PENNY FOR YOUR THOUGHTS… PERNESSA SEELE
Pernessa Seele mobilizes the Black church for the Inauguration.
Presented by Electronic Urban Report.
*Next week there will be several parties celebrating the inauguration of Barack Obama, but ain’t no party like a Holy Ghost party, ’cause a Holy Ghost party don’t stop.
Church leaders will put that theory to the test on the Sunday before the big day when they host The African American Church Inaugural Ball.
The event will celebrate the current President-Elect Barack Obama, as well as honor civil rights stalwarts that led the way to the historic election. This collective membership of black churches will also take the opportunity to support AIDS activism in the church.
Event Executive Producer Pernessa Seele is also the Founder/CEO of The Balm in Gilead, an international not-for-profit, non-governmental organization established to mobilize communities to address HIV and AIDS. She told EUR’s Lee Bailey that he upcoming African American Church Inaugural Ball will be an extraordinary affair.
“It’s a ball with a purpose,” she said. “The first purpose is to bring and allow the collective community of the African American Church to come together and join in the festivities and to congratulate the nation and to live it as a moment to express our gratitude for the moment; acknowledge our history and struggles and our future. We’re honoring 25 extraordinary leaders that evening.”
The African American Church Inaugural Ball, held at the Grand Hyatt in the nation’s capitol, will honor General Colin Powell, Dr. Dorothy Height, Rev. Al Sharpton, Dr. Johnetta B. Cole, Earl Graves, Sr., and Rev. Jesse Jackson, just to name a few. Celebrity performers include Jessye Norman, Regina Belle, Shari Addison, and more.
“The second purpose is, as we commemorate this historical moment in Black history and American history, we are also supporting an organization that is addressing HIV/AIDS through the African American church,” Seele continued. “So it’s two-fold: to celebrate this historical moment in Black America and also to mobilize the church to address the number one killer of black folks in America.”
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