Reverend Dr. Jonathan C. Augustine, pastor of Big Bethel AME Church in Atlanta, recognized seven students at Black Law Students Association at Emory University in Atlanta, including Greear Webb a graduating law school student. Emory had recently been in local news because allegedly a law student was sending racist, threatening emails targeting minorities. It had been rumored that the administration initially did not know how to handle the situation or refused to handle the situation in a timely manner allegedly… perhaps due to feared repercussions from the White House and President Donald Trump’s administration. Since then, Emory University has officially cut ties with the law student. The student had already been barred from campus earlier this year, though privacy laws prevent the school from releasing further details.
Students say they wish Emory had handled the situation differently. “Students are asking for an apology from the school and more transparency going forward,” said Greear Webb, “Hopefully a situation like this never happens again. But if it does, the school needs to be more responsive.”
Reverend Dr. Jonathan C. Augustine and the congregation prayed for the law students and the entire student body, faculty and staff of Emory University.
Ms. Dawn A. Montgomery introduced the morning speaker, Reverend Dr. Benjamin F. Chavis, Jr.
Born in Oxford, North Carolina, Reverend Dr. Benjamin F. Chavis, Jr. is a community activist, author, journalist, and the current president and chief executive officer of the National Newspaper Publishers Association (NNPA). He started as a youth coordinator and served as an assistant in the Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC) under Martin Luther King Jr., whose leadership deeply influenced his commitment to the Civil Rights movement. He earned a Bachelor of Arts in Chemistry from the University of North Carolina at Charlotte in 1969.
In 1971, at just 23 years old, Chavis gained international attention as the leader of the Wilmington Ten, a group of Civil Rights activists in North Carolina who were wrongfully convicted of arson. As the oldest member, he received the harshest sentence, 34 years in prison. The convictions were later overturned, and in 1980, the U.S. Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals ordered their release, citing prosecutorial misconduct.
In 1980, Chavis earned a Master of Divinity, graduating magna cum laude from Duke University. He went on to receive a Doctor of Ministry degree from Howard University in 1981. He later pursued doctoral studies in Systematic Theology at Union Theological Seminary affiliated with Columbia University, completing all required coursework in 1984. In 1993, the national board of directors of the NAACP elected Chavis as the executive director and chief executive officer. He later served, in 1995, as the National Director of the Million Man March, and the founder and chief executive officer of the National African American Leadership Summit (NAALS). Since 2001, he has been chief executive officer and co-chairman of the Hip-Hop Summit Action Network in New York City which he co-founded with hip-hop mogul Russell Simmons.
In 1986, Chavis conducted and published the landmark national study: Toxic Waste and Race in the United States of America, that statistically revealed the correlation between race and the location of toxic waste throughout the United States. Chavis is considered by many environmental grassroots activists to be the “Godfather of the post-modern environmental justice movement” that has steadily grown throughout the nation and world since the early 1980s.
As Reverend Dr. Benjamin F. Chavis, Jr. spoke from the pulpit, he recognized The Atlanta Inquirer, The Atlanta Voice, The Atlanta Daily World and The Atlanta Tribune, all longstanding members and minority publications of the National Newspaper Publishers Association (NNPA). The three publications that he mentioned are all based in Atlanta, Georgia.
“God is a Great Creator.” “We are to be good stewards of God’s creation,” Chavis mentions. “Creation is not accidental, it is intentional, in order, and declared good by God.”
Chavis warns that we must be careful of attributing greatness to people, especially those that are “power-hungry misfits” that think that they have our interests. “We live in a world today that abuses the meaning and the attribution of the word ‘Great.’” “Anything great about America comes from the Lord, and anything great about the world comes from the Lord,” states Chavis. He continues, “our nation is politically divided; we are divided economically, culturally and spiritually.”
Criminal activities in our nation including the recent attack at the White House correspondents’ dinner on April 25, 2026 are “manifestation of how our country needs to first turn back to God.”
“Dominion over creation does not mean exploitation of creation, it does not mean domination. We are supposed to be caretakers of God’s creation. We were created to enjoy the earth but also to safeguard the earth from all harm.”
Chavis mentions that we need to vote and put people in political office that represent our interests. He adds that we should be concerned about pollutants in our water and air. Chavis states that the ‘ecological crisis’ is a ‘theological crisis.’
“Environmental justice is social justice, Environmental justice is racial justice.” Chavis quotes excerpts of verses of Isaiah 24:4-6: “‘The earth dries up and withers, the world languishes and withers, the heavens languish with the earth. The earth is defiled by its people; they have disobeyed the laws, violated the statutes and broken the everlasting covenant.’”
“The earth suffers from human sin, … and our community suffers the most,” Chavis continues as he expresses that minority communities suffer disproportionately when it comes to health, sickness and pollutants that harm us.
“When we talk about environmental justice, we are talking about life and death and we must choose life over death.”
Last updated on April 28, 2026
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