c. 2003 Religion News Service

(Samuel K. Atchison is an ordained minister and has worked as a policy analyst and social worker to the homeless. He currently is a prison chaplain in Trenton, N.J., and a fellow of the George H. Gallup International Institute in Princeton, N.J.)

(UNDATED) Forty years ago this month _ Aug. 28, 1963 _ an estimated 250,000 persons convened on the Mall in the nation’s capital for what history has come to call the March on Washington.

Marching under the theme “Jobs and Freedom,” the demonstrators _ comprised, in biblical parlance, of people “from every nation, kindred, tribe and tongue” _ gathered to demand legal and economic freedom for people of all races. It was one of the high points of the modern civil rights movement.

Today, 40 years later, a new civil rights movement may be emerging.

According to the Rev. Eugene Rivers, a Boston pastor and president of the anti-poverty National Ten-Point Leadership Foundation, this new movement is championing the cause of the urban poor by “emphasizing faith, family, and development” in the nation’s inner cities.

Rivers and others argue that the fruits of the economic expansion that took place in the black community as a result of the civil rights movement accrued disproportionately to the black middle class. While middle class blacks made significant gains in closing the income gap with their white counterparts, those blacks lacking the requisite education, skills and physical access to employment lagged further and further behind.

The result has been the emergence of an economically powerful black elite, whose members _ while enjoying the support of the traditional civil rights establishment _ “have largely abdicated their responsibility to the black poor and have failed to use those resources to advance a coherent program on their behalf.”

Curiously, this abandonment of the urban poor by the black elite has been reflected not only in the actions of the traditional civil rights movement, but in the actions of many inner-city churches as well.

This is because, as sociologist William Julius Wilson described in his book “When Work Disappears,” the suburban migration of African-Americans _ commonly known as “black flight” _ “was concentrated among the better-educated and younger city residents.” This meant that, over the course of a generation, the nation’s inner cities were populated increasingly by the very old and the very poor.

While the new suburbanites often returned to the city on Sunday to attend church, pastors and church leaders eventually found themselves presiding over congregations whose financial support came chiefly from the suburbs. This tended to shift the emphasis of the churches’ ministries away from the surrounding community to the needs of their tithing members.

So, as University of Pennsylvania criminologist John J. DiIulio has said, much of the work of serving the inner city poor is being done by “local congregations that supply multiple social services to the poor on budgets averaging $50,000 a year.” Such groupss, DiIulio said, “possess few Ph.Ds., but they boast battalions who have done hard prison time, been previously addicted to hard drugs, know the streets, and are dedicated, for real, to making sure that others are spared what they have suffered or caused others to suffer.”

Among the people served by such congregations are the legions of newly released ex-offenders emerging from prison and returning to the nation’s inner cities. Many of these men and women have seen their lives dramatically affected through prison chaplaincy programs that featured partnerships with churches and other faith-based organizations from the outside.

Yet their sheer numbers _ more than 2 million have been released over the past four years _ as well as the enormity of their needs threaten to overwhelm the efforts of the ministries that serve them.

Federal, state and local governments have recently begun to partner with faith- and community-based organizations to facilitate the ex-offenders’ transition from prison to community.

However, there remain systemic issues that can only be addressed through legislation.

For example, in many states, ex-offenders are not permitted to obtain a driver’s license upon release from prison. Given the lack of available jobs in many urban communities, the lack of a driver’s license can sound a death knell to an ex-convict’s hopes for employment. Moreover, given the link between unemployment and recidivism, the prospect of reincarceration looms great.

In sum, 40 years after the March on Washington promoted the need for jobs and freedom, there is a new movement afoot with many of the same goals. It is being promoted by many of the nation’s poorest service providers, and is focused on serving those who are poorer still.

The poor serving the poor. Isn’t that a model the powerful can support?

DEA END ATCHISON