Founded to bring racial equity to Baltimore’s Black community, Associated Black Charities is grounded by faith — a connection that will be celebrated at a spiritual revival next week.
Overview:
Founded by a group of Black businessmen in the 1980s, ABC, as it’s known, executes its racial-equity mission through classes, seminars and other means of demolishing racial barriers to Black progress.
The announcement alone doesn’t seem like news: Next weekend, just after Thanksgiving, Mount Lebanon Baptist Church in Baltimore will hold an old-fashioned revival, with several well-known and distinguished faith leaders scheduled to take the pulpit. The theme — inspiring faith in action — seems in tune with the times.
What has raised an eyebrow or two, however, is that Associated Black Charities (ABC) of Maryland, a secular organization dedicated to closing the wealth gap and ending structural racism, is the event’s sponsor.
While some see a bright line between the faith and secular communities, particularly when it comes to social justice, Chrissy Thornton, ABC’s CEO, sees them as natural allies with a long history of working together for change and upliftment. The focus of the revival is to honor the roots of ABC while also renewing the collective dedication to faith and the community.
Indeed, she says faith is a part of ABC’s DNA: Baltimore’s community, business and spiritual leaders founded it in 1985, determined to advance the collective interests of the city’s Black community.
ABC functions as a partner with the African-American community to level the playing field by targeting race-based barriers that impede the community’s success in business, education, financial well-being, health and technology, to name a few.
Still, Thornton says the organization never shirked from elements of faith in that mission.
“I found a program for something called ABC Sundays,” says Thornton, an alum of Morgan State University, one of Baltimore’s historically Black colleges. “And when I inquired about it, I found that Donna Jones Stanley, now Baker, initiated that during her tenure as CEO. Every Sunday she would be in a different house of worship in Baltimore.”
Many of those Sundays, Baker “would go up during the announcements and introduce the congregation to ABC,” Thornton says. “Sometimes there was a fundraising project and the church would lift an offering to support it.”
Thornton also noticed an ABC Sundays program that happened on Thursday nights.
“When I looked at the program it looked like they had different pastors from various churches leading individual worship components,” she said. “So I knew immediately I wanted to revive that.”
The Dec. 3 revival at Mount Lebanon features Rev. Franklin Lance as the host pastor with Dr. Robert Turner as the revivalist. Also scheduled to appear: Rev. Regina Clay, Bishop Tony W. Torain and Rev. Mark-Anthony Montgomery.
The first such event was a partnership with the Baltimore City Council and “we hooked it up with a toy drive,” Thornton says. But ABC has been in the community all year, holding conversations. She’d love to see a deeper collaboration with the church.
An overwhelming majority of the community conversations have been held in churches all over Baltimore.
“We’re partnering with church leaders and they are giving us space for our meetings,” Thornton says. “We just feel like it feels good to go back to the roots of the organization for the revival. It’s exciting.”
Still, ABC did receive some unexpected pushback following the announcement of the service. Thornton says one community member “pointed out that Black people are not monolithic and Black people are not all Christian. They thought it was disturbing that we weren’t also honoring Islam and Hoodoo.”
Although she could have taken it as an insult, “my leadership style is to embrace opportunities for partnerships,” Thornton says. “And on ABC’s inaugural board, there were pastors, and an imam. We want to have partnerships with anyone who avails themselves of the opportunity.”
While ABC can’t be all things to all people, “We are open to anyone who wants to figure it out together,” she says. “We’ve had meetings in the Jewish community and we have partnered not only with mainstream Judaism, The Associated, but we’ve partnered with Black Jews in our region.”
“My entire staff participated in a seder hosted by Black Jews in our city,” says Thornton. “We’re not opposed to learning and experiencing and lending our support to everyone, whether you’re Black and Christian, Black and Jewish, Black and Muslim, Black and gay, Black and old or Black and disabled.”
Thornton has been ABC’s CEO for two years and her unbounding energy is undeniable. When asked about the source she quickly responded that this is her moment and she’s dedicated to making ABC seen as its work is done throughout the community.
“I feel like I’ve got to get it done because this is a moment.” Thornton says. “And as visible as we are, and as well received as we are being, that can go away in an instant. So I get super charged by making sure we get stuff done, that people believe I’m accessible.”
This article was originally published on WordinBlack.com.
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