When Nelson Mandela, the then South African anti-apartheid activist and statesman who was recently released from prison, first visited the United States in the summer of 1990, he was welcomed and honored with a ticker-tape parade in New York City, an event at Yankee Stadium, and even addressed Congress after meeting with President George H.W. Bush. This was four years before he was elected president of the very same country that had imprisoned him for over 27 years.
Analysts and civil right leaders praised the expression of love and support he received, but Robert “Bob” Woodson, president and founder of the National Center for Neighborhood Enterprise (now called the Woodson Center), said something about the visit that most other leaders did not — and likely would not — acknowledge.
“I think there was such an outpouring of emotion because there is a quiet kind of yearning on the part of many black Americans to return us to this moral high ground and not use race as an escape from personal responsibility,” Mr. Woodson told reporters.
From the beginning Bob Woodson, who just turned 89 on Wednesday, has been something of a gentle but distinctive contrarian voice in the civil rights movement. While the traditional and most outspoken leaders have strongly campaigned and advocated for government solutions, Mr. Woodson has championed faith-based and community-driven initiatives.
As a dissenting voice in a very loud and controversial atmosphere, this approach has clashed with more familiar personalities like the late Reverend Jesse Jackson and the Reverend Al Sharpton. But Woodson marched with Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., and was also put in jail after leading a peaceful protest. Like many who worked for equality, he possessed a relentless perseverance. He once observed, “Even when defeat was all around us, it was not in us.”
Bob Woodson managed to found his organization with a $25,000 grant in 1981, and he and his team have managed to multiply that gift and change lives and the future of families for over four decades.
“I have fought all my life to empower the poor and push against the exploitation of the poor by those on the left and the indifference to the poor by those on the right,” he recently said. “There are those who are in poverty but not of poverty. If, say, 70% of children raised in a low-income community are dysfunctional, educationally or otherwise, that means 30% are not.”
Born and raised in a poor section of Philadelphia, Woodson’s father died when he was just 9. He credits his mother’s faith with guiding and nurturing him through those uneven and difficult days.
“There were temptations all around, but I was raised in a Christian home,” he reflected.“My mother always exhibited Godly values to us. She said ‘I don’t go to the bar at night. I come home to you.’”
After dropping out of high school and joining the Air Force, the future civil rights leader took a job working with troubled teenage boys. It was that experience that convinced him boys needed fathers and hungered for leaders who would instill in them personal conviction and responsibility and reject the victim mindset.
On Wednesday, Bob Woodson posted some birthday reflections. In his long and productive life, he’s never been reluctant to share his perspective — thoughts that often challenge the status quo. Here is what he said:
The history of America teaches us that 10% of who we are as an individual or as a nation is defined by external circumstances, oppression, racism, you name it, but 90% of who we are as a person or as a nation is our attitude about the 10%. And that’s the real American spirit that says no matter what my circumstances and I’ve got the power to be the agent of my own uplift.
The challenges facing most of us today have nothing to do with who gets in elected office. Our destiny is determined by what actions we take that have the consequence of improving the quality of life.
Bob Woodson is a strong believer in Jesus Christ, and is not simply preaching a theology or philosophy of a personal “pick yourself up by your bootstraps” ideology. But he does recognize that God gives us free will and invites us to join Him in life’s great adventure.
He concluded his remarks by stating, “As I turn 89, my heart is filled with joy and expectation because I’m witnessing young people now turning away from irresponsible lives and they’re looking more to faith. There’s a moral brush fire that is burning in America, and I am delighted to witness it and pray that it continues to sweep this whole nation and take us back to all of what God wants us to be.”
That’s a great birthday prayer, and one that we can enthusiastically join him in petitioning the Lord to answer.
The post The 89-Year-Old Quiet Contrarian: Bob Woodson’s Faith-Fueled Fight for Renewal appeared first on Daily Citizen.
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