By Joe Mariano

NTIC Executive Director

Heard about the big brouhaha involving NPA showing up at President Bush’s Senior Policy Advisor Karl Rove’s house?

It has been fodder for the liberal and neo-conservative media ranging from Michelle Malkin to Jim Hightower. NPA heard through the grapevine that some white, liberal advocates were not happy, claiming NPA had destroyed the Development, Relief and Education for Alien Minors (DREAM) Act, and by implication, all their hard work.

The direct action at Rove’s house is further proof that NPA is willing to fight for its issues by actively participating in democracy.

Karl Rove is a brilliant political strategist, very influential over the President’s decisions, and one very smart human being. For those reasons, the NPA leadership asked him for a meeting to discuss moving the DREAM act legislation.

Now we question our original judgment about Rove, as all he had to do was meet with our leadership and have a serious discussion about the DREAM Act. His reaction could be explained by his world view through the lens of electoral and partisan politics.
Rove is not alone in misunderstanding NPA. It has been misunderstood by some for 33 years, since its inception.

Many decision-makers didn’t take Gale seriously. They only saw ,either a hefty housewife with bouffant blonde hair wearing a floral-print dress among a sea of business suits; or a crass loud mouth from the west side of Chicago, who often was smoking a cigarette.

When Cincotta and NPA said banks weren’t loaning to certain neighborhoods in the inner city and challenged the industry to open their books, the bankers sneered and said NPA was too stupid, and couldn’t understand the complexities of banking.

When NPA finally forced the banks to open their books by passing the Home Mortgage Disclosure Act (HMDA) in 1977, it showed we were right about their redlining.

Cincotta’s obituaries and tributes in 2001 stated that she was the “Mother of CRA”, the Community Reinvestment Act, which was a tool that NPA developed for grass roots neighborhood groups to form partnerships with banks, which has led to trillions of dollars being invested in our neighborhoods.

Before the passage of CRA, the big banks fought tooth and nail saying that such a law was not needed. Again Cincotta and NPA were misunderstood.

Richard Hartnack, a senior vice president of the First National Bank of Chicago, was quoted in a New York Times article from May 5, 1986 headlined “Local Pressure Bringing More Lending in Inner Cities” about his encounter with Cincotta and NPA.

He said that his bank’s agreeing to invest $120 million in Chicago neighborhoods began with a call from Cincotta requesting a meeting.
“National People’s Action has a reputation for disruptive tactics. It once shut down the Washington offices of the Department of Housing and Urban Development for a day with raucous demonstrations against department practices.”

But Hartnack said his bank had misunderstood the needs of the city and wanted to find an investment program it could support.

Cincotta and NPA have a long history of doing office and home visits with top HUD officials. As a result of one hit, NPA established a productive working relationship with former HUD Secretary Jack Kemp. On one of his many visits to one of our neighborhood revitalization projects, Kemp told Cincotta a secret about the differences on how NPA and how long time HUD bureaucrats worked with Kemp.

“You are the only ones who told me the truth about this place.” He then went on to champion many of NPA’s reforms for HUD.

Another time, Cincotta and NPA visited the McLean, Virginia mansion of former HUD Secretary Andrew Cuomo to talk about the Federal Housing Authority (FHA) foreclosure epidemic in our neighborhoods and to challenge him to sign an agreement with NPA. The agreement focused on changes in HUD policy to cut off the crooked mortgage bankers from doing business with HUD and to reform its property management practices. He refused to sign an agreement and was roundly booed in front of his wife, Caroline Kennedy, and his kids. The next day in front of the HUD headquarters, NPA held a mock trial with a Cuomo mannequin sitting on a toilet bowl and people chanting “Cuomo ain’t done __it!” for our neighborhoods. Cuomo was the darling of the liberals and they were outraged that we would attack “a friend and someone who was on our side.” Too bad, he was screwing up in our neighborhoods and since he was just the hired help and won’t listen, we went after him. Shortly thereafter, Cuomo and his elaborate media machine announced that he had made policy reforms around FHA. The reforms included the same ones NPA had asked for, including Credit Watch, and the Home Buyer Protection Program. Of course, he never mentioned NPA in his press releases, but our leaders and people knew how these reforms came about!

What Mr. Rove - and countless others in government and the private sector - have never been able to understand is that NPA cares nothing about partisan politics. NPA does not care if a person is a Republican, Democrat, liberal or conservative. Those labels are irrelevant to NPA. What NPA has always cared about is what their position is on issues that are affecting our neighborhoods in America. If their position is hurting neighborhoods, then we want to talk with them about that. If they refuse to answer letters and phone calls asking for a meeting, as Rove did, then there is no other alternative than the front lawn, because NPA is serious about those issues.

Over the years, NPA and Cincotta have been called many names by bankers, media pundits and government officials, including Communists, Nazis and trouble makers.

At one meeting between NPA and representatives of the “Drug Czar” Barry McCaffrey, Cincotta was lectured on the need to have respect for General McCaffrey, as he was a decorated and a wounded Viet Nam veteran.

Her response was: “Don’t question our patriotism, as my sons and the relatives of the leadership team have also served in combat in the United States Armed Forces.”

While they wanted to divert the issue to questions about our patriotism, we stuck to our issue, which was getting that office to work with NPA in the war on drugs and for them not to raise the white flag.
NPA has never been deterred by name calling, attacks on our patriotism or questions about the soundness of our strategy. As a result, through the years, NPA has successfully drawn the ire of liberals and conservatives alike and somehow has continued to win victories on important neighborhood issues, as “Organizing Is Our Winning Tradition”.

The question still remains: What is standing in the way of Mr. Rove - to meet with NPA leadership - to discuss how the DREAM Act would better prepare the youth of our neighborhoods to be better equipped to be the leaders of tomorrow?