Word: jemison
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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Clergy in black churches, who exercise far more influence over their members than is the case in mostly white denominations, consider the cause well worth pushing for, even if Jackson loses. The Rev. T.J. Jemison, the president of the National Baptist Convention, U.S.A., Inc. (N.B.C.U.S.A.), estimates that between 90% and 95% of the denomination's ministers support Jackson. Says Jemison: "Even if he's not successful, he will raise the hopes of young blacks and aspirations of blacks around the country." Los Angeles Baptist Pastor E.V. Hill, who is openly campaigning for the candidate, says that "Jesse Jackson...
...insists Noble Sissle Jr., Jackson's Florida campaign coordinator. But enthusiasm can bring churches dangerously close to the mark. At the Baton Rouge meeting of the N.B.C.U.S.A., one pastor proposed that the denomination as a whole endorse the Jackson candidacy. "We can't do that," explained President Jemison, asking instead that members stand and give personal endorsements. As thousands rose to their feet, a smiling Jemison remarked, "We're not breaking any rules as a corporate body." -By Richard N. Ostling. Reported by Joseph N. Boyce/Baton Rouge and Jack E. White with Jackson
...last month, is finding that a run at the presidency cannot be fueled by ego and limelight alone. Clergymen this summer optimistically promised that $10 million could be raised for Jackson from the nation's network of black churches. But that plan was opposed by the Rev. T.J. Jemison, leader of the powerful National Baptist Convention, U.S.A., Inc., who opposes mixing politics and religion. So Jackson's fledgling advisory committee has been reduced to sending out 2,000 solicitation letters, using a slapdash mailing list of friends and black businessmen, to raise seed money. Consequently, prominent politicians like...
...Jemison, who remains as pastor of the Mount Zion Church, is trying hard to tap the vast potential of his large but loosely organized and ill-financed denomination. He is moving younger men into key positions and offering women a bigger role. Jemison has dispatched full delegations for the first time in years to meetings of the National and World Councils of Churches. He also hopes to rouse the 26,000 local congregations, concentrated in the South, into mounting an evangelistic crusade to win 3 million new adherents. Not so incidentally, they would also be registered as voters...
...Jemison's spirit of social activism does not extend to endorsing Jesse Jackson if he should decide to run for President. Jackson is nonetheless enthusiastic about the Jemison administration, calling it the "dawn of a new era." He notes that N.B.C.U.S.A. is not only the nation's largest black organization but a highly independent one as well. "This group could be the key force in political change in 1984 and beyond," declares Jackson. It remains to be seen whether Jemison will be able to galvanize the latent strength, political and spiritual, of the organization he waited so long...