GOD, save me! God deliver me! Let me be free! Is there any GOD? Why am I a slave? I will run away. I will not stand it. Get caught or get clear. I’ll try it. I had as well died with ague as the fever. I have only one life to lose. I had as well be killed running as die standing. Only think of it; one hundred miles straight north, and I am free! Yes! God helping me, I will. Amen.

Through prayer and introspection, Frederick Douglass tried to make sense of his enslavement on a Maryland Plantation. This piece, calling out to GOD for deliverance, was taken from his riveting autobiography published seven years after his escape to freedom.

Paul Laurence Dunbar: “A Prayer”

O LORD, the hard-won miles

Have worn my stumbling feet:

Oh, soothe me with thy smiles.

And make my life complete.

The thorns were thick and keen

Where’er I trembling trod;

The way was long between

My wounded feet and GOD.

Where healing waters flow

Do thou my footsteps lead.

My heart is aching so;

Thy gracious balm I need. Amen.

Paul Laurence Dunbar was the first African-American to gain widespread fame as a poet. His ability to use different conversational dialects made his works accessible to a vast audience. This particular prayer was written as a personal retrospection not long before he died at the age of thirty-four, in 1906, from tuberculosis.

George Washington Carver: “Upon Seeing a Sunset”

O GOD, I thank Thee for such direct manifestation of Thy goodness, majesty, and power!

George Washington Carver was an inventor, scientist, and social activist. He believed that human knowledge and the hand of GOD were inextricably linked. While one could not test a personal relationship with GOD to the satisfaction of individuals through human quantification, he believed in the existence of an Almighty and that Divine Providence had a plan for everyone. In composing this simple expression of Thanksgiving, Carver was recording his reactions in witnessing a spectacular sunset not far from his laboratory at Tuskegee University in Alabama.

Coretta Scott King:” A Public Prayer for Divine Perspective”

Eternal and everlasting GOD, who art the Father of all mankind, as we turn aside from the hurly-burly of everyday living, may our hearts and souls, yea our very spirits, be lifted upward to Thee, for it is from Thee that all blessing cometh. Keep us ever mindful of our dependence upon Thee, for without Thee our efforts are but naught. We pray for more Thy divine guidance as we travel the highways of life. We pray for more courage. We pray for more faith and above all we pray for more love. May we somehow come to understand the true meaning of Thy love as revealed to us in life, death, and resurrection of Thy son and our Lord and Master, Jesus Christ. May the Cross ever remind us of Thy great love, for greater love no man hath given. This is our supreme example, O GOD. May we be constrained to follow in the name and spirit of Jesus, we pray. Amen.

Coretta Scott King, the wife of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., wrote her own spiritual essays and prayers attesting to her abiding faith in GOD. Her spiritual horizons expanded dramatically during her marriage and throughout her life-changing experiences in the civil rights movement in the 1950’s and early 1960’s, when she composed this piece.

The prayers of Black people reflect the various elements of our heritage; it also brings forth personal religious beliefs and vital social reform. We are powerful beyond measure when we pray together.

Love, hope, peace, and joy,

Rachel Araya

Ancient Egypt is often cited as one of the starting points of human civilization, yet it is hardly mentioned that the ancient Egyptians were actually African in race. African scholars argue against this as a biased interpretation of world history. By revealing that ancient Egypt had a black population, they establish that Africans, not Europeans, played the major role in the early stages of human civilization. This has a big impact on black history’s objective of making African-Americans understand that they belong to a rich heritage. Cheikh Anta Diop, a Senegalese historian and anthropologist, asserts that the Nile Valley and its indigenous African population was the southern cradle of civilization with ancient Greece as the northern counterpart. By doing so, he is able to demonstrate how Egyptian culture influenced the rest of the continent. More importantly, he relocates Egypt and its significance back into the African world and opposes official history that classifies Egypt as Mediterranean or Middle Eastern. Black history is thus firmly rooted and starts in ancient Egypt, which is why the state of Egypt should be important to us.

Our past connects us to present day Egypt and the Egyptian fight for freedom. On January 25,  2011,  extensive civil unrest and rioting in Egypt began as part of a wide class demographic protest against President Mubarak’s regime. The spark of revolution in Tunisia seemed to set fire to decades worth of smoldering grievances against the heavy-handed rule of Egypt’s president, Hosni Mubarak. Tens of thousands of protesters took to the streets calling for Mr. Mubarak to step down, defying bans and curfews. It was by far the most serious challenge to the regime in memory: A curfew order was ignored, and the army took a semi-neutral stance on enforcing the curfew decree. Some protesters, a very small minority in Cairo, expressed nationalistic views against what they deemed was foreign interference, highlighted by the then held view that the U.S. administration had failed to take sides, as well as linking the local police with Israel. Despite some local violence and shop looting, the situation seemed more controlled than the rioting chiefly through the moderating effects of the army’s presence on the street. The protesters turned the rioting and looting into a revolution before the world’s eyes. The Egyptians’s are now keeping their eyes on the prize–the removal of Mubarak’s regime.

The turmoil in Egypt – and its potential for grave consequences for U.S. policy throughout the region – was inevitable. The recent WikiLeaks release of U.S. diplomatic reports showed that Washington knew what problems it increasingly faced with the regime of President Hosni Mubarak and his three decades of iron-fisted rule.

President Mubarak’s iron-hand rule is the root cause of the uprising. The protests, which followed the government-toppling demonstrations in Tunisia, swelled over the last few days to encompass a broad swath of Egypt’s population. They reflect anti-Mubarak sentiments as well as frustration with problems such as high unemployment, inequality, and immigration. The protesters themselves want the president to step down and allow free and fair elections so that a new democracy can come in and resolve these growing problems.

Egypt’s uprising, even more perhaps than the scenes recently from Tunis and Thursday in Yemen, has drawn global attention for its mixture of youth outrage, police crackdown, and the presence of long-marginalized political rivals of Mubarak’s regime – namely Mohamad ElBaradei, the Nobel Prize winner who has said he would run for president if Mubarak allowed it. ElBaradei flew to Egypt earlier in the week to join the protests. Last Friday afternoon, ElBaradei had been placed under house arrest.

In a statement ElBaradei declared, “The Egyptian people will take care of themselves. The Egyptian people will be the ones who will make the change. We are not waiting for help or assistance from the outside world, but what I expect from the outside world is to practice what you preach, is to defend the rights of the Egyptian to their universal values.”

We share an intricate history with the egyptian people along with a legacy of struggle. We understand the fight for freedom. We fought for our own freedom here in America. This has left an indelible imprint on the minds of all Africans in the diaspora. Let us not forget about our own slave rebellions that took place in the South. There was always resistance. We should never forget that the slave rebellions and the Civil War prompted Abraham Lincoln to free the slaves. If you look closely at the many uprisings, you will discover that the people always played a big role in freeing themselves.

President Obama no longer supports his old ally in his regime. A new day is coming. A new Egypt is on the rise.

Please keep Egypt in your prayers.

Love, hope, peace, and joy,

Rachel Araya