Raleigh Washington, president of Promise Keepers
I sat down last week with Raleigh Washington, president of Promise Keepers, who was in town to help plan Tulsa’s first PK national conference, scheduled for Sept. 20 and 21 at the Tulsa Convention Center.
He called down to the coffee shop from his room at the Doubletree Hotel to make sure I wouldn’t be taking photos, and then showed up in a t-shirt, as humble and unassuming a man as you can imagine.
But he got excited when he started talking about Promise Keepers, and all that is going on with the national men’s organization.
While we talked, Coach Bill McCartney, Promise Keepers founder and a close friend of Washington, called him on his cell phone to update him on some things, and to ask for prayer.
Both McCartney and Washington left Promise Keepers in 2003 to pursue another ministry and returned in 2008.
Washington was there 15 years ago when Promise Keepers held its huge rally in Washington D.C. Park officials declined to put a number on the attendance after a controversy over how many attended an earlier Million Man March, but some estimated the crowd at up to 1.4 million.
I covered the event. Viewed from the grandstand in front of the Capitol, the sea of men stretched as far as the eye could see, filling the mall from one end to the other, and all the side streets leading into it. Some men climbed trees to get a view.
It was the high-water mark for Promise Keepers, which had been filling football stadiums with up to 50,000 men. After that, Promise Keepers faded from view, but, as Washington told me, never went away.
Now, he believes, the organization is resurging, with an emphasis not so much on numbers, but on the depth of commitment, and transforming change in men’s lives.
I write about the interview in Saturday’s paper.
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