Mary Lee Brady, Ph.D.

The tables below are about approximated 267 metropolitan statistical area challenges for gifted and talented up from slavery to "keep the faith real" among "the least of us" born in their same generation.  It matters most to them, not others. It is ignorant and silly to imagine national, state or pretentious pastoral solutions to neighborhood challenges such as bad boys with drugs and guns. 

Urban matriarchal cultures are only a few degenerations removed from the slave plantation cultures (8-9 generations) that allowed slavery to last for centuries without rebellion.  But before placing the blame solely on slave owners, mental health scholars should make an effort to better understand how and why African tribal kingdoms allowed or sold so many of their subjects into slavery: long before slave raids and wars began.   

Federal, State, County and Local Government entities from at least 1950 to 2016 (3 declining degenerations) with good intentions have husbanded back into existence what men like Booker T. Washington warned was not good.  Worse case evidence are young boys and girls to men and women are exploiting and killing rather than caring about each other as brothers and sisters in Christ. 

For functional believers, empowerment of the poor of heart and purse begins with love as it was with the Christ child: via marriage, birthing, nurturing, inspiring, motivating, educating and useful lives, not pretentious power.  For lack of a better comparison, functional Christianity in neighborhoods, homes, and wombs span generations of births that mattered and still do to believers. 

                                                                                Generation Tables

We believe believers are the chosen ones, not others to generate the functional living that will keep hope alive by beginning with the inherited faith.  Far too many in 20th century generations of gifts and talent (many whom are now dead and dying parents, preachers, social workers and teachers) were neither useful or helpful in spirit of Christ: to nurture, inspire, motivate, educate and coach new and better generations among "the least of us" to value available education/labor/skills pursuant functional empowerment in the faith: not joined to their presumed superior reasoning about impoverishment. 

Without functional faith among mothers, there is no beginning to ending poverty. Reading appreciation begins at knees of mothers who themselves value reading and exposure to labor/work; therefore, preaching, teaching and testing must begin with dependent mothers, not dependent offspring within their power.  The question is how?  There are no short-term answers.  

                          Total Pop  Percentile Actual #s    Totals    Number    Percent            Percent                Percent                Percent               Percent    %