The Council Elders, originated by some of the veterans of the Civil Rights movement, is releasing the Greensboro Declaration simultaneously in DC, NY, Detroit & the SF/ Bay Area on September 12 at 11am.
The statement was created during a gathering at the site of the first non-violent Lunch Counter Sit- Ins initiated by 4 courageous students at the Woolworth 5&10 Cents Store in Greensboro, NC in 1960. The intent of the Declaration is to throw a bright prophetic light on the disastrous state of the Republic in the midst of Conventions and debates on the economic and social crisis & much hopelessness. The desire of the over forty prominent signers is that the Southern Freedom Movement of the Sixties that was once the conscience of this nation can still have that resonance in its new expanded form, which includes leading Elders representing a broad cross section of social change communities and movements.
Representatives of the Council of Elders will participate in the public release of the Greensboro Declaration in all four cities. In NYC the release will take place in Zuccotti Park the home base of the Occupy Wall St. movement. The site was chosen to dramatize the vision of the Council of Elders to share its wisdom and its failures with others, especially young people. Following the release there will be a conversation: dialogue between the Elders and young representatives of Occupy and other young people from congregations, schools and other youth groups about non-violence and building social movements.
Plans will also be announced for dramatic readings / proclamations of the Declaration in churches, synagogues, mosques & public places across the land on September 30 by celebrities & ordinary folk. Our hope is that this call to action will be launched in New York's Riverside Church, (to be confirmed) where Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. delivered his historic address in 1967 calling for the end of the Vietnam war. These readings will be a call for social and political moral action during the electoral period and beyond.