Fifty California pastors, along with blacks in the fields of business, media, and entertainment, are working to combat a famine that threatens 150 million Africans.
The pastors formed a group called Black American Response to the African Crisis (BARAC) to raise $3 million to send to Africa. The organization already has raised $60,000 from contributors in the Los Angeles area. The money came in as a result of the airing of “The Desert’s Edge,” a television documentary produced by BARAC members who traveled to Africa.
“We really haven’t even launched our fund raising yet,” says Frank Wilson, associate pastor of Mount Zion Baptist Church in Los Angeles. “We have a very realistic objective of raising $3 million by the end of 1984.”
To raise that amount, BARAC has solicited donations from large corporations. Other fund-raising options include a major thrust into churches nationwide and benefit concerts featuring well-known black entertainers willing to donate their services. Some who have agreed to participate include singers Marilyn McCoo, Ray Parker, Jr., Stevie Wonder, the Pointer Sisters, and Smokey Robinson; athletes Bubba Smith, O. J. Simpson, and Muhammad Ali; and actress Jayne Kennedy.
BARAC is working with World Vision, a Christian relief organization, to funnel donations to famine-stricken areas. BARAC was formed shortly after Glandion Carney, director of urban ministry at World Vision, read news reports of the African famine. He expressed his concerns to California pastors Chuck Singleton and J. Alfred Smith. The three invited 100 ministers to join them in their concerns. They later formed BARAC with the 50 pastors who responded to their invitation.
Carney says BARAC was formed with three purposes in mind—“sensitizing America to the African crisis, … raising monies to care for people affected by the famine, and … keeping the crisis in the forefront of the media.”
Shortly after the organizational meeting, a group of BARAC members traveled to Africa where they produced “The Desert’s Edge.” BARAC member Larry Carroll, a reporter and anchorman at KABC-TV in Los Angeles, helped produce the documentary. His station broadcast the program five consecutive nights on the 11 o’clock news, immediately after coverage of the Olympics. Television stations in San Francisco, Detroit, Chicago, and New York also plan to broadcast the documentary.
“We found that [African] people were simply uplifted that a handful of black Americans would care enough to share in their suffering,” Carroll says. “When we saw the hope in their faces, it strengthened us as much as them. Right now, we’re not sure if raising money and distributing food—our original intentions—are not just byproducts of something much greater that God is doing for both black Americans and black Africans.”
