Every Thursday at 6 in the morning, the Rev. Al Taylor, pastor at Harlem’s Infinity Mennonite Church, starts a special part of his ministry at the subway station at 155tth Street and Frederick Douglass Boulevard. Rev. Taylor has served his community wearing many hats for the past 25 years. As Chief of Staff for State Assemblyman Herman “Denny” Farrell, he has walked the corridors of the State Capitol and the Legislative Office Building witnessing the ruthlessly competitive sport of lawmaking. But on Thursday mornings he switches gears and goes to the subway station to meet with a group called “Man Up in Harlem.” From there, Rev. Taylor leads the group through the neighborhood praying for the end of violence in their community, for jobs, for people facing eviction, and especially for mothers worried that their sons coming home from prison will return to their former ways and be sent back. These prayer walks have caught on. Theyare now occurring in three of the five NYC boroughs with followers who have been moved by encounters with mothers of parolees, and are tired of their communities feeding what the Children’s Defense Fund calls the “Cradle to Prison Pipeline” with their male youth.
Rev. Kenneth L. Radcliffe, a Permanent Deacon at Resurrection Chapel, St. Charles Borromeo, is familiar with a different set of corridors. He retired from the New York City Department of Corrections as an administrative Chaplain after 20 years of assignments at Rikers Island, “The Tombs”, and detention centers in the Bronx and Brooklyn. Rev. Radcliffe offered spiritual counseling and comfort to thousands by lending his ear to men coping with separation from family and friends. Technically retired, Deacon Radcliffe still serves as a trained substance abuse/addictions counselor and certified recovery coach. He is the author of Applying Alcoholics Anonymous Principles to the Disease of Racism (Bloomington: Xlibris, 2012) and two reports, “The Crisis of the Poor in Black Urban America, A Challenge for the Church and Other Houses of Worship,” and “The Crisis of the Poor in Black Urban America, A Challenge for the President and Corporate America.”
Both of these men are advisors to ICNY’s “Reentry Familyand Faith Circles of Support,” a program with the Harlem Community Justice Center, Harlem faith leaders,and the JC Flowers Foundation, which provides support to formerly incarcerated individuals between the ages of 18-26 and their families post release. Rev. Radcliffe and volunteer members from his church offer a ministry of presence and hospitality many Thursday mornings at the Harlem Community Justice Center, as formerly incarcerated individuals wait to meet with their parole officers. They are working with ICNY to launch their own ministry for returning citizens.
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