Cleveland activists launch moratorium campaign
By
Martha Grevatt
Cleveland
Published Nov 24, 2008 5:17 PM
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: [email protected]
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