Willie Baptist

Willie Baptist

Willie Baptist joined the Picture the Homeless board in January 2011, after being a long time friend and mentor of many of us here. A formerly homeless father who came out of the Watts uprisings, the Black Student Movement, and working as a lead organizer with the United Steelworkers, Willie has 40 years of experience organizing amongst the poor. He has been a leader of the National Union of the Homeless, the Kensington Welfare Rights Union, the National Welfare Rights Union, the Poor People’s Economic Human Rights Campaign, and many other networks. Willie serves as the Poverty Initiative Scholar-in-Residence and is the Coordinator of the Poverty Scholars Program at Union Theological Seminary.

He is a Board member of the United Workers of Maryland, Picture the Homeless in New York and on the Advisory Committee for the Wildfire Project. Willie is the author of numerous books, articles, and pamphlets including Pedagogy of the Poor, A New and Unsettling Force: Re-Igniting Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King’s Poor People’s Campaign, It’s Not Enough to Be Angry, Lessons from the Poor Organizing the Poor: 5 Main Ingredients and the 6 Panther P’s. Willie presently serves as the Poverty Initiative Scholar-in-Residence and Co-Coordinator of Poverty Scholarship and Leadership Development for the Kairos Center.

National Welfare Rights Organization

Advisory Board

The Wildfire Project is grateful to have the support of an esteemed board of writers, thought leaders, organizers, trainers, activists, artists and facilitators. The hundreds of years of experience between them helps to guide Wildfire’s direction, strategy and practices.

Brooke Lehman, Carinne Luck, Clayton Thomas Muller, Farhad Ebrahimi, George Lakey, Harmony Goldberg, Jonathan Smucker, Naomi Klein, Rafael Navar, Raj Patel, Raquel Lavina, Sumitra Rajkumar, Willie Baptist.

Left Forum 2008

Poverty and Poor People's Movements - Social Analysis and Reflections on Strategies:

This workshop analyzes the political economy of today ís poverty and discusses the potentials and difficulties of re-igniting sustainable poor peopleís movements today, looking at theoretical debates and the experiences of current anti-poverty movements in the US.

• Willie Baptist, Poverty Initiative, Union Theological Seminary
• Chris Caruso, Cultural Anthropology, Graduate Center, CUNY
• Jan Rehmann, Co-editor, German Historical-Critical Dictionary of Marxism, Philosophy and Social Theories, Union Theological Seminary
• Liz Theoharis, Coordinator of the Poverty Initiative, Union Theological Seminary
• Moderator: Charlene Sinclair, Union Theological Seminary, Organizer in Poor People's movements

Left Forum 2010

Union Strategies, Poor People's Movements and Crisis:

• Jan Rehmann, (Chair), Union Theological Seminary
• Willie Baptist, Poverty Initiative
• Janice Fine, School of Management and Labor Relations, Rutgers University
• Saladin Muhammad, Black Workers for Justice, Electrical Workers
• Lian Hurst Mann, National School for Strategic Organizing
• Christina Kaindl, "We-Won't-Pay-for-Your-Crisis" Coalition, Germany

Left Forum 2011

Reading the Bible from the Left: St. Paul the Community Organizer:

• Brigitte Kahl, Union Theological Seminary
• Charlene Sinclair, Poverty Initiative at Union Theological Seminary
• Liz Theoharis, Poverty Initiative at Union Theological Seminary
• Willie Baptist, Poverty Scholars Program of the Poverty Initiative

Ear to the Ground Project

Ear to the Ground Project;

We would like to express our deep respect and appreciation for everyone who took the time to talk with us, and the organizations that generously hosted us during our travels. Interviews were confidential, but the following people have agreed to have their names listed for this publication:

Most of those listed were connected to Freedom Road Socialist Organization.

LeftRoots HangOut with Willie Baptist

Please join LeftRoots Friday August 15th (2014) for our next HangOut with Willie Baptist about the importance of leadership, leadership development and understanding who the ruling class is and what their strategies are.

On May 1, 1990, the National Union of the Homeless (NUH) launched a nationally coordinated campaign taking over federally-owned houses in eight cities across the country. Willie Baptist, our guest on the next LeftRoots HangOut, was one of the organizers of the NUH.

Founded in 1985 by formerly homeless people, the Union was on the move in the late 1980s. At its height, the Homeless Union counted on 25 chapters with as many as 15,000 members. Then, through a combination of drugs, prison-sentencing and co-optation, the ruling class mounted a concerted effort to break the Union. The organization dissolved by 1993.

Willie Baptist is one of the best examples of a movement intellectual. Willie is a formerly homeless father who came out of the Watts Uprisings, the Black Student Movement and has been an organizer with the United Steelworkers as well as the National Union of the Homeless and the Kensington Welfare Rights Union. Today, Willie is the Scholar-in-Residence with the Poverty Initiative.

The LeftRoots CC: Alex Tom, Alicia Garza, Cinthya Munoz, Josh Warren-White, Maria Poblet, N'Tanya Lee, Steve Williams and Timmy Lu.

Picture the Homeless Board of Directors

Picture the Homeless board as of 2015;

• Willie Baptist
• William S. Burnett
• Ryan Gibbs
• Rachel Brumfield
• Jean Rice
• Brodie Enoch

12 NY Faith & Justice Highlights from 2007!

Shane Claiborne, Willie Baptist, Obery Hendricks and others lit us up with vision and challenged us to see Jesus through the eyes of the poor. Thank you, Suzana Andrade for letting your vision become reality among us. Your risk blessed many.

Philadelphia comrades

Todd Wolfson in his book "Digital Rebellion: The Birth of the Cyber Left" thanked activists from the Media Mobilizing Project and Philadelphia, including Shivaani Selvaraj, Mica Root, Phil Wider, Nijmie Dzurinko, Desi Burnette, Ron Blount, Alix Webb, Bryan Mercer, Rebekah Scotland Phillips, Kristin Campbell, Hannah Jane Sassaman, Erika Almiron, Rachel Goffe, Megan Williamson, Fred Pinguel, Amalia Deloney, Martin Lautz, John Hough, Steve Chrevenka, Al Alston, Carmen Cuadrado, Amendu Evans, Audra Traynham, Peter Bloom, Lawrence Jones, Charles Clark, Koby Murphy, Quon Chance, Willie Baptist, Liz Theoharis, Liz McElroy, Mohammad Shukur, Bill Zoda, Tekle Gebrehmdin, Patrick Animah, Gary Broderick, Dina Yarmus, Ron Whitehorne, Patricia Eakin and others.

Living Broke in Boom Times

Living Broke in Boom Times: Lessons from the Movement to End Poverty.

Includes excerpts from three documentaries on poor Americans organizing to end poverty: Takeover, Poverty outlaw, and Outriders. The films were produced between 1989-1999. Abstracts are interspersed with commentary from activists Willie Baptist, Liz Theoharis, and Cheri Honkala. Special features: 74 min. version of film divided into 5 thematic chapters for educators ; 13 min. mini-doc "Documenting the movement" with filmmakers Peter Kinoy and Pamela Yates ; slide show of Harvey Finkle's photographs. Produced and directed by Kathleen Dara Kell.

Poverty Initiative/The takeover of St. Edward's Church

The takeover of St. Edward's Church had a history behind it according to Liz Theoharis an organizer from the Kensington Welfare Rights Union. In 1999 the KWRU helped to found the Poor People's Economic Human Rights Campaign.

In May 2003 Liz Theoharis and Willie Baptist established the Poverty Initiative at Union Theological Seminary in New York City with Chris Caruso, Amy Gopp, Dawn Plummer and Alix Mariko Webb.

In 2006, working with Joe Strife and other faith-rooted organizers in the student group Empty the Shelters Theoharis recruited students from Villanova, University of Pennsylvania and other colleges. The student activity centered on a house called Jubilee which was part of the Life Center Association, a network of intentional community co-housing created by the Movement for a New Society - social justice movement led by among others Dale T. Irvin president of New York Theological Seminary.

With the help of this network which included William Sloane Coffin Baptist and Theoharis were able to institutionalize the work of ending poverty at Union Theological Seminary under the administration of president Joseph Hough.

Also inspired by the St. Edward's takeover some students from Eastern University including Shane Claiborne formed The Simple Way, which went on to "become a national leader in raising issues of poverty and justice in the Evangelical community and beyond."

Since that time the church has been the home of The Simple Way. Shane Claiborne and his wife Mary Jo were married there as were two other The Simple Way founders Michael Brix and Michelle Brix.

Shane Claiborne writes:

It was at St. Ed's that I was born again...again.

Founding conference/Leadership

By Allen Harris CHICAGO– With tremendous enthusiasm, fighting spirit and unity, the League of Revolutionaries for a New America was established during a convention held in Chicago on April 29 and 1995.

Attending were 73 delegates and 67 observers, as well as representatives of 30 areas and the national office. They came from 22 states, the District of Columbia and the Lakota Nation.

The meeting was the second national convention of the organization founded in Chicago in April, 1993 and originally called the National Organizing Committee.

Ranging in age from 17 to 80, the participants were Native American, white, black, Latino, Asian and Arab. They were urban, suburban and rural. They were secular and Christian, Muslim, Jewish and people of other faiths.

On the National Committee are Theresa Allison, Michelle Tingling-Clemmons, Leona Smith, Willie Baptist, Ted Quant, Jerome Scott, Gloria Sandoval, Ronald Casanova, John Slaughter, Timothy Sandoval, Richard Monje, Jackie Gage, Alma Ornelas, Maria Martinez, Larry Regan, Rose Sanders, Nitza Vera and Luis Rodriguez.