Writing New York: Posts from the Boroughs and Beyond

Pastor Riley sitting at his desk

He was head to toe in blue. A blue plaid chartered over his navy suit of wool and silk, a cerulean pocket square peeked through. He coordinates his outfits but when Pastor Curtis Riley looks at Hempstead, he does not see its color.

Pastor Riley, 56, presides over Reigning in Life Training Center at 247 Fulton Avenue in the village of Hempstead. He has lived there for 42 years and has witnessed the integration of blacks and Hispanics in the area. He is part of the village’s black population of 26,016 and his church is predominantly black with a few white, Hispanic, and Indian members. Unlike many surrounding churches, he does not consider his church a black church.

His family has always been involved in ministry but in his late 20’s, Pastor Riley wanted to find out who he was beyond being a Christian. He became involved in entertainment and dance; fashion show coordination; and he even studied to be a chef, launching a promising business in catering and food services.  These ventures sent him from New Jersey to Queens, to wherever the lure of business took him. His pockets were full but he felt empty. He felt called to turn back to God.

Pastor Riley studied for his minister license in the south so that he could avoid distractions in Hempstead. He met his wife, Stephanie, when he returned to New York and lived in Queens. He was tempted for the last time to leave Hempstead when he was invited to join a thriving church in the Carolinas. He chose Hempstead.

As a new minister, Pastor Riley worked with the Economic Opportunity Commission of Nassau County (EOC), a human resources position he used as training to understand his community. He made the conscious decision to separate his identity as a pastor from the work he was doing so that he could know what people were going through.

“People don’t care about how much you know, if they don’t know how much you care,” he said.

It was a time when HIV/AIDS was rampant and he had to find those who were affected in hidden quarters and spread a message of safe sex, knowing that churches were commanding abstinence. EOC was government-funded and he stuck with the approach that the company trained him to take because he wanted his community to live.

“People just need to be accepted for who they are,” he said. “They have enough issues they have to deal with every day, people pointing fingers or looking down on them for any reason.”

“I’d rather reach them before we have to rescue them,” he said.

He does not believe that pastors should be activists.

In July of this year, Reverend Al Sharpton and the National Action Network (NAN) organized the Justice for Trayvon Martin Rally and the 100 Cities Vigil. The majority of attendees at the Hempstead rally were clergy members who leaned over the podium chanting “no justice, no peace” as both pastors and advocates. Pastor Riley did not attend.

“My position on it, ‘No justice, no peace,’ that’s been um…Wow, I’ve been in so many rallies like that and I don’t want to be in anymore rallies like that,” he said.

Pastor Riley said that the chant was not his message and should not be the message of the church. He does not believe in the black church -an institution that rose far before the Civil Rights movement– even though he is surrounded by churches who continue to embrace the identity. Pastor Riley said that calling a ministry a black church holds people back mentally and sets an advocacy of prejudice.

“Something that bothers me is it always becomes just only black and white,” he said. “I believe social justice goes beyond just African American.”

Annette Dennis, the president of the Nassau County Chapter-NAN, organized the vigil and rally for Hempstead. She is an ordained minister. She said that the black church was where activist groups grew out of, referencing Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., and Reverend Sharpton.

“You know, if you look at the history of the black church, you know, from let’s say Reconstruction to now, the black church was the only place where blacks or black men especially could get any respect,” she said.

Ms. Dennis said it is not mandatory for pastors to be activists but as they are leaders over a congregation, she commends it. For her, “no justice, no peace” means that if she is not getting justice, she will not let those in power have peace.

“The rallies, the marches, and things like that, they don’t solve the problems specifically, but they do call attention to the problem,” she said.

Pastor Riley does not think the problem is skin deep. He wants to focus on what people are good at instead of what makes them targets. Working with the DART program (Desire, Acceptance, Responsibility, and Trust), a program designed to inhibit the abuse of drugs and alcohol amongst inmates in Nassau County, he was told not to come in as a pastor but to carry a message. He opened their eyes to embracing their talents for good.

“Unfortunately…we focus on getting people to heaven but we haven’t taught people how to live on earth,” he said. “I was guilty of that.”

Pastor Riley looks out the glass doors of his ministry, not allowing his breath to fog the glass because he wants to see the people passing by.

“It’s based on how you see yourself,” he said. “You see a drug dealer, I see a business man.”