Ministers step up to a broader role

3 November 2000

One well-known aphorism goes: "The best social program is a job."

True enough. It's good to be an employee. But it's even better to be an employer.

That's the notion behind a unique proposal being made by four of Boston's largest black churches. Their idea is to fund and own a real estate development in Roxbury's Grove Hall area. It's a welcome and long-overdue step toward tackling the African-American community's persistent poverty and despair.

Once a thriving center of the community, Grove Hall is at the intersection of Warren Street and Blue Hill Avenue. Blue Hill Avenue, one of Boston's grandest boulevards, was burned in a paroxysm of fire, looting and violence that marked the riots of 1968. Grove Hall was devastated. More recently, guns, drugs and violence besieged the area. Indeed, the notorious Intervale and Castlegate gangs took their eponymous names from two close-by streets.

For nearly 30 years Grove Hall was a virtual wasteland, a desolate symbol of urban decay. Today, however, it is more symbolic of the black community's renaissance.

Over the last few years, Grove Hall has slowly - very slowly - come back from the abyss. The story of its turnaround is itself inspiring, one that has involved an unprecedented level of cooperation among the police, residents, African-American churches and the city government. The city's efforts, in particular, have been driven by an early campaign promise by Mayor Thomas Menino, who committed himself to the area's rehabilitation.

One tangible sign of that rebirth can be found in the nearly completed Grove Hall Mall. Built by developer Steve Samuels, who also was developer of the risky, and ultimately successful, South Bay shopping complex, the Mall should function as an economic anchor for the community. Among the stores scheduled to open is a 45,000-square foot Stop & Shop.

But it's not enough.

The heart of the problem that grinds down Boston's African- American neighborhoods is that they remain outside the economic mainstream of American society. New immigrants to the United States quickly open up shops and restaurants, using those to bootstrap themselves out of poverty and into the middle class.

That's not so within the African-American community.

Now four of Boston's black churches - the Rev. Ray Hammond's Bethel AME, the Rev. Gilbert Thompson's New Covenant Church, the Rev. William Dickerson's Greater Love Ministries and Bishop Louis C. Young's Church of God and Christ - are hoping to change that. They want to become economic mentors, fostering a culture of entrepreneurship and self-reliance. "It's important for African- Americans to be involved in business," says Rev. Hammond. "It's how we learn about the system."

The churches have proposed a $5.8 million retail and office redevelopment of the Silva building. That building, cater-corner from the Grove Hall Mall, is currently owned by the city of Boston. Abandoned since 1975, it has the potential to be a second anchor for the area. The churches themselves have agreed to put in $1.3 million in equity, with the rest of the funds coming from traditional bank loans.

This may seem odd at first. One generally thinks of institutions of faith as ministering solely to the spiritual needs of their flock. But, as Rev. Thompson points out, quoting from Paul, churches deal with the "spirit, soul and body." The stress here is on "body." Collectively, the four churches serve a congregation of 7,100. From their point of view, part of their spiritual mission is necessarily economic.

Mixing faith-based institutions with profit-making businesses is bound to be controversial. There are obvious concerns of the possibility of abuse, of the potential that the lure of money could someday trump the original missions of the churches.

No doubt, care needs to be taken. But in making their proposal, Boston's black churches are following the lead of churches in a number of other cities. Perhaps the best known are the activities of former U.S. Rep. Floyd Flake, whose Allen AME Church in Queens, N.Y., has aggressively invested in residential and commercial enterprises.

What is most remarkable about efforts such as these is the philosophical shift they embody.

It once was thought that massive, government-funded programs, a la the Great Society, would cure poverty. But however worthy their aims, those programs, "while good at ameliorating some of poverty's effects, have failed to resolve its causes," says the Rev. Alexander Hurt, one of the organizers of the Grove Hall project.

The new approach is frankly market-oriented; it believes that building businesses and creating jobs are the way to solve poverty. Moreover, by taking the initiative in the redevelopment of the Silva building, the churches in an important way are demonstrating that the black community must control its own destiny, not just rely on the goodwill of others.

In essence, they are saying, African-Americans want more than just a piece of the pie. They want to be bakers, too.