Celebrating Black History | Black Futures

Beginning in February, DCC will be honoring and celebrating Black History/Black Futures month! The 2024 theme is “African Americans and the Arts” spanning the many impacts Black Americans have had on visual arts, music, cultural movements, and more. We have a month’s worth of information and practices that you can participate in to show allyship and support. Our focus is on Embodying our curiosity and engaging our bodies, hearts, and spirits as we explore and celebrate Black History/Black Futures Month.

Focus for Week 1 (February 4)

• In worship, Sunday, February 4
  • Mission Moment: Black Wealth Builders Fund – For more information on this fund and how you can help, jump to Black Wealth Builders Fund Offering Section.
  • Youth Group: Screening and discussion of Stamped on Netflix
• Local Activities
  • Saturday, February 3, 11:00am: Lunar New Year X Black History Month – Celebrating Asian and African American Solidarity (Oakland, free)
  • Thursday, February 8: KQED’s Black History Month Dance Party—Learn a variety of African American Dance styles (San Francisco, $15 in person; livestream free)
• Embodiment Practice: What to read this month
  • Claudine Gay: What Just Happened at Harvard Is Bigger Than Me (guest essay, New York Times)
  • Should Churches Celebrate Black History Month?
  • Recommended Reading List
    • Bookshop.org Book List
    • DCC Anti-Racism Reading List

Focus for Week 2 (February 11)

• In worship, Sunday, February 11
  • Mission Moment: Black Wealth Builders Fund
  • Children’s Ministry/Donuts and Devotions: Tell Me the Truth About Racism—Lesson 1
  • Second Hour+: Potluck lunch and Movie Screening/Discussion: Rustin –Kairos Hall
• Embodiment Practice: What to listen to:
  • Pod Save The People
    On Pod Save the People, DeRay Mckesson explores news, culture, social justice, and politics with Kaya Henderson, Myles Johnson, and De’Ara Balenger. They offer a unique take on the news, with a special focus on overlooked stories and topics that often impact people of color.
  • Black History Month Music Playlists:
    • Apple Music
    • Spotify
    • Playing for Change

Focus for Week 3 (February 18)

• Embodiment Practice: Where to go:
  • Field Trip: Sunday, Feb 18 11am Celebration at Glide Church, San Francisco and Visit Museum of the African Diaspora, San Francisco
  • Visit: Black Power Exhibit at Oakland Museum of California

Focus of Week 4 (February 25)

• Embodiment Practice: Allyship
  • Field Trip: Sunday, February 25–12:30pm– Black Joy Parade, Oakland
    • The Black Joy Parade exists to provide the Black community and allies a live experience that celebrates our influence on cultures past, present and future. We will unite a diverse community by creating a space to express each of our unique contributions to the Black experience. We invite you to be creative, be open, be present, be free.
    • Black Choreographers Festival: Here & Now (BCF) at Dance Mission Theater, SF on February 24 & 25, 2024

Black Wealth Builders Fund Offering

In 2021, DCC joined with four other East Bay churches in taking up an offering throughout Lent for a fund devoted to Black homeownership reparations. This idea arose in white-majority churches like ours, out of examination of our white privilege and complicity. Now, during this Black History/Black Futures Month, the Anti-Racism Team and Outreach Commission invite you once again to give to the Black Wealth Builders Fund we helped start three years ago.

As you may know, a lack of generational wealth hinders many Black communities. Through redlining, adverse mortgage terms, and loan application rejection, Black people in the East Bay have been disenfranchised from homeownership. According to the U.S. Census Bureau, the rate of Black homeownership is 44 percent, the lowest of all groups. In contrast, 74 percent of white families in the U.S. own a home. The Black Wealth Builders (BWB) fund is 100% devoted to supporting increased Black homeownership in the East Bay. A major barrier to homeownership, especially in the high-priced Bay Area, is lack of a down payment. This is especially true for Black homebuyers, who may have good incomes but no access to the additional capital they need for a down payment. The BWB fund:

• Creates a zero-percent-interest loan fund, with loan amounts from $10,000 to $20,000, to be paid back only when the home is refinanced or sold.
• Works through the Richmond Community Foundation, as a donor-advised fund.
• Works through local organizations to identify potential Black homebuyers who are on the journey to home ownership but who lack a down payment.

Because BWB is a loan fund, money from home refinance or sale will flow back into the fund, ready to assist other homebuyers.

The BWB fund made its first loan in May 2022. By the end of 2023, with $315,000 raised, the fund had made 20 loans, to 26 Black first-time homebuyers, for homes in Contra Costa (Richmond, El Sobrante, Martinez, Concord, Pittsburg and Antioch) and Alameda (Oakland and San Lorenzo) Counties.

Prayerfully, consider giving to this special Black Wealth Builders Fund offering as an expression of penitence and a commitment to make reparations for the generations of harm done to our Black siblings by systemic racism. To make your offering online, go to the DCC Donations page, select Outreach Donations / Other, and type in “Black Wealth Builders Fund.”Or you may write “Black Wealth Builders Fund” on the memo line of your check made out to DCC, or text give to 855-940-3756 and select “Black Wealth Builders Fund.