Cleveland activists launch moratorium campaign

Activists in Cleveland have formed the Ohio Moratorium Now! Coalition to Stop Evictions, Foreclosures and Shutoffs using the Moratorium NOW! Coalition in Michigan as a model.

The Nov. 18 founding meeting was called by the Peoples Fightback Center, the Cleveland Chapter of the New Black Panther Party, the Lucasville Uprising Freedom Network (formerly the Cleveland Lucasville Five Defense Committee) and the Baldwin Wallace College Chapter of Fight Imperialism, Stand Together (FIST).

The call to “join a nationwide movement that is keeping people in their homes and keeping their utilities from being shut off” drew additional community activists from outside the original sponsoring groups.

Those present were inspired by a reading from the classic book “Labor’s Untold Story.” The passage told the story of Peter Grossup, a cabinetmaker laid off in 1930 who eighteen months later faced foreclosure.

When the sheriffs finally came and threw the Grossup family’s possessions on the street, the Unemployed Council came and moved everything back in. Grossup, who until that day dismissed the Council as “a bunch of Communists,” was lifted from despondency, and subsequently became a Council activist in his own right.

The initial Moratorium Now! meeting was held in the Glenville neighborhood, a predominantly African-American community on Cleveland’s east side where the foreclosure crisis is the most severe. The group agreed to hold the second meeting in the west side suburb of Lakewood, which has a large lesbian, gay, bi and trans population and where a Lutheran minister asked the coalition to come to her church.

By going to different neighborhoods, Ohio Moratorium Now! plans to launch a countywide and eventually a statewide campaign to save people’s homes and prevent utility shutoffs.

Organizers will employ a two-pronged approach and push for a moratorium through legislative or other governmental action while at the same time building a rapid-response strike force to keep people from being thrown out on the street.

E-mail: mgrevatt@workers.org