Ethnic Groups USA

About the Book

Just before the celebration of Thanksgiving in the year 1911, many groups were fragmented on multiple social and religious issues. As a result, parishioners from the First Presbyterian Russell Sage Memorial Church, of Far Rockaway, New York, and families of Temple Israel of Lawrence, New York, saw the importance of engaging in some form of dialogue that would bridge the multiple misunderstandings between the groups, thus, hoping to achieve somewhat an authentic interpersonal relationship. Today, this dialogue is successfully ongoing between these two original communities and craves the emulation from inauthentic groups across America

About the Author

Dr. Benjamin J. Patterson, a retired civil servant with the Government of Jamaica, served as a professor in several institutions of higher learning in the West Indies and the United States of America for many years. He earlier served as a tutor at the University of the West Indies, Mona Campus in Kingston, Jamaica and later as an adjunct lecturer at the Florida International University and Florida Memorial University in the discipline of Physiological Psychology. He was instrumental in the development of an inter-disciplinary curriculum in Group Dynamics, a course he taught for over eighteen years at the Metropolitan College of New York and where he later served as the Director of Academic Affairs at the Queen’s Center. Dr. Patterson has a long history of working with ecumenical and ethnic groups. He presently serves as the Chairman of the Board of Trustees for Atlantic College, New Providence, Bahamas. He earned his Bachelor and Masters Degrees in Behavioral and Correctional Science from the University of Detroit, a Master of Divinity from New York Theological Seminary and a Doctorate in Public Administration from Nova Southeastern University.