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No Dew No Rain Pastor James Mannings Quest To Save Harlem
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By C.B. Forde

I am not someone who goes to Church, but I do believe in God and the importance of some sort of spiritual foundation in ones life. While walking across 125th and Amsterdam a few weeks ago, I noticed churchgoers passing out flyers. I took one, and I must say I was impressed finally, the true spirit of the Black Church is being reborn. Lets just say that I have been a little disappointed by the current spiritual leadership of Black America. Pastor Manning and his No Dew No Rain campaign seemed a refreshing alternative to the current spiritual and political leadership of Harlem.

No Dew No Rain is Pastor Mannings battle cry for the indigenous people of Harlem. As Pastor Manning wrote, We are losing our only homeland for Black people worldwide. Harlem is our Mecca it cannot be given to the Europeans. Our local Black politicians who speak with forked tongues have sold our homeland to the banks and foreign developers. They are pushing us out everyday by using a police state to destroy our culture. That was enough to hook me I had to meet this man. I went to the website https://www.atlah.org and scheduled an interview with Pastor Manning at his churchATLAH World Missionary Church on 38 West 123rd Street in Harlem, New York.

I must say that I was not disappointed. Pastor Manning is an honest and insightful man. He came right out and stated that Harlem needed a political change. He explained that Black leadership, led at one time by Mayor David Dinkins and presently by Representative Charles Rangel, has failed the Black residents of Harlem miserably. He continued by pointing out that the programs that these leaders and other Black government officials have initiated did not meet the needs of the average Harlem resident. In fact, the Black leadership across America has failed miserably after the death of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. The Affirmative Action programs that were created after Dr. Kings death did not carry on the spirit of the Civil Rights Era. Pastor Manning feels that the community is lost because the generations growing up after the destruction of the Black family structure are continually regressing into abject poverty and disfunctionality.

We then talked about the movie American Gangster, Pastor Mannings words caused me to reflect. I came to a deep conclusion. Although I had grown up in Harlem, I am still an immigrant from the Caribbean. I have been living in Harlem for the last 30 years of my life, since 1976. Pastor Manning painted a picture of Harlem pre1968 in which the Black family was intact, a scene which neither I nor my family had ever witnessed. Pastor Manning painted a picture of Harlem that I had been familiar with only through movies. He pointed out that drug addiction was also an issue in pre1968 Harlem, but after the death of Dr. King, everything fell apart. American Gangster vividly recalls this period19681975, the Vietnam Era. African/Black family values remained intact up until this period of time.

Pastor Manning then made an interesting point about how Black Americans had not dealt well with the opportunities that were presented to them in the post Civil Rights Era. He pointed out that it was during the Vietnam Era that drug dealing became glamorized in the Black community. Pastor Manning was extremely critical of the Black leadership after Dr. Kings death, describing those leaders as individuals who do not have true love for their people. He describes the current leadership as being individuals only interested in personal gain and having contempt for their own. Black America was not prepared to take advantage of President Johnson's Great Society programs. Pastor Manning passionately pointed out that while certain individual Black Americans have benefited from Affirmative Action programs, the larger community has fallen apart. Manning said, We didnt know what to do with new civil rights freedoms. Harlem is the greatest example of this. Black people held Harlem for years and years and are now loosing it. He went on to compare the loss of Harlem with the lost of who we are as a people. We have, lost our way as a culture.

I must say it was a privilege to meet Pastor Manning and to be given the opportunity to help spread his ideas to the greater public. Pastor Manning is calling for a threeyear boycott until 2010 of all nonAfrican American owned banks, businesses, stores, and fast food places that are located in Harlem from 110th Street to 155th Street. https://www.custrike.blogspot.com His aim is to drive these businesses out of Harlem and then encourage local Harlem residents to rebuild the community from within. No Dew No Rain means dont provide the outside influencers with any economic resources. By spearheading the boycott, Pastor Manning is encouraging a dryup of nonHarlem resident businesses and placing the power back in our communitys hands.