Liberation Sunday – Beginning of the End

By Stephanie A. Stradford and Eric Stradford, U.S. Marine Corps, Retired

FAS2 November 17, 2023 – YOU CAN LEAD! It’s the title of Dr. Katura York Cooper’s soul piercing account of one African woman’s historical Black Church experience. Or is it prophesy that business as usual will soon be an unacceptable practice of the past?

The Historical Black Church Movement commemorates its past with the observance of Liberation Sunday. According to Ernestine Lee Henning, mother of the movement, “We commemorate that historic day, the 3rd Sunday in November of 1787, when Richard Allen, Absalom Jones, and others led a walkout.”

Henning declared this year’s commemoration will be celebrated virtually from Saint Paul AME, St. Louis and Mother Bethel AME, Philadelphia, PA. The event follows Henning’s return to West Africa where her late husband is fondly remembered at her church’s first accredited university in the Motherland.

Prior to Henning’s recent tour to Monrovia, Liberia, she met with FAS2 Trustee Stephanie A. Walker Stradford, to plan and coordinate a Generation Alpha Learning Journeys to AME University. Development of Family Trusts invite “family” and university trustees to meet concerning programs and projects requiring grants or contracts. A Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) between FAS2, Richard Allen Foundation and AME University establishes a grant development team in FAS2 LEARNING.