Proverbs 22:1 “A good name is to be chosen rather than great riches.”

“Black Reparations is fools’ gold. It demeans both whites and blacks. The message to black America is you can monetize oppression, that your destiny is determined by what white people give you and not what you are able to do for yourself. Reparations is bandied around by people with 6-figure incomes who live in gated communities with their children in private schools, not black people in the inner cities suffering from violence.” This is the directness of Bob Woodson when interviewed recently on Fox News. He continues.

“Reparations is virtue signaling for white candidates. For some white guilty people, it’s an easy fix, but it’s very crippling to the nation. So, hypothetically, if we were to get reparations tomorrow, do you think that there would be fewer shootings in St. Louis or Chicago or Baltimore? No. What problem does it solve?

If whites paid blacks money on Monday and we come back 2 weeks later, what would be the impact on black-on-black crime? What would be the impact of drug addiction? The high dropout rate? It’s lethal to do virtue signaling on the issue of race and appear to be champions. It is pandering. It is insulting to black America, and as I have said, I have suffered my last rich angry black and my last guilty white person.”

Bob Woodson, founder of the Bob Woodson Center and 1776 Unites, knows of what he speaks. Deeply ingrained in the Civil Rights movement of the 1960’s, his passion is to lift up local neighborhoods with the focus on revitalizing low-income communities. And his method? Transforming people from the inside-out.

As a Christian, Woodson designed 1776 Unites to center on a person’s CHARACTER to bring healing and transformation to race relations. As our verse this week says, your character (the Hebrew for ‘name’ is ‘character’) – is worth more than riches.  Let’s hear more about 1776 Unites and the Woodson Center.

“1776 Unites is a group of voices who uphold our country’s authentic founding virtues and challenge those who assert America is forever defined by its past failures, such as slavery. We honor the vision of our nation’s Founders who saw beyond their years. Though discrimination and slavery are a tragic part of our history, America has made strides to realize its promise and abide by its founding principles.

The 1776 Unites curriculum offers authentic, inspiring stories from American history that show what is best in our national character and what our freedom makes possible even in the most difficult circumstances.

1776 Unites maintains a special focus on stories that celebrate black excellence, reject victimhood culture, and showcase black Americans who have prospered by embracing America’s founding ideals.

For 4 decades, the Woodson Center has brought recognition, training and funding to grassroots leaders and organizations working to confront the problems facing their communities and heal their neighborhoods with proven, sustainable solutions. The Center has aided more than 2,600 leaders of faith-based and community organizations in 39 states and helped them attain more than 10 times the funding expended by the Center.” This is excellent work. But as he explains, the ‘1619 Project’ represents strong opposition.

“One of the most virulent and volatile areas of division is race, and the purveyors of animosity have fine-tuned their strategy on this issue, creating a villain composed of ‘white privilege’ and ‘institutional racism’ that must be countered through a game plan of entitlements and reparations for its victims.

The weapon in this warfare is the ‘1619 Project,’ launched by the NY Times in a collection of writings that postulate the ‘actual’ founding of America occurred in 1619 with the arrival of the first slaves on our nation’s shores, and declare that America is essentially and irrevocably rooted in injustice and racism.

The weight of the legacy of slavery and Jim Crow laws is said to be the cause of any and all racial disparity that exists today and is declared as the source of the devastation of crime-ridden, predominantly black inner cities and skyrocketing homicides, as well as the dissolution of families and communities.” Woodson summarizes his mission this way: “We seek to offer perspectives that celebrate the progress America has made on delivering its promise of equality and opportunity, as well as highlight the resilience of its people. Our focus is on solving problems. We do this in the spirit of 1776, the date of America’s true founding.” I encourage you to go to ‘1776 Unites’ website and be encouraged.

The Evidence of Faith’s Substance Article #457