Black churches and Black economic development: from housing to business enterprises. Black churches are bringing the gospel of economic development to inner city communities. IN THE HEART OF THE MARTIN LUTHER KING JR. historical district in Atlanta lies Auburn Avenue, home of the civil rights struggle, a rich black business legacy and Sunday morning sermons at some of the largest African American congregations south of the Mason Dixon line. A quarter-block stretch of the avenue is lined on both sides by Wheat Street Plaza North and South and its two strip malls that house 10 small business

Baptists are one of the largest Protestant Free Church denominations. At the turn of the 21st century, there were about 43 million Baptists worldwide with about 33 million of those in the United States and 216,000 in Britain.

A report by the Heartland Alliance confirms what much of black America already knows: Black America is in serious trouble economically, and many black people are living in "deep poverty." Black people in America are not just poor by American standards; many of us are "third-world" poor.

Baptist Distinctives is a name usually given to a list of doctrinal titles that have traditionally described what Baptists as a whole believe. The Baptist Distinctives usually include:

African Americans see a widening gulf between the values of middle class and poor blacks, and nearly four-in-ten say that because of the diversity within their community, blacks can no longer be thought of as a single race.

The new nationwide Pew Research Center survey also finds blacks less upbeat about the state of black progress now than at any time since 1983. Looking backward, just one-in-five blacks say things are better for blacks now than they were five years ago. Looking ahead, fewer than half of all blacks (44%) say they think life for blacks will get better in the future, down from the 57% who said so in a 1986 survey.

Roots (1736-1816) On April 23, 1968, The United Methodist Church was created when Bishop Reuben H. Mueller, representing The Evangelical United Brethren Church, and Bishop Lloyd C. Wicke of The Methodist Church joined hands at the constituting General Conference in Dallas, Texas.

Unemployment has reached catastrophic levels in Black communities. The numbers are staggering. Official African American unemployment was 15.6 percent in November 2009, compared to an overall national rate 10 percent--and those statistics leave out workers who have been forced into part-time jobs because they couldn't find full-time work, or who have been pushed out of the workforce altogether.