[Excerpt]
In December, more than 1,000 people packed an athletic arena at St. Mary’s University to launch a yearlong celebration of the organization’s 50-year history — and to plan for its future. Sitting with their churches amid the electric energy of a political rally, the crowd cheered as their pastors and lay leaders secured commitments from the city’s political and business leaders to work together on a variety of initiatives.
They are also the leading example of a movement that has revitalized a strategy of community organizing that originally spread throughout the U.S. at the tail end of the Great Depression....Led by Ernesto Cortés Jr., COPS revised [Saul] Alinsky’s tactics to push more deeply into congregations, especially Catholic parishes, developing the organizing skills of their lay members, particularly women, and turning them into community leaders….
His “genius” was seeing “the potential in people that others overlooked, even that they couldn’t see in themselves” and “working patiently with them,” said Joe Rubio, who took over Cortés’ position as West/Southwest Industrial Areas Foundation co-director in 2021….
COPS/Metro is the founding member of the West/Southwest Industrial Areas Foundation, a regional affiliate for the IAF, where Cortés’ model of empowering lay members of congregations has spread to its chapters from California to Nebraska to Louisiana.
Elizabeth Valdez, director of the IAF in Texas, said, “The issues come from the bottom up.” The organizations hold house meetings, or listening sessions, “ where we hear what is the cry of the people, what are the major issues that they are concerned about... [and] identify the leaders that want to work in the communities and want to work with others to change, to transform those issues.”
[Photo Credit: Aleja Hertzler-McCain, RNS]
In San Antonio, a Pioneer of Modern Faith-Based Community Organizing Has Deep Roots, Religion News Service [pdf]
Grassroots Advocacy: In San Antonio, a Pioneer of Modern Faith-Based Community Organizing Has Deep Roots, Sight Magazine [pdf]