The Washington Post Series Chronicling Stories of Black Men in 2006

This Black History month, Ebenezer A.M.E. Church held a number of African American open forum sessions in Ft Washington, Maryland. In collaboration with The Washington Post staff, Ebenezer held a recent event with Bill Cosby. The Bill Cosby event was very well attended because of his notoriety. The second in this series was on February 8, 2007. The second Ebenezer event was entitled "Being a Black Man". This event was one that was quite extraordinary in its diversity and content.

Ebenezer A.M.E. Church is a fairly large prominent church in the southern Maryland African American community. With is membership at approximately 14,000, many would consider it a mega church. It is no surprise to see Bill Cosby there on a Wednesday and Jesse Jackson or Al Sharpton there on a Sunday. Even hip hop artist such as Common, Kanye West and Fantasia have visited this prominent church. This being a black session had no celebrities. Ebenezer on this session was simply focused on articles written by Washington Post writer. This was an open forum discussion where audience member praised and prodded the writers.

This was a unique event because it was held during an FMO. FMO is a weekly session held at Ebenezer which stands For Men Only. Ebenezer's Pastors are Dr. Grainger Browning (Sr. Pastor) and Joann Browning (Co-Pastor) attended the session. The FMO is headed up by Reverend Marcus Washington. These Thursday night event continue throughout the year. Consistently these events are held for by and about black men in an effort to have positive impact.

This Washington Post event was special in chronicling many feature stores. The reports were there to answer question about their stories. They covered stories such as:

· "His Last, Best Cause" by Darryl Fears: an article that discussed a Black Activist and Greenpeace organizer whom in spite of pain ignored his health. This man whom stood up to help others died before his time of preventable colon cancer.