On Saturday, Oct. 26, former U.N. Ambassador Andrew Young along with other distinguished luminaries, friends, and special guests will host the first of a two-day 65th birthday celebration honoring Ambassador Charles Stith for his more than 40 years of activism and public service. The two-day affair will culminate with a prayer service on Sunday morning, Oct. 27 from 11 a.m. – 1 p.m.
Charles Richard Stith worked in the trenches as an activist minister in the 1980s, and was a pastor of Union United Methodist Church in Boston’s South End for 15 years. While at Union United, Stith focused on voter empowerment and economic parity for African Americans and other people of color. He organized and led voter registration efforts that helped lay foundational support for the historic elections of John D. O’Bryant and Jean McGuire to the Boston School Committee, and later aided Bruce Bolling’s citywide election to the Boston City Council.
He was a lead negotiator for a $500 million community reinvestment initiative that resulted in the relocation of banks back into inner-city neighborhoods, which revitalized business districts in Roxbury, Dorchester and Mattapan.
Expanding upon the work he did in Boston, he founded and led the Organization For A New Equality, a vehicle he utilized nationally to spur economic development and whose work became the basis for the Clinton Administration’s revision of the Community Reinvestment Act regulations.
In 1998, Stith was appointed by President Bill Clinton as Ambassador to Tanzania. During his term, he advised the Tanzanian government on qualifying for debt relief and negotiated the first Open Skies Agreement on the continent between Tanzania and the United States.
Returning home from Tanzania, Ambassador Stith created the African Presidential Center at Boston University, a first-of-its-kind institution hosting former African Presidents and policy conferences in London, Berlin, Johannesburg and Dar Es Salaam. The Center is widely recognized as one of the foremost think tanks in the world on African issues.
In lieu of gifts, the Stith family is asking that contributions be made to the Stith Hope Fund, administered by The Boston Foundation, with proceeds used to support future public service initiatives.
Donations can be made at www.tbf.org/giving/make-a-gift/stith-hope-fund. For more information, email aparcadm@bu.edu.
