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Today, the Center is leading the effort to redirect federal priorities
through the Citizens Budget Campaign of Western PA and is working actively
toward understanding and undoing racism within the community.
Larry Kessler, founder of the Thomas Merton Center, an ecumenical ministry
for justice and peace in Pittsburgh, PA., put it this way in 1973: "we're trying
to get this group [ordinary Americans] to understand that peace and justice can
be a way of life--that it's for everyone..."
In its first year from its storefront office on the Southside, the group not
only protested the continuation of the war in Vietnam, but worked with a human
needs coalition to reverse federal cutbacks, raised funds for Medical Aid to
Indochina and for the Bach Mai Hospital and provided information for schools and
religious education programs on racism, poverty and war. The Center provided
seminars on contemplation and nonviolence and on simplicity in lifestyle, and
celebrating a simple Christmas by supporting workers in third world cooperatives
with its Giving Tree alternative holiday shop.
James Carroll, whose writings on contemplation and resistance and Dorothy
Day, founder of the Catholic Worker movement were the first two recipients of
the Thomas Merton Award, given annually to national and international
individuals struggling for justice.
Others so honored included Joan Baez; Archbishop of Recife Brazin Dom Helder
Camara, Helen Caldicott, Archbishop Raymond Hunthausen, Sweet Honey in the
Rock's Bernice Johnson Reagon, Miguel D'Escoto, Daniel Berrigan, Henri Nouwen,,
Marian Wright Edelman of the Children's Defense Fund, people's historian Howard
Zinn, Rev. Lucius Walker of Pastors for Peace and Winona LaDukie.
Through the years, the Center has educated and organized against world and
local hunger, exploitation of workers, militarism, and racial discrimination in
Pittsburgh. Members have been arrested protesting the B-1 bomber, nuclear
weapons and apartheid in South Africa. They have organized fasts and vigils.
The first Pittsburgh chapter of Amnesty International and the Greater Pittsburgh
Community Food Bank were organized by TMC staff members.
During the 1980's the River City Campaign challenged local nuclear weapons
producers, Rockwell and Westinghouse, with weekly vigils, leaflets and civil
disobedience actions. They also protested during the construction of CMU's
Pentagon-funded Software Engineering Institute. Members of the Campaign and
Westinghouse officials engaged in two years of dialogue about the corporation's
participation in producing first-strike nuclear weapons.
In that same period, Pittsburgh delegations traveled to Nicaragua, Honduras
and El Salvador, as part of the Witness for Peace efforts and in creating a
Sister City in San Isidro, Nicaragua. More recently, the Haiti Solidarity
Committee and the Mexican Solidarity Network meet at the Center.
As the industrial might of Pittsburgh was dismantled, the Center supported
efforts such as the Tri-State Conference on Steel and many struggles to keep job
at good wages. The Center helped organized campaigns to oppose privatizing Kane
Hospital and to block the "Contract with America."
Over the past few years, racial and economic justice have become the key
organizing focus of the Center. The Citizens Budget Campaign has been educating
and working to build a movement to address wasteful military spending and the
growing disparity among rich and poor. The Center is currently developing a
training program for local organizers to address structural racism in their
communities.
In addition to its organizing campaigns, the Merton Center has become a
resource for dozens of social justice and peace groups in the region. Its
monthly newspaper, The New People, is a key source of information for activists
on current actions, campaigns and events. Our website provides and up-to-date
action calendar and our justice, peace and ecology directory of local groups.
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