F.Y.I.
Click image below to view video from MOTHER BETHEL AME CHURCH
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
GET A KIT
EVERY AME HOUSEHOLD SHOULD HAVE EMERGENCY SUPPLIES IN CASE OF AN EMERGENCY:
The government is always talking about being prepared and we should not ignore the not-so-subtle comments. Check it out at:
http://www.ready.gov/america/getakit/index.html.
Newscasters and government officials have been talking about being prepared for emergencies on radio and television for a reason. I think we should all be prepared, not if, but when an emergency happens!”
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
WEBSITE TO HEAR CORRECT PRONUNCIATION OF BIBLICAL NAMES:
Not sure how to pronounce that biblical name – for instance the pronunciation of the prophet Elisha gets mangled. Is the correct pronunciation of Elisha: E-lie-sha or E-lee-sha.
Click on the link below:
http://netministries.org/Bbasics/bwords.htm
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
About Bishop Richard Allen
Born as a slave to Colonial Chief Justice Benjamin Chew, owner of the Cliveden Estate in Germantown, Allen later purchased his freedom from a Delaware slave owner who bought him as a child. He went on to distinguish himself as more than just a church leader. He hauled salt for the Continental Army during the American Revolution; he acted bravely in caring for the dying and burying the dead in the Yellow Fever Outbreak of 1793; he and Absalom Jones were the holders of the first copyright by African Americans when they published their rebuttal to Matthew Carey's account of the Yellow Fever Outbreak; he was a successful entrepreneur, claiming George Washington's Executive Mansion on 6th and Market Streets as a customer of his chimney sweep business; he opened his doors to those fleeing slavery on what would become known as the Underground Railroad as an Abolitionist; he organized one of the first major protests by African Americans when 3,000 people gathered at Mother Bethel Church to denounce the American Colonization Society's plan to send free Blacks to Africa; and, he had an active correspondence with the president of Haiti to the point that he sent missionaries to that nation in the 1820s to help them organize build infrastructure.
Bishop Allen is most known for his bold act of independence against the racial and religious intolerance of his time when he walked out of the segregated pews at St. George's Methodist Church in the late 1700s. This act ultimately led to the establishment of the African Methodist Episcopal Church in 1816, which grew out of Mother Bethel and similar congregations in the northeast. This was America's first denomination established by African Americans and Allen became the first Bishop.
Mother Bethel A.M.E. Church was founded in 1794 by Bishop Richard Allen and is settled on the longest, continuously owned land by African Americans in the United States.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Old Mother Bethel grave site could hold thousands
Intact grave sites from the old Mother Bethel A.M.E. Church burial ground lie beneath a large swath of Weccacoe Playground at Queen and Lawrence Streets, archaeologists excavating the ground said Wednesday.
The people interred there - perhaps as many as 3,000, according to one estimate - were buried when the ground was owned by the church and designated as a cemetery.
"They're stacked one on top of another," said Douglas Mooney, an archaeologist with URS, a historical archaeology firm. "There's no way to know how many."
Archaeological test excavations, undertaken in advance of planned playground renovations, began this week and will be completed Friday.
The cemetery land was initially acquired by Richard Allen, founder of Mother Bethel and the African Methodist Episcopal Church, in 1810 and was in active use until about 1868. The land eventually was acquired by the city and has served largely as a playground for more than a century.
During its period of active use, many of Mother Bethel's leaders were buried there, including Sarah Bass Allen, abolitionist and Richard Allen's widow, who was interred in 1849, according to city records. The church maintains that her remains are now within Mother Bethel's crypt.
In June, the burial ground was designated a historic site by the Philadelphia Historical Commission, meaning that any construction must pass muster with it.
On Wednesday, a group of school children from the Khepera Charter School in Mount Airy visited the site and watched archaeologists working on the third of four test excavations cut into the playground surface.
The work had uncovered part of the cemetery's stone eastern wall and encountered intact graves only about three feet below ground.
An earlier survey of the site with ground-penetrating radar had suggested burials could lie well outside the boundaries of the cemetery. So far that has not proved to be the case.
One test excavation struck considerable soil "disturbance" - probably from previous construction - but grave sites were located below that at about five feet. Mooney said the remains in urban grounds are normally buried vertically and could be stacked as many as six or seven deep.
No remains are being removed, he said. The excavation seeks to determine the depth of the historical burials so planned renovations do not disturb them.
The renovation is a joint project of the city's Parks and Recreation Department and Water Department, and the Pennsylvania Horticultural Society. The Queen Village Neighbors Association and the Friends of Weccacoe began the drive for renovation.
The city and community groups are deferring to Mother Bethel Church on how to proceed with commemoration of the cemetery.
The Rev. Mark Tyler, Mother Bethel's pastor, said Wednesday he believed there are "thousands of people in Philadelphia related to people buried here."
"In the absence of any organized group of descendants, people have deferred to us" on the matter of commemoration, he said. "Descendants have to have a say."
Michael Coard of the Avenging the Ancestors Coalition an activist group that visited the site Wednesday, said: "We're here to watch what's going on because it's our parents, it's our grandparents," buried there.
"We're not here for a little yellow and blue sign on the corner that says black people are buried here," he said. "This is hallowed ground, sacred ground, consecrated ground. That's what we're here for."
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
HEALTH CARE REFORM
Confused about healthcare reform? Get information here to help you understand the new law.
http://healthreform.kff.org/the-animation.aspx
NEWEST CPR RECOMMENDATIONS
Well worth 5-minutes of your time
By Stephan Salisbury, Inquirer Culture Writer
POSTED: July 26, 2013