The Importance of “The Message

For The Moment”
part 2

     

My own experience in having a Message for The Moment was when I was working with The Atlanta Project, a program created in 1991 by the late President Jimmy Carter, for economic and social development in Atlanta’s under-served communities. Atlanta’s corporate business and social service communities pledged to work with TAP in helping it to meet its goals. As this process was being organized some of the leadership in Atlanta’s Black community started criticizing the program, and made accusations of it being disrespectful and patronizing to that leadership. These accusations started causing distrust of the program which hindered its progress.

I started working with the program just as this conflict started. I saw the negative impact it was having with the staff and its leadership. As this scenario was growing I observed that there was no plan to effectively deal with it. While considering what could be done to solve the problem, I attended a meeting for organizing the program’s ability to determine what projects would be identified and adopted to receive help, mandated by the program and the community residents. In the middle of the meeting a woman named Alfreda Capers came into the meeting and told the participants that she has dedicated her home to helping Crack Cocaine addicted mothers, who were having Crack Cocaine addicted babies. It was called the Changed Living Recovery Residence.

 

She stated that she was about to lose her house, due to running out of money because of the service she was providing to these mothers. When she told us this, the participants voted that her problem would be dealt with immediately. The next day the leadership committee and its corporate partners visited Ms. Capers house and saw her operation and what her needs were. She presented her needs list to the committee and Ted Renner, the Chairman of the Atlanta Area Business Council and the Marriott Corporation stated, “We will take care of everything on it.” 

 

The help that Ms. Capers needed to help others was committed to her without any deliberation. We saw a process that could turn on a dime to help people yet it was still being criticized. At this point I decided to craft a message to be sent to the Metro-Atlanta community, that describes what I witnessed. I wrote a letter to the editor of the Atlanta Journal-Constitution newspaper. Mr. Neil Shorthouse, who I worked for and who was the co-founder of Communities in Schools of Georgia, helped me by getting it to his contacts at the AJC. 

 

I forgot about the letter until Neil came up to me and said that I should be looking out for a letter from President Carter, I asked him why and he said “He liked your article.” I still had not thought anything about it until the day a letter from President Jimmy Carter was delivered to me. It was to the point and stated that he did indeed like the article. I was not aware of how it was received by our staff or the community at large until I heard it come from Ms. Gwen Davis, an executive on loan from Georgia Power, to help in developing TAP. 

 

She recited how on a Friday morning, the environment was gloomy and dejected at TAP headquarters because of the criticism and accusations from some members in the community. She said that the morning paper started circulating around the office and as it was being read, it helped to change the mood of the office and lift up the spirits of the staff. Hearing this helped me see that the article did what I was aiming for, which was helping people see that what we were doing at TAP mattered. I knew that TAP had grabbed the attention of Atlanta and the rest of the country, on the days that I saw Jane Fonda and Michael Jackson strolling casually through the headquarters building, observing the activity.

 

The most amazing reaction to me was that Neil came up to me and said, “President Carter wants to meet you and take a picture with you.” I had no dreams about that article at all, neither wildest or tamed. But when I was told the former President of the United States wants to meet me and take a picture with me, that was mind-blowing. It is gratifying to have an effort that was meant for good to be viewed as significant. I was later invited to attend a meeting with President and Mrs. Carter, and with other members of the community to discuss and give my opinion, on how we could deescalate a planned protest at an event planned by President Carter. 

 

It was also gratifying that my opinion was heard about things related to promoting the activities of TAP, which led me to me being placed on the Media and PR Committee for TAP. A case in point was Ms. Gwen Davis suggested that we have that event, a block party with food, music and dancing for the East Atlanta community where President Carter was developing TAP. I raised my hand and told her, our community doesn’t need another reason to boogie, we need information also about how we can obtain banking services where they are not prevalent, sources to reveal housing and job opportunities that are available, and healthcare that is accessible. She said, “Your right, lets add that to the party and have all of these resources present.” The event was well attended and successful.

 

I’m not trying to present the idea that my actions were crucial for the community acceptance of The Atlanta Project. I believe the only reason that my article was considered was because of it being connected to President Carter, and Neil Shorthouse, who reported directly to him, was behind the scenes pushing what I was doing. No doubt the ideas of President Carter writing me a thank you letter and taking a picture with me were Neil’s ideas, because he subscribed to the concept that progress can happen when those working to make it happen, don’t care who receives the credit. 

 

This is also the objective of the Carib Voice Radio Network, and its founder, Aubry Padmore. We want to help in delivering your Messages to the people, if they can benefit society and cause it to turn from destruction to construction.

The only way this will happen is by allowing the the truth to be heard by the people. What must stop is the tendency of people making judgments on what they here, without having any knowledge of understanding of what was said. We can’t afford to keeping doing this because this year a lot of information will be presented to the world, which will deal with subject matter that many of us are not may not know about. We must listen to understand in order to solve the problems that trouble the entire world. 

 

If you have your own “Message For the Moment” that can accomplish any of the above, we want to help you expose it, by all means.