Join Harris Chapel Family and the South Florida community as they celebrate Rev. Dr. Jimmie L. Brown ‘Chief’ Jimmie Brown’s Fifth at Harris Chapel and 36 years in the ministry on Tuesday, Aug. 17, 2010 at 7:30 p.m., hosted by Rodney Baltimore of HOT 105.

He has been a United Methodist pastor for 36 years and is currently the senior pastor of Harris Chapel United Methodist Church in Oakland Park, Fla.

Dr. Brown and his wife Michelle have five sons and ten grandchildren.

Dr. Brown is a veteran of the U.S. Air Force (1962-1969). He received the Bronze Star as well as the Air Force Commendation Medal for his service during the Vietnam War.

He is a retired Division Chief of Miami-Dade Police Department 30 years. During his tenure,. Rev. Brown rose through the ranks of Police Officer to that of Division Chief. Upon his retirement in 1999, he was Chief of the Special Investigation Division.

He has hosted the highly rated talk show “HOT TALK” on WHQT-FM for over 20 years and is also an adjunct professor at Barry University, and is the president/CEO of JLB Consulting, Inc.

Dr. Brown is a member of Phi Beta Sigma Fraternity, The Society for Human Resource Management (SRHM), The American Legion, The American Civil Liberties Union, The American Association of Christian Counselors, Kiwanis Club of Oakland Park, and a life member of the NAACP. Dr. Brown is also a life member of the Veterans of Foreign Wars (VFW) and the Disabled American Veterans (DAV) and the Vietnam Security Police Association. He has received over 300 awards from civic, professional and fraternal organization. Dr. Brown was inducted into the Miami-Dade College Hall of Fame (2006).

RSVP at (954) 486-5963 or (954) 649-7609 to reserve your table(s) or ticket(s). The event is being catered by S&J Catering of Miramar, Fla.

All events begin with services:

Aug. 17, 7:30 p.m. – Rev. Dr. Wayne Finn, Kelly’s Chapel United Methodist Church, Miami, Fla.

Aug. 19, Rev. G. Bernard Pope, First Bethel Missionary Baptist Church, Dania Fla.

Aug. 21, 6 p.m. – Harris Chapel Pastor’s Appreciation Banquet Life Enrichment Center,

Individual $30.00 & Table $450.00 Deadline to purchase banquet tickets is Aug. 16.

Aug. 22, 4 p.m. – Rev. Dr. Manuel Sykes, Bethel Com-munity Baptist, St. Petersburg, Fla. Saturday night August 21, culminating Banquet.

All events will be held at Harris Chapel at 2351 N.W. 26 St., Oakland Park, Fla.

Darryl Fortson, a family physician, remembers when he first decided to write a book.

“I was talking to a fraternity brother at a Morehouse College reunion in Atlanta when he interrupted me in mid speech and said that I should write a book,” recalls Fortson, president and CEO of Fortson Family Care And Wellness Center in Munster and a member of the Omega Psi Phi Fraternity.

And so Fortson, a Magna Cum Laude and Phi Beta Kappa graduate of Morehouse, who says that before that aha moment his ideas had been “rattling around my head in an amorphous form,” penned “Dear Cisco, Dear Keith: A Frat Brother’s Letters On God, His Love, His People, And Their Struggles” (XLibris 2010, hardcover $30, softcover $20).

“I started writing letters about different topics that I wanted to speak to,” says Fortson, also a graduate of Meharry Medical College in Nashville, Tenn. “There were topics that my patients brought to me on such things as feelings, being overweight and on taking care of one self.  I wrote letters to other fraternity brothers who I thought it would be appropriate to write to and letters to my sons, my daughter and my wife.”

Fortson is so happy that his fraternity brother, Gerald Cisco Brown, started him on the path to writing his book that he dedicated it both to him as well as another friend, Keith Allen, who he has known since they were 6 years old.

Writing is a passion for Fortson and besides being a former opinion columnist, is the author of a screenplay based on a faith topic, wrote the five poems that appear in his book and is currently working on another book.  Besides writing and medicine, Fortson also finds the time to teach a faith-based weight loss class at his church, Family Christian Center in Munster.

“My faith is very important to me,” he says. “I dedicated all of my writing, all of my artistic expression to speak to what Jesus Christ has to do with our everyday life.”

Darryl Fortson book signings

* Noon to 2 p.m. Friday at Methodist Hospital, Northlake Campus Gift Shop, (219) 886-4000

* Noon to 2 p.m. May 26 at Methodist Hospital, Southlake Campus Gift Shop, (219) 738-5500

FYI: To order a copy, visit www.dearciscodearkeith.com or stop by Dr. Fortson’s office at 1950 45th Avenue in Munster.

While attending Oakland University, Tanika earned a Bachelor of Science in Electrical Engineering in 2002 and went on to pursue a Master of Business Administration in Strategic Marketing from Arizona State University, which she earned in 2006.  Tanika currently resides in Minneapolis, MN where she works at General Mills in Consumer Insights.

As a woman striving to strengthen her walk with Christ through Biblical training, she developed a desire to share God’s Word with believers as well as non-believers.  She combined this desire with her passion for writing and in 2009  her Christian Blog entitled “My Alabaster Box” was formed.  Here she shares teaching, inspiration and encouragement related to spiritual growth, prayer, faith, how to hear from God, patience in the life of a believer and much more!  It is her hope that through this blog, she is able to touch the hearts of many, bless people in their Christian walk and bring lost souls to Christ.

Tanika is also a current student at Rhema Correspondence Bible School and a member of Mighty Fortress International Church (Minneapolis, MN) under the pastoral leadership of Dr. Tom R. Williams. In her spare time she enjoys reading, writing, praise & worship dance, traveling and spending time with her family and close friends.

Please visit her Blog at www.alabasterbox1.blogspot.com and pass it on to your family and friends.  It will be a blessing to you and someone else!

Benjamin Lawson Hooks was an American civil rights leader. A Baptist minister and practicing attorney, he served as executive director of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) from 1977 to 1992, and throughout his career was a vocal campaigner for civil rights in the United States.

Hooks was born in Memphis, Tennessee. He was the fifth of seven children of Robert B. Hooks and Bessie White Hooks. His father was a photographer and owned a photography studio with his brother Henry known at the time as Hooks Brothers, and the family was fairly comfortable by the standards of Black people for the day. Still, he recalls that he had to wear handme- down clothes and that his mother had to be careful to make the dollars stretch to feed and care for the family.

On November 6, 1976, the 64- member board of directors of the NAACP elected Hooks executive director of the organization.

In the late 1970s the membership had declined from a high of about 500,000 to only about 200,000. Hooks was determined to add to the enrollment and to raise money for the organization’s severely depleted treasury, without changing the NAACP’s goals or mandates. “Black Americans are not defeated,” he told Ebony soon after his formal induction in 1977. “The civil rights movement is not dead. If anyone thinks that we are going to stop agitating, they had better think again. If anyone thinks that we are going to stop litigating, they had better close the courts. If anyone thinks that we are not going to demonstrate and protest, they had better roll up the sidewalks.”

In his early years at the NAACP, Hooks had some bitter arguments with Margaret Bush Wilson, chairwoman of the NAACP’s board of directors. At one point in 1983, Wilson summarily suspended Hooks after a quarrel over the organization’s policy. Wilson accused Hooks of the board backed Hooks and he never officially left his post as executive director. He has overseen the organization’s positions on affirmative action, federal aid to cities, foreign relations with repressive governments such as that in South Africa, and domestic policy decisions of every sort.

Hooks liked to call himself “just a poor little ol’ country preacher,” but his modesty hardly hid his long list of accomplishments.

Zeta Phi Beta Sorority, Inc. and its International President Sheryl P. Underwood join the world in mourning the passing of one of our most noble servants and influent ial leaders, Reverend Dr. Benjamin Hooks.

With the passing of Rev. Dr. Hooks, our brother of Omega Psi Phi, the world is short yet another civil rights champion and historical figure who helped shape American culture. Rev. Dr. Hooks will long be remembered as one who fought to eradicate bigotry and injustice.

The leadership he provided to our nation, and especially the NAACP, provided access to millions who knew no access, and under his leadership, the NAACP realized lowered debt, increased membership and heighten visibility.

Rev. Dr. Hooks fought for the underserved and the overlooked.

From the halls of justice to the baseball field, he remained committed to creating opportunities for inclusion for people who had long been relegated to the back of the line or the back of the bus. He was a servant leader with great vision; working to open doors of employment, community development and access within some of our nations most tightly shut institutions.

Not only did he serve this nation as a leader during the civil rights movement, he served his country in the United States Army. He often found himself guarding those who had more rights and access than he. He will be remembered as a champion of minorities and the less fortunate.

He was a warrior, placed among us at a time when strength and clarity were needed. We ask the current President of the NAACP, Benjamin Jealous, to accept our condolences and share them wi th Chairman Julian Bond, the officers and members of his prestigious organization.

Benjamin L. Hooks, a champion of minorities and the poor who as executive director of the NAACP increased the group’s stature, has died. He was 85.

State Rep. Ulysses Jones, a member of the church where Hooks was pastor, said Hooks died early Thursday at his home, following a long illness.

Hooks became executive director of the NAACP in 1977, taking over a group that was $1 million in debt and shrunk to 200,000 members from nearly a half-million in the 1950s and 1960s. He pledged to increase enrollment and raise money for the organization.

“Black Americans are not defeated,” he told Ebony magazine soon after his induction. “The civil rights movement is not dead. If anyone thinks that we are going to stop agitating, they had better think again. If anyone thinks that we are going to stop litigating, they had better close the courts. If anyone thinks that we are not going to demonstrate and protest, they had better roll up the sidewalks.”

By the time he ended his position as executive director in 1992, the group rebounded, with membership growing by several hundred thousand. Toward this, he created community radiothons to make the public more aware of activities by local NAACP branches and boost membership.

“He came in at a time the NAACP was struggling and gave it a strong foundation. He brought dignity and strong leadership to the organization,” Jones said.

Hooks also created an initiative that expanded employment opportunities for blacks in Major League Baseball and launched a program where corporations participated in economic development projects in black communities.

“The nation best remembers Benjamin Hooks as the leader of the NAACP,” President George W. Bush said in 2007 when he presented Hooks with the Presidential Medal of Freedom, one of the country’s highest civilian honors. “Dr. Hooks was a calm yet forceful voice for fairness, opportunity and personal responsibility. He never tired or faltered in demanding that our nation live up to its founding ideals of liberty and equality.”

Nearly two decades earlier, Hooks pleaded with Bush’s father, then-President George H.W. Bush, for action on a string of gasoline bomb attacks in the South that killed in December 1989 a federal judge in Alabama and a black civil rights lawyer in Savannah, Ga.

The same month, another bomb was intercepted at an NAACP office in Jacksonville, Fla. and an Atlanta television station received a letter threatening more attacks on judges, attorneys and NAACP leaders.

“We believe that this latest incident is an effort to intimidate our association, to strike fear in our hearts,” he said at the time. “It will not succeed. We intend to go about our business, but we will most certainly be taking precautions.”

Walter Leroy Moody, now 75, was convicted of the killings and other charges in 1997 and remains on Alabama’s death row.

Hooks’ inspiration to fight social injustice and bigotry stemmed from his experience of guarding Italian prisoners of war while serving overseas in the Army during World War II — foreign prisoners were allowed to eat in “for whites only” restaurants while he was barred from them.

When no law school in the South would admit him, he used the GI bill to attend DePaul University in Chicago, where he earned a law degree in 1948. He later opened his own law practice in his hometown of Memphis, Tenn.

“At that time you were insulted by law clerks, excluded from white bar associations and when I was in court, I was lucky to be called ‘Ben,’” he once said in an interview with Jet magazine. “Usually it was just ‘boy.’”

In 1965 he was appointed to a newly created seat on the Tennessee Criminal Court, making him the first black judge since Reconstruction in a state trial court anywhere in the South.

“It was a national story for a black in the Deep South to be nominated for a judgeship,” he said years later.

President Richard Nixon nominated Hooks to the Federal Communications Commission in 1972. He was its first black commissioner, serving for five years before resigning to lead the NAACP.

“Hooks’ career as a Federal Communications Commissioner did change the organization,” according to the 1995 book, ‘Commissioners of the FCC.’ “He regarded the minorities and the poor as his constituency.”

At the FCC, he addressed the lack of minority leadership in media and persuaded the commission to propose a new rule requiring TV and radio stations to be offered publicly before they could be sold. Minority employment in broadcasting grew from 3 percent to 15 percent during his tenure.

He later was the chairman of the board of directors of the National Civil Rights Museum in Memphis and helped create The Benjamin L. Hooks Institute for Social Change at the University of Memphis.

In his last keynote speech to an NAACP national convention in 1992, he urged members who had found financial success to never forget those less fortunate.

“Remember,” he said, “that down in the valley where crime abounds and dope proliferates … where babies are having babies, our brothers and sisters are crying to us, ‘Is anyone listening? Does anyone care?

Rev. Dr. Jo Ann Browning, Co-Pastor for Ebenezer A.M.E. Church and Author, has been recognized by Cambridge Who’s Who for demonstrating dedication, leadership and excellence in religious services.

Reverend Dr. Jo Ann Browning accepted the call to preach in 1982 at Hemmingway Memorial A.M.E. Church in Chapel Oaks, Maryland. For nine months in 1983, she served on the ministerial staff at St. Paul A.M.E. Church in Cambridge, Massachusetts. When her husband was appointed to pastor Ebenezer A.M.E. Church in 1983, the church had 17 members and a $12,000 budget. Rev. Jo Ann immediately began assisting her husband and was hired as an assistant minister in 1985. From 1986 to 1991, she served as assistant pastor and then co-pastor since 1998. In 1998, Bishop Vinton R. Anderson (retired), presiding prelate of the Second Episcopal District, appointed Rev. Dr. Jo Ann Browning as co-pastor of the Ebenezer A.M.E. Church. This unprecedented appointment officially recognized the Brownings as a pastoral team in the A.M.E. church. In 2005 through 2009, the present Bishop, Presiding Prelate Adam J. Richardson continued this unique appointment. Currently, Ebenezer’s membership exceeds 10,000 with more than 100 ministries and a budget of $10 million.

In addition to her responsibilities at Ebenezer, Rev. Browning has had the opportunity to preach, teach and facilitate workshops throughout the United States, Haiti, Bermuda, Barbados, Germany, Israel and South Africa. In July of 2002, she was inducted into Delta Sigma Theta Sorority, Inc. as an honorary member. In November of 2006, she received an honorary doctor of divinity degree from the African Methodist Episcopal University in Monrovia, Liberia.

Rev. Browning has organized and convened women’s spiritual retreats, attracting thousands of women from across the nation and other countries. June 2009 will mark Ebenezer’s 25th Annual Women’s Spiritual Retreat.

In 2006, she founded Journey of Faith, LLC, a nonprofit organization dedicated to the empowerment of women. She also released her first book, “Our Savior, Our Sisters, Ourselves: Biblical Teachings & Reflections on Women’s Relationships.” The book provides teachings that explore the realities of being a black woman, wife, mother and minister. It is designed to empower and bless women as they continue on their journeys of faith.

In June 2009, she released her second book, “Faithful, Focused & Fearless: Lessons to Fortify Your Future.” Rev. Dr. Jo Ann Browning is grateful for the opportunity to share these teachings that she received from the Lord with all women of God, regardless of race.

In all that has been said and done, she continuously gives God all the praise, honor and glory for the opportunity to be a humble servant of her God.

The Reverend Dr. Jo Ann Browning is married to the Reverend Dr. Grainger Browning, Jr., who is the Senior Pastor. She is the very proud mother of two children, Grainger III, a 2008 graduate of Morehouse College, and Candace, a 2008 graduate of Hampton University. She also has two grandchildren, Kaylah Jo Ann Browning and Grainger Browning IV.

Rev. Dr. Browning graduated from Boston University in 1976 with a bachelor of science in communications. She received a master of divinity in 1986 and a doctorate of ministry from the Howard University School of Divinity in 1991. She was a recipient of the Benjamin E. Mays Fellowship and the Pew Fellowship.

For more information on Ebenezer A.M.E. Church, visit http://www.ebenerame.org.

Stanford Who’s Who welcomes Pastor David E. Roberts II to the ranks of premier professionals as a result of his remarkable work in the area of Religious Services. As Pastor of The Morning Star First Baptist Church, as well as throughout his brilliant religious career, he has consistently demonstrated the passion, vision and dedication necessary to be among the best.

In addition to delivering spectacular sermons to his congregation, he performs a variety of other services to the community. Pastor Roberts is actively involved in helping the homeless, marriage counseling, youth counseling, and helping in prisons with developing educational opportunities.

Most important to Pastor Roberts is spreading the word of God. He served as a Chaplain in the United States Navy for 20 years. Pastor Roberts is a Board Member of the NAACP. He also served as President of KAPPA ALPHA PSI.

During his educational career, David earned a Bachelor’s Degree in Fine Arts from Western Carolina University and a Master’s Degree in Divinity from Liberty University. He enjoys running, exercising, bowling, basketball and movies in his leisure time.

The community is invited to join New Mount Olive Baptist Church and the Community at the Official Pastoral Installation Service of Rev. Marcus D. Davidson on Sunday, March 21, 2010 beginning at 4 p.m. at New Mount Olive Baptist Church, 400 N.W. Ninth Ave., Fort Lauderdale, Fla.

On Jan. 1, 2010, Rev. Marcus D. Davidson accepted the call to become the new Senior Pastor of New Mount Olive Baptist Church. The 91-year-old historic church has a rich legacy of dynamic preachers. New Mount Olive is well known throughout the local community as a beacon of hope for all humanity. Rev. Davidson accentuates this great legacy with his own personal and professional accomplishments. He is a highly respected Bible expositor, an officer of the National Baptist Convention, USA, Inc., a member of the 20 Distinguished Men of the Shoals, Alabama’s People’s Choice 2007 Male Vocalist of the Year, a member of Kappa Alpha Psi Fraternity, Incorporated, and has made significant contributions in the civic community and faith community.

Please join your neighbors, public officials, local and national dignitaries, and others in the faith community in celebrating another significant milestone in the rich history of New Mount Olive Baptist Church.

Please be seated by 3:45 p.m. as the Official Processional will begin at 4 p.m.

This event is free and open to the general public; refreshments will be served following the Installation Service. Please join us and be apart of this history-making moment.

Contact Moses Barnes Installation Committee Chair at MosesBarnes@Bellsouth.net or call (954) 632-7832 or (954) 463-5126.

Dr. Crystal Bright, a native of Swainsboro, recently gave her first sermon at Simon Temple A.M.E. Zion Church in Fayetteville, N.C. Her sermon was entitled “Ready or Not, Here I Come,” coming from the scriptural text Matthew 13:24-30. Dr. Bright attended William Grove Holiness Church of the Living God as a youth, and she accepted God as her Savior at an early age. She engaged in her first public speech at the age of 16 at First Baptist Church in Stillmore, where she now serves on the usher board as a member and secretary.

She is certainly living up to the title given to her by her graduating class, “Most Likely to Succeed.” She participated in Dual Enrollment with East Georgia College while in high school and earned her Bachelor of Science degree from Savannah State University, where she graduated Summa Cum Laude in 2001. She earned several academic awards while in college and is a proud member of Alpha Kappa Alpha. In 2006, she graduated with honors and earned her Doctorate of Medicine degree from Meharry Medical College in Nashville, Tenn. She is currently completing a residency in family medicine.

She is the daughter of Mr. and Mrs. Jessie Bright, Sr., from Swainsboro. She has one brother, Jessie Bright, Jr., from Lithia Springs. She is the granddaughter of Elder Mozelle Steely and Mr. St. Mark Bright, Sr. of Swainsboro, Mr. and Mrs. Issac Culver, Jr. of Glenwood and the late Mr. and Mrs. Luther Gillis, Sr.