The conversion of Rev. Lee Peterson is a remarkable story. A black sharecropper’s son, he ended up in Los Angeles. There, he fell under the spell of the teachings of the Nation of Islam and other hate-based doctrines of the Jesse Jackson’s of the world.

When Peterson became a Christian, he came under conviction that hatred had no place in his thinking. Hatred was simply the tool used by too many black leaders to convince blacks that their troubles were somebody else’s fault. Peterson has issued a fearless call to the black community to set aside hatred, accept responsibility for their own situation and get to work.

His call begins with a trenchant attack on the self-appointed leaders whose tactics he labels with the title of his recent book, Scam. Included in the list are Jesse Jackson, Al Sharpton (the riot king) and Louis Farakhan (an American Hitler).

These, and other leaders like them, have led the black community from freedom into dependency on the Democrat Plantation. There they have become dependants of the state, their families destroyed, fathers marginalized and removed from the home, and kids raised by moms whose “husband” is the plantation manager.

Hatred is the “glue” that has been used by many black leaders — preachers and politicians alike — to keep blacks on the plantation. Peterson cites what Ezola Foster, a black conservative pro-family leader learned while she was still a Democrat. Namely, the thug that founded the Soviet Union, Valdimir Lenin, understood the power of hatred: “We must hate. Hatred is the essence of communism.”

The black family that is dependent on the Democrat’s government welfare plantation, has become dominated by feminist women who hate men, Peterson says. This combination of social pressures has locked the black community into a liberal political world. Not surprisingly, one of the elements of the liberal worldview supported by many blacks is opposition to self-defense. Indeed, most black politicians are gun-bashing anti-Second Amendment zealots.

Dependence on the state for food and shelter includes depending on the state for protection. That the state provides none of these things well has not shaken the firmly held commitment to restricting firearms. Regarding the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP), Peterson says this: “These are radical socialists who have little respect for individual responsibility or the Second Amendment.”

Peterson finds that the self-destructive views of a majority of the black community are strongly reinforced by the training provided in government schools. Peterson warns: “You’d have to be crazy to send your child to the average public school.”

Peterson maintains that the incidence of violence among black youth is a product, not of poverty, but of the number of single parent households headed by single moms. This is not a news flash, since U.S. Senator Evan Bayh (D-IN) told his colleagues in 1999 of this conclusion found in the Journal of Research in Crime and Delinquency. Bayh cited other research that found that kids who live without contact with their fathers are, in comparison to other kids, five times more likely to live in poverty and twice as likely to commit crime.

In other words, guns are not the problem behind black violence. The NAACP with its lawsuit against gun manufacturers and dealers is simply attempting to shift the blame from blacks themselves. The problem is made worse by black preachers who “blame whites for their own failings,” Peterson says. All this has enabled blacks to “take away the responsibility of looking at themselves” to identify the source of their troubles.

Peterson practices what he preaches, operating the BOND Home for Boys, After School Character Building Program, and many other programs and services that benefit men and their families. Peterson takes the message of the gospel to troubled blacks youths and men. His objective is to transform their lives so that the black community can be transformed as a result.

I interviewed Peterson on my talk show, Live Fire, which is archived at http://gunowners.org/radio.htm. Peterson’s latest book is Scam: How the Black Leadership Exploits Black America. Among other places, Peterson’s book is available at http://www.bondinfo.org, the web site of his Brotherhood Organization of a New Destiny (BOND).