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Caption: Bishop T. D. Jakes speaks to an NNPA audience after establishing a partnership with the organization comprised of over 200 Black-owned newspapers. Photo/Roy Lewis.Bishop Jakes And Black Press Vow To Support Each OtherBy Hazel Trice EdneyNNPA Washington Correspondent CHICAGO (NNPA) – Bishop T. D. Jakes, the internationally acclaimed television preacher, and the National Newspaper Publishers Association, a federation of more than 200 Black newspapers, have announced a partnership designed to strengthen both the Black Press and Black churches. “Today is the beginning of a reconciliation between the Black church and the Black Press. Not to say that we ever fell out, but, like many marriages, you don’t have to fall out to grow apart,” said Jakes during a meeting with NNPA board members at the organization’s 65th anniversary summer conference here. “She gets busy and you get busy and you don’t notice what day it is, but you have grown apart. And I think we were so busy finally building churches, finally being able to buy churches and facilities, and you were so busy doing what you’re doing that we just stopped talking to each other.” The relationship between the Black church and the Black Press dates back nearly 200 years. Samuel Cornish, one of the founders of the first Black newspaper, Freedom’s Journal, was a minister. In 1827, Cornish and John Russworm, a lawyer, established the nation’s first Black paper. “We’re interested in starting a dialog with a religious icon who has the capability of connecting with our readers in a different way and who brings to us an opportunity to expand our readership. On the flip side of that, we also bring our readers an opportunity to lift themselves up, to receive positive reinforcement, not just from a spiritual standpoint, but from an emotional, physical, mental, even economic standpoint,” said NNPA outgoing chair, Sonny Messiah Jiles, publisher of the Houston Defender. “Today, we are prepared to reconnect, reinforce, to regenerate the relationship between the Black church and the Black Press. There’s added value in what we both bring to the community as being a leading spiritual source and a leading informational source.” NNPA’s 15 million newspaper readers plus thousands more viewers of its Web site, www.BlackPressUSA.com, could see tangible evidence as soon as July, says Brian Townsend, chair of the NNPA Foundation, which oversees the NNPA News Service. Townsend announced that Jakes will be writing a column for NNPA newspapers. “Bishop T. D. Jakes has been called ‘the New Millennium Billy Graham.’ He’s the number one preacher. Billy Graham’s last preaching event is upcoming and he’s already anointed Bishop T.D. Jakes to go forward. So as our newspapers will bring his message of hope, that empowers our readership,” says Townsend. Jakes says that the Black community will benefit from the partnership. “I see our union as an opportunity to extend our voice to your audience and extend your voice to our audience. But that marriage has got to be a powerful tool and an impetus for great change,” says Jakes. “I’m deeply concerned about some of the nuances in our community. I’m deeply concerned about the 233 percent increase in suicides amongst young Black males between the ages of 14 and 20. I don’t think that we can sleep through that and continue on as business as usual as if we were not concerned.” America’s Black newspapers were established to champion the need for Black progress, says Les Kimber, publisher of the California Advocate Newspaper. “Here in 2005, corporate America continues to snub their collective noses at Black newspapers, so my interest is, with the kind of connections that you must have with presidents of corporate America and all of these folk, how can we get a message to them that in 2005, economic discrimination against Black newspapers can not be tolerated?” asked Kimber. Pointing to his own difficulties in recruiting sponsors for his annual Megafest crusade which has drawn a half million people to Atlanta, Jakes empathized with the problem. “The reality is that we live in a nation as African-Americans, that we cannot get a GED without understanding White culture, but they can get a Ph.D and not understand us. And because we live in that environment, they can be well-educated, well-informed, on the cutting edge, read the Wall Street Journal every day and not have a clue as to how to tap into our market base,” Jakes explains. Jakes says that has to change. “By coming up with a way that we can say to our sources or to our sponsors that we not only represent 1.5 million on our mailing list, 30,000 members in our church, but we have a relationship with 200 Black newspapers who are serving this number of people [15 million] and let’s negotiate and advertise collectively,” says Jakes, who has written 30 books. His first book, “Woman Thou Art Loosed”, has sold more than 1.2 million copies. In a speech by NNPA publishers and local residents at Chicago’s Arie Crown Theater, Jakes referenced John 12:1-2, which details the stink of Lazarus before Jesus raised him from the dead, to the wayward lifestyles of young people. “They may be in the gay bar, they may be in the crack house, but, it’s your child. Don’t let the stink stop you from finding a way to reach beyond the polarities that separate you,” Jakes said. “Don’t let the stink stop you. Lazarus, come forth! ‘But, I’m stinkin.’ Come out anyway! ‘I’m not dressed right, Mama.’ Come out anyway! ‘I don’t have a job, Mama.’ Come out anyway! ‘Mama. I can’t, please.’ Come out anyway! You don’t belong in the tomb with the stinky folks. I didn’t raise you like this. Come out. Come out wherever you are!” Jakes made it clear that older African-Americans must not abandoned troubled youth. “If you’re not part of the group that goes in and calls them out, you’ve got to be part of the group that unwraps them,” Jakes continued. “The reason that I’m glad to be in Chicago and I’m glad to have an opportunity to work with the Black media and I’m glad to have this opportunity to talk to you is because I fully intend – until my last breath — to call Lazarus out of the grave and say, Mary and Martha are waiting for your return. Big Mama and Grandmama are waiting for your return.”