wfn.org | NCC Honors Andrew Young, Other Ecumenical Leaders

[CAROL.FOUKE@ecunet.org]

National Council of the Churches of Christ in the U.S.A.
Contact: NCC:
Web: www.ncccusa.org; New York office: 212-870-2227
NCC11/16/2000  FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

NCC HONORS ANDREW YOUNG, OTHER ECUMENICAL LEADERS, PROGRAMS
Offering Benefits Hosea Williams’ Program; Several Atlanta Ministries
Honored

	November 16, 2000, ATLANTA, Ga. – Andrew Young was hailed as
“friend” and “prophet,” “brother” and
“leader” this evening (Nov. 16) at a reception in his honor,
held during the National Council of Churches annual General Assembly and
involving a host of Atlanta business, religious and other civic leaders.

	Young – the NCC’s President in 2000-2001 -- worked alongside
Martin Luther King, Jr., in the struggle for racial justice, served Atlanta
as its Mayor and the United States as Ambassador to the United Nations, and
now chairs Goodworks International, fueling responsible investment in Africa
and the Caribbean.

His civic and community contributions have early roots in a 1951
NCC-sponsored conference of the United Christian Youth Movement and in his
three years on staff in the National Council of Churches Youth Division of
Christian Education, beginning in 1957.

At tonight’s reception, he had as many words of praise for the NCC as
others had for him.  “I got caught up in the ecumenical spirit,”
he said.  In the NCC is “where all the seeds were planted.”

Young expressed his support for the NCC’s ministries of justice,
education and unity, and its humanitarian service and witness through Church
World Service.  His promotion of the CWS Moringa Tree Program has helped
spread the word about the tree’s remarkable value as a local,
sustainable solution to malnutrition in Africa, especially among infants,
children and mothers.

The reception raised $25,000 from Atlanta community leaders toward a
year-end goal of $50,000 for the work of Church World Service, with 15
percent of the proceeds to remain in Atlanta to assist with local hunger
relief efforts.

	Following the reception, General Assembly delegates and guests shared a
“sacrificial meal” of salad, soup, bread and fruit and then
presented awards to outstanding ecumenical programs and leaders.

Several were from Atlanta, beginning with Project U Rescue and its Director,
Margaret Carson, of Atlanta, “for her leadership in community
empowerment at the grassroots level, with focus on enabling women and their
children to become self sufficient through education, home ownership,
employment, and spiritual vitalization.”

Also honored were and the Micah 6 Project and five participating Atlanta
congregations: Ebenezer Baptist Church; First AME Church; First Presbyterian
Church; and St. John’s Lutheran Church, Atlanta, and Sagrada Familia
Luterano, Doraville.  Micah 6 represents innovation in ecumenical leadership
in 38 congregations across the United States with ministries of justice,
compassion and spiritual renewal.

	Also honored this evening, with Church World Service awards, were two
outstanding CROP WALK volunteers:

- Blanche LeMonn, a Presbyterian, who first participated in the Central
Hunterdon CROP WALK out of Flemington, N.J., at age 85.  She celebrated her
102nd birthday on October 5, and raised $16,000 for the October 15 CROP
WALK, bringing her 17-year fundraising total to $136,656.  Because she was
unable to travel, Mrs. LeMonn’s award was accepted by her friend Dr.
Basil McKenzie.

	- Gloria Jones, also a Presbyterian, who saw the Charlotte, N.C., CROP WALK
as a stepping off place for her students to get involved in community
service and global issues.  She helped develop a now nationally recognized
curriculum on SYSTEMS, using hunger, its causes, effects and the way
communities handle the problem of hunger as the example of a way that
systems operate.  Her dynamic approach to learning took her students out of
the four walls of the classroom to work at Kids Café, a local food bank
project, participated in CROP WALK and enlisted others’ participation
because of their own knowledge and enthusiastic response to fighting hunger.

	Also honored were: 

	- Everett C. Parker, White Plains, N.Y., of the United Church of Christ for
his role as a “Pioneer in Public Interest Communications and the Role
of the Church in Mass Media.” His best known – but by no means
only -- achievement was challenging the license renewal of WLBT in Jackson,
Mississippi, in 1964 because of their practice of discrimination against
African American members of their own community – a victory which not
only resulted in a change of ownership at the station but most importantly
gave the public standing before the Federal Communications Commission.

	Commented Andrew Young in presenting the award, “Whenever you see a
black news anchor, wherever you find diversity in television and radio, most
if not all credit goes back to the ministry of Everett Parker.”

	- Paul Gorman, founder and director of the National Religious Partnership
for the Environment, based at the Episcopal Cathedral of St. John the Divine
in New York City. The Partnership has not only strengthened and facilitated
the environmental justice ministries of the National Council of Churches,
but the US Catholic Conference, the Evangelical Environmental Network and
the Coalition on the Environment and Jewish Life as well. The Partnership
has also provided the four religious groups with the opportunity to work
together to protect and restore God’s creation.

Bible Translation and Utilization Awards were presented to: 

- Bruce Manning Metzger -- Key architect of the New Revised Standard Version
of the Bible; He has lived, studied, and written in Princeton since 1938. 
He joined the Standard Bible Committee of the NCC in 1952, just as the RSV
was being completed, and took over as Chair of the committee in 1975, just
as the revision that led to the publication of the NRSV was getting started.
For fifteen years he guided the work of the committee until the translation
was complete, and then saw it through the press almost single-handedly.  He
has stepped down as chair but continues on the Committee.

- United Methodist Bishop Melvin George Talbert, Ecumenical Officer for the
United Methodist Church Council of Bishops; Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.)
Associated Stated Clerk, the Rev. Dr. Eugene G. Turner, and NCC President
Andrew Young, in whose honor three, one-year $10,000 fellowships
administered by the Fund for Theological Education.  The fund’s North
American Doctoral Fellowship Program is a fellowship designed to support
talented racial or ethnic minority students currently enrolled in programs
leading to the PhD or ThD in religion or theology.

The 2000-2001 fellowships are held by three doctoral students: Awilda
Gonzalez-Tejera at Boston University (Bishop Melvin George Talbert Fellow);
Margaret Aymer at Union Theological Seminary in New York (Dr. Eugene G.
Turner Fellow), and Darryl Jones at Union Theological Seminary (Reverend
Andrew Young Fellow).

Lending particular poignancy to the evening’s ceremonies was the news,
received just a few hours before, of civil rights leader Hosea
Williams’ death.  In recognition, the $2,450 offering collected during
the ecumenical awards program was designated for Williams’ “Feed
the Hungry” program in Atlanta, which has fed as many as 40,000 to
50,000 at Thanksgiving, Christmas and Easter.

-end-