Hungry Club Forum Explores Fostering Accountable Community

At its October 3, 2009 breakfast, The Hungry Club Forum of Savannah, Inc.(HCFS) heard from the last the community-wide study groups involved in an examination of Tavis Smiley’s The Covenant With Black America.

The Covenant IV Study Group, chaired by Zaphon Wilson, PhD., chairman of the Political Science Department at Armstrong Atlantic State University, and co-chaired by Larry Stokes, PhD., chairman of the Criminal Justice Department at Savannah State University, made its preliminary presentation on Fostering Accountable Community- Centered Policing.

By the year’s end, and after public input the presentation will be one of ten that will be compiled into a local action plan for community improvement tentatively titled, The Covenant With Black Savannah.

The gist of the presentation centered around the community taking a more proactive role in maintaining a safe and secure environment and law enforcement rethinking and retraining for working for and with the community to accomplish these goals.

Other presenters for this study group included Maj. Mark Gerbino of the Savannah-Chatham Metro Police Department, Rev. Thurmond N. Tillman, Pastor of First African Baptist Church, who also has a background in criminal probation, former prosecutor Lloyd Johnson, Esq. (ret.), community developer Dr. Barbara Allison-Simpson and Fr. J. Lloyd Angus (ret.), HCFS Board member.

The next Hungry Club Forum will be held on Saturday November 7, 2009, at 9:30 AM, in the West Broad Street YMCA Annex, and feature a presentation on opportunities for community development and pride afforded in the proposed W. W. Law Plaza, a housing, hotel and retail complex, to be located on Martin Luther King, Jr. Blvd.

The public is invited. For more info., call Julia Wright at 233-0855 or Diana Harvey Johnson at 927-8425.