Dynamics of Organizing

The magic of church basements and the power of community organizing

Joseph Mariano

By Joseph Mariano

Inez Killingsworth, a National People's Action national co-chair, and I were recently talking and recalling stories from times we were together in Cleveland, Ohio. We noted differences between where we hold most of our current national meetings – more often than not in big downtown hotels – versus back in the 1970s and 1980s when we met almost exclusively in church basements.  During winter months we often sat on cold metal folding chairs in drafty rooms for hours at planning meetings.

Despite these challenges, it was in these church basements where we came up with great strategies for moving issues and fun ideas for gimmicks on hits.

I began my career in community organizing in 1975 on the eastside of Cleveland in the Buckeye Woodland neighborhood. Almost all of the leadership planning of the Buckeye Woodland Community Congress (BWCC) and its public meetings were held in the basement of St. Benedict’s Roman Catholic parochial school. This location seemed ideal as it was in the neighborhood’s geographic center and a place that was safe and neutral – both African American and white leaders were comfortable coming for evening meetings. In addition, the basement of St. B’s was the site where hundreds of neighbors turned out to BWCC-organized public meetings. These meetings featured discussions of neighborhood issues with prominent public figures, such as Congressman Louis Stokes, Catholic Bishop James Hickey and United States Senator Howard Metzenbaum.

The neighborhood adjacent to the BWCC area was called Union Miles, as was where Inez lived. The Union Miles Community Coalition had its founding convention at Epiphany Parish due to the support of its pastor, a Roman Catholic priest who wanted community organizing to improve the surrounding neighborhood. 

In 1977, the top leaders from the BWCC called Gale Cincotta at the NPA office in Chicago. BWCC wanted her to know that the group was willing to sponsor and host the NPA national leadership meeting in Cleveland at St. Benedict’s. As the NPA chairperson, Gale agreed to the meeting. About 100 folks from all parts of the U.S. met in St. B’s basement and planned strategies for the national conference in Washington, D.C.

Starting in the mid-1980s and as recently as the late 1990s, NPA had national leadership meetings in various Roman Catholic church basements in Chicago, including St. Sylvester’s Parish and St. John Cantius in the West Town neighborhood. 

Gale and NTIC co-founder Shel Trapp would often tell stories about writing the first draft of what became the Community Reinvestment Act in the basement of Mandell United Methodist Church, where the Organization for A Better Austin had its meetings on Chicago’s westside.

One year national neighborhood leaders listened to Congressman Henry B. Gonzalez, the former chairman of the House Banking and Housing Committee, talk about neighborhoods at an evening dinner during the NPA national conference. The dinner was held in an AME church basement.

During an early NPA conference in Washington, we had officials at the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) agree to meet with our leadership team and several hundred neighborhood leaders. HUD officials were afraid of having the meeting at their huge headquarters – the previous year NPA stormed the place and barged into Housing Secretary Patricia Harris’s office after being rebuffed for a meeting. Our leaders compromised on a gathering at nearby Saint Dominic Catholic Church, where we held a national public meeting in the sanctuary, and had Deputy Secretary Robert Embry talk about Federal Housing Administration and community development block grants.

Visits to neighborhood-based groups in our network more often than not wound up in church basements, either for meetings or to see group offices.

As a 1960s activist, and in a time before I found community organizing, I would often say I spent a lot of time in meaningless church basement meetings where my only accomplishment was wearing out the seat of many a good pair of trousers sitting on metal chairs. 

Through community organizing over the last 30 years, church basements have made a significant difference for me and many others. Many ideas have literally come from the bottom up – from church basements – to be put into action by people that have led to wins. 

When I refer to church basements I am using a generic term as my organizing experience has taken me to the basements of many houses of worship,  including Friends Meeting Houses, Muslim Community Centers, Synagogues, as well as Unitarian, Roman Catholic, Lutheran (including the conservative Missouri Synod); United Methodist; Episcopal; Presbyterian;  Baptist (National Baptist Conference and Southern Baptist Convention); AME; Church of God In Christ;  Latter Day Saints; Salvation Army; United Church of Christ; Reformed Church in America and Pentecostal churches. 

The result of this bottom-up community organizing approach has not only led us to the top of office towers and into the boardrooms of corporations, but also into spacious congressional committee hearing rooms on Capitol Hill.