Larry Sykes wants to fill Toledo-area religious services with black male faces and spark a movement.
He sent flyers to area churches, mosques, temples, synagogues, and community groups urging male adults to “take a young black male to worship” on the Sunday after Christmas.
VIEW A PDF THE FLIER: Take a black male to church
The African-American Toledo Board of Education member, who grew up poor and without a father at home, said taking more young men to church is a first step toward returning stability to the Toledo-area black community, which is made up mostly of single-mother households, he said.
He said young black men are lost to drugs, crime, violence, and the justice system — in large part because of a lack of formal education.
“We need to address our situation and be honest about it,” he said. “I’m hoping to get African-American men to take back our community.”
A house of worship is the best place to start, he said.
“That is the foundation in the black community. If you can get them into church, you can save them. That is the most structured place in the black community. In going to church, I’m hoping the men-folk will start a movement.”
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SOURCE: Toledo Blade
Christopher D. Kirkpatrick
