The Rev. Don Robinson Sr. scribbled notes fast and furiously Monday as children’s advocate Marian Wright Edelman described the “cradle to prison pipeline” that has trapped young African-American males in a cycle of poverty, criminality, joblessness and despair.
Edelman was blunt in her assessment of the crisis that brought leaders and members of three prominent African-American denominations to Columbia for the three-day Great Gathering, a meeting that bishops said Monday was prompted by the “call of God.”
Robinson, a pastor from McBee who ministers to inmates at the Kershaw Correctional Center, is witness on a weekly basis to the tribulations that plague the young black inmates who enter his class hoping to learn how to study the Bible.