The 2018 Cross & Anvil Golf Tournament has arrived. The 16th Annual Golf Tournament will be on Saturday, August 18, 2018. Please register before August 11, 2018, to participate.
Click on the attached flyers for additional information.
Please Use this form to pay Registration Fees or to Sponsor a Hole. If you need a physical copy of the form or if you need additional information, please click the above “golf tournament registration form” button.
The 2018 Heritage Lectures were a resounding success. From Paul Porter’s interesting insights on the music industry to Dr. Shantella Sherman’s eye-opening talk on Eugenics, the Heritage Lectures brought community and communication under one roof.
An amazing day Saturday at the Men In The Making 2017 Rite Of Passage. Congratulations to all of the mentees and our graduating seniors. Young Men In The Making have a wonderful summer and continue making the “Right Choices”. Thank you to all of our mentors and sponsors. Stay tuned for our short film highlight which embodies the soul and goal of our program.
2017 Heritage Lecture Series – Cross and Anvil Does It Again
This award winning cast of authors, activists, and social commentators put on an amazing gambit of lectures. Stimulating conversation and thought that will have long lasting effects throughout our community. The Heritage Lecture Series is hosted yearly by Cross & Anvil Human Services and continues to be a pivotal social event.
ST. PETERSBURG – As part of the 2016 Heritage Lecture Series, Greater Mt. Zion AME and Cross & Anvil Human Services brought to St. Pete three days of very distinguished national speakers to discuss a variety of topics related to the legacy of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.
Author and New York Times columnist Charles Blow spoke to local middle and high schoolers along with young men from Pinellas County Job Corps. Tues., Jan. 12 at the Allstate campus of St. Petersburg College.
Blow writes frequently about politics, public opinion and social justice in his op-ed column. He joined the Times as a graphic editor in 1994 and became the paper’s design director for news before leaving in 2006 to become the art director of National Geographic magazine before moving over to write opinion columns in 2008.
In his 2014 memoir entitled “Fire Shut Up In My Bones,” Blow recounts his path from poverty in Gibsland, La., to the country’s most esteemed newspaper. The book was chosen last year as summer reading for Eckerd College’s first-year students.
By way of introduction, the event’s moderator Pastor Kenneth Irby, who has known Blow for 25 years, told the room: “People are mesmerized by the inspiration and insight that he brings.”
Blow has helped to chronicle the “Black Lives Matter” movement, which focuses on the deaths of African Americans by law enforcement officers, and opened with his take on the meaning of the phrase. When people respond to “black lives matter” with the phrase “all lives matter,” he said they are not doing so as a statement of fact, because that fact is easily and obviously disproved as a matter of evidence.
“One can’t simply say, ‘all lives matter,’ he explained. “One has to demonstrate to make it so. And that means that people whose lives America seems to value more must demand that that statement be proved true.”
He mentioned a recent lecture on racial issues in which a woman, who herself was white, conducted an experiment with the audience and asked all the white people who would trade places with the way black people are treated in this country to stand up.
“No one stood,” he said. “She asked them again. Again, no one stood. And then she says this: ‘This shows me that you recognize that there is a problem, and you don’t want that problem for yourselves.’”
“If all lives matter, why did no one stand up,” Blow asked rhetorically.
Blow noted that since the deaths of Trayvon Martin, Jordan Davis, Michael Brown and many others, the nation has been engaged in a new discussion of race, justice and civil rights. The only reason that these killings keep happening, he stated, is because most of America tacitly approves.
One result is that African Americans ask themselves, “How can I be safe in America if I cannot be safe in my own body?” It produces a feeling of “nakedness and vulnerability,” and a fear that makes people furious at the very idea of having to be afraid, he said. The likened the black community’s reactions to questionable killings by police—”domestic terrorism”—as being similar to America’s reaction to other forms of terrorism.
“How is it that we can understand the extreme reaction by America as a whole to the relatively exotic threat of terror,” he said, “but demonstrate a staggering lack of that understanding with black people in America [in the same situation].”
Concerning the problem of drug usage, Blow noted that the New York Times reported recently that though heroin abuse has gone up in all demographics it has skyrocketed among whites. “Nearly 90 percent of those who tried heroin for the first time in the last decade were white,” he said.
As for the concern shown now by officials and politicians on the growing problem, Blow wondered where all the concern was when young black lives were falling victim to this same drug abuse years ago.
Concentrated poverty is a direct result of structural inequity, he said, and that concentrated poverty is marked by hopelessness, desperation and crime. People didn’t simply wake up one day with a burning desire to live in the poorest and most violent parts of our cities, but factors such as generations of discriminatory employment practices created those powder kegs.
The increase in sheer numbers of interactions between the poor people and the police creates friction and “without fail, something eventually goes tragically wrong.”
‘All lives matter’ may be one’s personal position, Blow said, but until this country values all lives equally, it is reasonable and necessary to specify the lives it deems to value less.
Valerie Brimm, director of Strategic Partnerships with Pinellas County Schools, arranged for students from Lakewood, Gibbs, Northeast and Clearwater High Schools along with Bay Point Middle to attend the event. She requested that one of the sessions of the Heritage Lecture Series be devoted to young people.
The youth were part of the Five Thousand Role Models of Excellence mentoring program for males, which was created to boost the self-image, social skills and academic performance of selected young men, and gives them the opportunity to interact with successful men from the community.
Brimm said it was important that the young men had the chance to listen to the thought-provoking perspectives of an esteemed guest like Blow.
“They got to the opportunity to hear, ‘I’m not the problem,’” she stated, “and I just think that is key.”
Prominent intellectual, best-selling author and provocative talk-show guest Dr. Cornel West heads a line-up of prominent African Americans who will address social justice issues at the Heritage Lecture Series during the 2016 Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Celebration in St. Petersburg.
The series, sponsored by the Cross and Anvil Human Services Center, will be held Jan. 11-13 at SPC’s Allstate Center campus, 3200 34th St. S. The event is free and open to the public, but advance registration is required.
Joining Dr. West as headline speakers will be Dr. Lani Guinier, law professor at Harvard University and former member of the U.S. Department of Justice Civil Rights Division; Charles M. Blow, columnist for the New York Times; Dr. Gerald Horne, author, historian and professor at the University of Houston; and John L. Burris, civil rights attorney and legal analyst for cable news media.
The Heritage Lecture Series, entering its third year, seeks to engage the African American community in recognizing its accomplishments and defining its grievances, educating its young people and challenging its members to carry on Dr. King’s fight for equality. Speakers will focus on the effects of recent changes in law, education and history as they relate to racial justice for African Americans.
The program lineup is:
· 7 p.m. Jan. 11, Dr. Lani Guinier
· 10 a.m. Jan. 12, Charles M. Blow
· 7 p.m. Jan. 12, John Burris
· 6 p.m. Jan. 13, Dr. Gerald Horne
· 7 p.m. Jan. 13, Dr. Cornel West
The Cross and Anvil Human Services Center, 1201 Seventh Ave. S., St. Petersburg, is a partnership between the City of St. Petersburg and the Greater Mt. Zion African Methodist Episcopal Church. It provides academic support services, mental health counseling, comprehensive youth mentoring, veterans’ services, and parental engagement training.
Additional sponsors include: St. Petersburg College, the Juvenile Welfare Board, the Pinellas County Sherriff’s Office, Duke Energy, Pinellas County Schools and the Institute for Strategic Policy Solutions at St. Petersburg College.
ST. PETERSBURG – A terrific way to start out the new year is by volunteering on a Martin Luther King Jr. Day Service project if you weren’t one of the lucky 50 to have one of your own.
The methods and offerings on the Day of Service differ greatly; ranging from feeding and clothing the homeless and underserved, to offering a variety of healthcare to reaching out to create awareness of one form or another. There’s something for everyone to offer as well as receive. It’s a day when hearts are open and the willingness to give is as strong as the need to receive.
This year the Cross and Anvil Human Services’ Day of Service project will offer free HIV/AIDS testing and informative literature to all. The center ordered and packed 120 backpacks with hygienic products such as toothbrushes, toothpaste and wash clothes, and will give them away on Mon., Jan. 19 to those who come by in between the hours of 9 – 11 a.m.
Center Director, Dawn Bannister said they chose that time frame so people could come by and get the testing and resources they needed prior to enjoying the parade.
Along with the free HIV/AIDS testing, free fish sandwiches will be offered after a tour of the building that is located on 1201 7th Ave. S. in St. Petersburg.
For the past two years, Cross & Anvil Human Services have had a strong presence in Midtown by anticipating and meeting the needs of its residents.
The center offers a number of services to the community, one being a mentoring program for young men from failing or poorly performing schools such as John Hopkins Middle, Melrose Elementary and Lakewood High Schools.
They offer academic support services and tutoring on Tuesdays, Wednesdays and Thursdays from 3:30-6:30 p.m.
“The program is made possible by retired school teachers who volunteer their time. The teachers instill proper etiquette, how to act and respond at school and in everyday life,” Bannister added.
They also provide veteran service programs that includes making referrals as well as educating them on what services are available; also, financial literacy, parental engagement and year round free HIV/AIDS testing and counseling is offered.
To find out more about other services offered, such as the free meal program for children under the age of 18 during summer break, to get involved with the ministry or for center hours, please call 727-821-0285 or 727-894-1393.
Cross & Anvil Human Services, Inc. is affiliated with Greater Mount Zion A.M.E. Church where Pastor Clarence Williams presides over his flock.
Tuesday morning the ribbon was cut on the center, which is located at the former McLin Pool Bathhouse, 1201 7th Ave. S.
Hoping to help those most in need, the city of St. Petersburg has partnered with the Greater Mt. Zion AME Church and its Cross and Anvil Human Services, Inc. Board to open a new community service center in Campbell Park.
Tuesday morning the ribbon was cut on the center, which is located at the former McLin Pool Bathhouse, 1201 7th Ave. S.
Mt. Zion pastor Clarence Williams said the goal of the center is to, “close the educational, digital and wealth gap for members of the community by providing comprehensive services at the learning center with strategic community partners.”
The center is looking for tutors, current and retired educators, parents and academic and career support specialists. For more information, visit greatermtzioname.org, or call 727-894-1393.
