Battle for a Community's Soul
by Ann Wellington, Linda Christas Class of '12
Rev. Jesse Lee Peterson
Recently, Rev. Peterson was voted by the Linda Christas College student body as their role model for 2011. Along with that designation, the College awarded Rev. Peterson an honorary Chair of Leadership which will be held in Rev. Peterson's name in perpetuity.
Others who have been awarded honorary Chairs in perpetuity at the College include Pat Boone (Singer, Actor, Composer of Exodus), Dr. Paul Davies (Templeton Prize), Efrem Zimbalist Jr. (Pulitzer Prize) and author Sue Grafton (Anthony Award).
One of the questions this reporter posed to Rev. Peterson had to do with the problems of America's families, and particularly those of black families.
In response, Rev. Peterson referred to his article entitled "The Soul of the Black Community Is Dead."
In that article, Rev. Peterson says,
"Seventy percent of black babies born out of wedlock has lent itself to an epidemic of fatherlessness. The black woman carries no respect for a man of such weakness and harbors perpetual hatred for this man who bedded, and then abandoned, her. The father's absence made the mother the influential figure to the family. But her anger toward the man who left her is so great that she cannot be a positive influence. The black youth is victimized by his mother's dominant hatred. With no father as a figure of guidance and respect, the child can't help but yield to this force of darkness.
So the young black man comes to what he is today -- incidentally a perfect representation of the overall downfall of the black community. No direction. No drive. No soul. Generally today, young black men carry with them no sense of responsibility to be productive, no aversion to undisciplined behavior, nor any indication that they can overcome the sin into which they're born. Rather than work and strive to move up in the world, they opt to abuse drugs, chase women, and act like immature fools.
Usually when one is born into dire circumstances he is accompanied by a sense of desperation to succeed. He innately feels that he must work hard, harder than all those around him just to be able to survive. The young black man of today feels none of this. His focus is on his next joint. The emasculation of the young black man by the dominant black women has destroyed this drive. His innate sense now is to lust after a woman. In doing so, the black man is forever subject to "momma."
As we can see, Rev. Peterson is quite emphatic that the absence of fathers in black American homes has led to today's tragic black family profile.
American Beach 1950
Successful black businesses serving the black community were common, as were black millionaires such as Abraham Lincoln Lewis and A.G. Gaston.
The literacy rate among black children was tested (by the American military) at 80% in 1940. Today, black literacy is estimated to be approximately 60%, a 20% drop from the rates experienced by blacks prior to WWII, and the formal integration of the public schools.
Prior to the Second World War, recreation areas reserved exclusively for blacks, such as Florida's American Beach, provided excellent, tension free areas where blacks could enjoy themselves free of racial tension and violence. There are no such facilities available today in the United States.
Communities such as Gary, Indiana were free of black on white violence, and black neighborhoods were clean and well cared for. A trip to the predominantly black area of Gary in 2010 convinced this reporter to remain in her vehicle and drive on through at or above the speed limit.
Of course, both in the 1960's as today, the people using police and military power to force behaviors approved by the Democratic Party platform didn't themselves partake of the consequences. Those at the top of the government structure still sent their children to the best private schools. They still lived in protected compounds, Kennedy at his exclusive estate in Massachusetts, and Johnson on his sprawling Texas ranch.
But, for the rest of the Country, for the middle class, black and white alike, as is true today, the consequences of their policies have been dire.
As Rev. Peterson has said, as of this writing, 70% of all black families have no father in the home, as opposed to 24% for the majority.
Black youths from fatherless homes are twice as likely as youths of the majority to be incarcerated.
Fatherless black families are more than three times more likely to have children exhibit behavioral problems than the majority.
Black children are three times more likely than the majority to drop out of high school.
Black students report far lower life expectations than students of the majority. Black children are 75% more likely to be found in juvenile detention centers than children of the majority.
Black youth from fatherless homes display much greater levels of aggression than children from homes where the father is present.
And, finally, black children living in neighborhoods with predominantly fatherless households are 300% more likely to engage in criminal activity than if these children were not growing up in these kinds of situations.
Of course, the majority of citizens have not escaped the consequences of forced liberal policies either.
In his documentary Stupid in America (See it at YouTube), John Stossel points out how America's high schoolers are unprepared to compete with graduates from other developed countries. With so many dysfunctional children in our classrooms, teaching much in the way of substantive material ranges from difficult to impossible. The United States maintains the highest expulsion rate of any public school system in the world. However, expulsions of individual students take place only after they have hampered serious study in classrooms for years.
The National Education Association labels all American public school teachers "heroes" for just showing up each day to wage a losing battle for literary in America.
In other words, along with "the death of the black soul" in Rev. Peterson's words, everyone in America has suffered as the government continues to use force in areas where in times past personal integrity and the exercise of freedom sufficed.
With 3.2 million prisoners today, the U.S. government jails the largest percentage of its citizens of any country in the world, including nations our liberal politicians condemn as abusers of human rights.
And, yet, liberals continue to push for the same kinds of programs that we can now in hindsight clearly see have scorched America with dead and dying dreams.
The reason Rev. Peterson is a conservative is because conservative values are what made America great in the first place. Self reliance, minimum government, and the elimination of the use of police power to force corrupting circumstances on every level of American society.
Today, America's people are no longer the best educated or most creative. True, we still have the biggest bombs, the fastest and most destructive military weaponry on the planet, and we still have leaders like President Obama collecting Peace Prizes while sending drones to neighborhoods throughout the world. But, none of this is going to bring character or freedom back to America.
Rev. Peterson, of course, believes that Jesus Christ and the miracle of the Holy Spirit is the answer.
This reporter believes that he is correct. However, for those more cynical; for those who have given up on religion as a character builder, let us simply say that we need to find the strength to let go of government as the answer to our ills, and look once again to the individual family.
God willing, we can still be saved.
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08/28/2011 
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This is a splendid article. Such honesty is rarely seen in America today. For five decades we have told lies about black America, as our prisons continue to fill with brothers.
The troubles that Rev. Peterson has had (the cancellation of his network radio and TV programs) trying to get the word out are indicative of how the U.S. liberal community continues to lie to itself.
The Scriptures say to condemn the behavior but love the person. Instead, we praise the behavior and wonder why so many brothers end up on death row.
If you can never tell the truth about where violent rap music, dressing like clowns or only half dressing, or lack of scholarship (too white) leads; if every time someone rejects bad behavior, Jesse Jackson shows up at the door screaming "racist," the result is going to be exactly what we have seen. Jackson gets wealthy, and brothers go to jail in huge numbers.
In addition, the schools have been taken over by thugs, teachers can't teach, BUT are blamed for not succeeding in the middle of chaos and disrespect; and, our streets are virtual war zones, where police refuse to patrol because every time they try to enforce the law in black areas, somebody screams "racism."
And, in all of that, we have BOND and the Rev. Peterson trying to make a difference with minimal resources.
Linda Christas has dedicated as much as a million dollars this year I understand to help black kids who want to learn. But, of course, because Linda Christas supports serious scholarship and not the sham our public institutions have become, someone is bound to come out of the closet screaming "racist" because of LC Academy's high standards. Must be because the curriculum is racially biased that the brothers have trouble with calculus.
Geraldine Walsh 
08/28/2011
Great Article! Never heard of BOND before today. But, I am going to change all that.
Regae 08/29/2011
A marvelous article. I am so happy that we chose Linda Christas for our son Robert's education. He has been a student for several years now, and has grown up happy and full of life and hope.
I have nightmares about what would have happened to Robert had we sent him to our public school here in Detroit. So many of Robert's public elementary school friends are now in jail.
I pray that Linda Christas and BOND will work together for a long long time.
Sable J. 09/03/2011
This article couldn't have come at a better time. With everyone but Clarabelle calling Rev. Peterson an insane right wing radical, we find this article which step by step outlines what Jesse Lee Peterson has been saying for years, and the mob has been not wanting to hear for years. The fact is that the black community has fallen a long way since the 1960's in every category you can mention. Oh the few at the top have become rich, but that's it. The rest of the black community is either in jail or unemployed. A terrible result of following people like Jesse Jackson blindly.
Bo Weller 09/03/2011
Does anyone here know the types of things this man stands for? He believes that slavery was a gift from God and minimized the struggle blacks went through by comparing a slave shift to a second class crowded flight. How anyone, especially this who purport to be of God can endorse him is mind boggling. He seems to only focus on a certain percent of the black population and goes around applying those things to all black Americans. He never speaks of moral decline as a whole as it is affecting every American. He only focuses on calling blacks immoral lazy shiftless and every other stereotype in the book. That does not mean that some of the things he says does not hold merit. But the majority of them are lies and are harmful for him to spread.
Student Editor's comment (Denise Fountainbleau, Class of 2012):
-This honorary position is NOT the choice of Linda Christas administration but of the School's students, the majority of whom voted for Rev. Peterson in the "most admirable" election for their graduation year.
-Student Reasoning: Unfortunately, at present, the black community experiences a murder rate eight times higher than the next ethic group. Absent fathers are nine times more frequent in the black community than in any other group.
Rev. Peterson recognizes that the black community's behavior is almost never examined publicly because, like this commenter, the black community is quick to condemn anyone who understands and has the courage to expose its reality to the public. The black community tends too often to point its finger outward, blaming others for its plight, while Rev. Peterson does not. Thus the admiration he generates among youth.
Finally, while others complain, Rev. Peterson provides a home for fatherless members of the black community. We would ask what this commenter is doing other than behaving just as too many other members of this ethic community who are quick to shout "racist" instead of tending to their community's ills.
-To clarify: Linda Christas is NOT a religious organization. Nor does it espouse any one religious position.
canon 04/24/2012
My goodness. I thought for awhile that interest in BOND would just fade as students moved on to other issues. I am so happy that hasn't happened so far.
Hopefully BOND and Linda Christas will continue to work together.
I have been checking the BOND site, and, although they have been re-publishing the work of Linda Christas students, I don't see any independent BOND initiatives to take advantage of the LC scholarships mentioned in the last article.
BOND and Linda Christas: What a great combination for good in the black community.
As an outsider, I just hope that no one thinks that the STUDENT energy we have seen so far is automatically self generating.
It is going to take hard work on the part of both Linda Christas and BOND to keep this relationship alive for the benefit of all.
As a parent of two Linda Christas students, I have "heard" through the grapevine that one of the populations that has been hard to recruit into the LC student body during the past decade are black students.
Web based programs don't seem to have the same appeal in the black community as programs that include sports. It is not possible, of course, for Linda Christas, as web based programs, to maintain sports teams, and that seems to be a deal breaker when LC Ambassadors speak with black students who are considering enrolling in either the Academy or the College.
Despite the superior outcomes of Linda Christas Academy in terms of college acceptance, for example, black students seem to want the expensive and time consuming football and basketball programs first and foremost in many cases. This makes recruiting black students very difficult.
Whereas Asian students have been the first to take advantage of the progressive successes of the Linda Christas model.
Perhaps BOND and Linda Christas working together can correct this deficiency. However, as I've said, it isn't going to happen unless BOND works just as hard as Linda Christas to make it known that significant tuition reductions for the black community are on offer at both LC Academy and College.
This article clearly demonstrates the dire need.