Foreclosure Fraud Day of Action

I've finally finished breaking down the proposals in the "Homeowner's Bottom Line."  In the meantime, the campaign has continued to progress.

Around the country, citizens groups met with their state Attorney General during the past week to discuss the ideas in the "Homeowner's Bottom Line."  On Thursday and Friday, from Massachusetts to California, they pressed the agenda to be included in the potential settlement between the state Attorneys General, the thirteen federal agencies with a horse in the foreclosure derby, and the powerful banking interests.  In North Carolina, fourteen leaders,  representing six broad-based organizations with over 250 congregations, institutions, and community groups, met with the NC Attorney General's senior staff.  We came from Charlotte, Davidson County, Winston-Salem, Guilford County, Orange County, Durham, and Raleigh, and our constituents stretch across most of the state.  We are blacks, whites, and Latinos seeking the common good.

Attorney General Roy Cooper currently serves as the President of the National Association of Attorneys General.  In that office, he has played an important role in pressing for a fifty-state investigation into foreclosure fraud.  We were pleased to find that a new staff member who oversees the Consumer Protection Division is now devoting much of his time to this foreclosure fraud investigation.  The AG's staff were well-informed on our proposals and demonstrated a commitment to pursue an agenda very similar to ours.  Since AG Cooper was one of the instigators in bringing about this investigation, we were not surprised to find that to a great extent, our leaders and his staff were on the same page.  Good exchanges of information and assistance were followed by agreements for continued cooperation.

We have a follow-up meeting with AG Cooper himself scheduled for April.  The investigation on foreclosure fraud is apparently moving very fast, and it could be that significant announcements will appear within the next month.  When I hear reports from other states, I will post again about this Day of Action.

10% Is Enough! It's Time to Listen to the Rest of Us!

Today, about 450 citizens from all over North Carolina converged on Charlotte to take a stand against the usurious practices of two large banks: Bank of America and Wachovia-Wells Fargo. This event is part of a larger campaign stretching across the country and to Europe known as "10% Is Enough." In NC, we also are standing up for military personnel and veterans who by law are not to be charged more than 6% interest on their loans, but this is seldom obeyed.

We gathered at Mt. Moriah Primitive Baptist Church to prepare for a march to the downtown headquarters of the banks. I was asked to give the opening remarks to explain our purpose for gathering. The following is what I said at the rally.

My name is Dr. Mike Broadway. I am an associate minister at Mt. Level Missionary Baptist Church in Durham, and a member of the strategy team of Durham CAN. I am also an associate professor of theology and ethics at Shaw University Divinity School, and one of twenty-five professors from institutions of theological education across North Carolina and South Carolina who have joined with the people of our churches and communities to speak up for economic justice and an end to the practice of usury.

I want to talk with you a few minutes about why we are here today. It could not be clearer in the teaching of the Christian Bible, the Jewish Torah, or the Islamic Qur’an that usury, the predatory, abusive charging of excess interest, is wrong. A system which creates a perpetual debtor class is contrary to our faiths. As Deuteronomy 15 and so much of the Bible teaches, There should be no one in need among you. Usury makes the opposite happen, creating poverty where it was not, driving people into need and desperation.

Let me begin by telling you a story. It is a story about the growing concern and desperation of average, everyday people who over the past two years or so have been waking up to find the waters of financial troubles rising in the streets, inundating their cars, flowing into their homes, drowning their banks and workplaces, and forcing them into their attics and onto their roofs in hopes of finding some possibility of rescue.

When the financial flood waters reached their peaks, high powered government officials announced a rescue, a bailout, and many people hoped against hope that they might see the waters recede and be able to move back into their homes. But weeks passed, and months passed, and the only people that seemed to be getting any help were the executives and bankers, the big insurance companies and financial speculators. Homeowners were still losing their homes. People with consumer debt were being charged new and higher fees, and dramatically higher interest rates.

Eventually it became clear to everyone why the levees failed and produced this flood of financial trouble of such epic proportion. The people who were running the major financial institutions, whose fiduciary responsibility was to maintain the safety of the financial system for all its participants, had ignored and even disdained their responsibility. Instead, they had been finding ways to boost their own short-term profits while pretending the long-term protection of the financial system would take care of itself. They continued to play their financial games of chance and pass their promissory papers of propped-up prosperity around the room, while the levees of protection and prudence were crumbling.

Now these same people who ushered in the financial crisis are hoping that the rest of us will conveniently forget the pain and suffering that they helped to cause. But we are not going to forget. We can’t forget. They are still putting the hurt to us every day, as if there is no standard of justice by which they must be judged. No, we won’t forget. Who can forget the pain of walking away from a home which had represented a family’s hope for the future? Who can forget the heartache and fear of a business or factory closing that takes away the prosperity of an entire community? Who can forget the monthly interest payment which cuts to the bone and cripples a worker’s future? Who can forget the bankruptcy proceeding that results from needed medical care when a person is uninsured or underinsured?

We have not forgotten. And today we want to remind those who think we will walk away with our tails between our legs that we will not forget how we got into this mess. It is time for them to face the people whose lives they have helped to throw in to turmoil. We will not submit to being a permanent debtor class. We will not grant you a permanent subscription to our future income. We will not accept a new social order of debt sharecropping, in which the executives of a few powerful financial institutions snatch the livelihood from the hands of the workers whose labor should produce abundance for everyone. We will not continue to do business with those who practice usury. It is time for a conversation about justice. The time for so-called talented experts to tell us so much mumbo-jumbo about the market is over. It is time to hear from the rest of us.

Today our fair state of North Carolina is participating in a ritual of democratic governance through primary elections. I have been especially caught up in this election season for several reasons.

First, my church is part of a community organizing group called Durham CAN, and we are engaged with mostly local issues relating to poverty, youth, health, and other matters of quality of life in Durham. We held one of our most successful Delegate's Assemblies this past Sunday at the site of one of our newest member congregations, First Presbyterian Church. Our organizations showed up in strength, more candidates than we had expected showed up to interact with us, and the agenda went off as planned. We found candidates very eager to support our proposals concerning assistance to the elderly and disabled, job training for ex-offenders, and health department disease tracking.

We got a good report from Duke University that they have extended their policy of paying a livable wage to their own employees, extended to certain restaurant vendor workers a year ago a year ago, to include workers at 100% of vendors who do business with the university, and that by November all vendors will also offer health benefits comparable to the University's health benefits for workers. Duke is to be commended for its commitment to its workers. Durham CAN can claim some credit for making the livable wage a key issue of discussion in Durham. Before Duke made this policy official, already Durham CAN had helped to bring about its adoption by Durham County Government, Durham City Government, and Durham Public Schools.

At the assembly, I had my moment in the sun as I spoke about Durham CAN's relationships with similar groups: Charlotte HELP, Winston-Salem CHANGE, Orange County Organizing Committee, and North Carolina Latino Coalition. We operate together under the name North Carolina United Power. Our work together on issues affecting all our communities gives us reason to need relationships with the Governor, Lt. Governor, other statewide officials, and representatives in the NC Legislature. In the past we have also worked with member of the US Congress.

At this assembly, two candidates for Governor and two for Lt. Governor came at our invitation to publicly agree to meet with us and to make their case for why we should vote for them. My job was to ask them a question about agreeing to a future meeting and to tell them how long they would be allowed to speak. For a few minutes, I was able to tell these statewide officials where to stand and when to talk. It was a heady feeling, like being "King for a Day." The TV coverage, for some reason, was more interested in what the candidates had to say than in my speech or instructions, but you can see me for less than a second, standing in the elevated pulpit to the left of the screen, in a black suit.

Second, I have been very interested in this primary election because of the candidacy of Barack Obama. He has been a community organizer in the past, doing work similar to the work we do in Durham CAN. The way of organizing his campaign has demonstrated this experience, working to bring together everyday people to have their say. Moreover, his connection with Trinity United Church of Christ, a church with a strong record of community service and transformation, has piqued my interest. I've been writing here about Rev. Dr. Jeremiah Wright in recent weeks. Not all of the campaigning and campaign coverage has treated the racial politics of the U. S. with honesty and integrity, and I would hope that more people would be willing to put a mature conversation about race on the table, as Sen. Obama has said well in his Philadelphia address. So today I was pleased to have the opportunity to cast a vote for Sen. Obama in my precinct.

I have been accused for several rounds of recent elections of "wasting" my vote for president. Overall, I see little difference between the Republicats and the Demicans. Neither is committed to the ends and means of a politics that would pay attention to the convictions I hold dear. I have voted for Ross Perot (for a change), Jimmy Carter (a write-in on the basis of his life of service), and such. But I might be able to vote for one of the parties this Fall, if some of the commitments to health care, better international relations, a restructured economy, and grassroots participation continue to be on the agenda. Not only Obama has offered some of these good ideas. We'll see what today brings, and what the campaigns and ballots offer in November.