By Rita McInerney and Gretchen Keiser

The Southeast Center for Justice, created in 1986 to help the poor and disenfranchised, has been dissolved by a vote of its board of directors.

The board took this action at its meeting July 20. Eighteen of the 19 members were either present or represented by proxy. The vote to dissolve was unanimous, according to Sister Marie Sullivan, OP, chairperson.

A letter signed by Sister Sullivan and sent under date of Aug. 19 to 100 board members and others who had helped fund the center, stated that “it is with much regret that I must inform you that the Center has become organizationally destalibized. As a result, the Board of Directors has voted to dissolve the Center. Needless to say, it is a decision that was arrived at only after a painstaking process in which all the available alternatives were weighed.”

The letter goes on to mention the inspiration the ministry has been in the lives of many poor persons who have lacked hope and ambition.

At the time of its demise, the center was staffed by Father Gerry Conroy, a Glenmary priest as director; Ms. Rosalinda Ramirez as organizer, and Craig Massey as administrator and technical assistance. At one time, all three had been co-directors, Father Conroy said.

The center began five years ago under the canonical sponsorship of the Glenmary Home Missioners. Approval was given by Archbishop Thomas A. Donnellan to “list it among the Catholic entities located in our archdiocese” in a letter he wrote Aug. 14, 1986 to Father Frank Ruff, then president of Glenmary.

Although Glenmary was the sponsor, the center was “always governed by an independent, multi-racial, multi-ethnic board of directors,” Father Conroy said.

In 1991 the order was represented by a board member, Benedictine Sister Evelyn Dettling who staffs Glenmary’s Commission of Justice.

Under its original plan the Center’s ministry was to be three-dimensional: respond to poor people’s organizations with the assistance they need to grow; develop small communities of faith-motivated laity who desire to grow spiritually and act in solidarity with the poor, and resource and action to bring the two groups together.

Public events where the Southeast Center banner was most visible included the Jan. 24, 1987 march in Forsyth County protesting the exclusion of blacks from residence there and mistreatment of a small civil rights demonstration.

About 150 Catholics rallied under the banner and joined 20,000 people demonstrating peacefully in the county.

Among projects that the Center worked with over long periods of time were the formation and development of a government for Keysville, Ga., an unincorporated area with 450 residents. The Center “helped them communicate their struggle to the region, including the governor of Georgia.” Father Conroy said. A ruling by Attorney General Michael Bowers spelled out a procedure for creating a government in Keysville, but the matter was fought all the way to the U.S. Supreme Court, the priest said, where Keysville residents “won.”

An election placed a black woman, Emma Gresham, in office as Keysville mayor, along with a city council, which, he said, has been successful in bringing city water to homes and establishing a fire station, library, day care center and potential new housing in the area.

In Chattanooga, Tenn., the Center assisted in organizational work for the Concerned Citizens for Justice, which challenged the governmental structure as being unrepresentative of the racial composition of the city. A new city charter was drafted that led to the election for the first time of a “person of color” to the council, the priest said.

Center staff also worked with Hispanic women living in Grant Park who were attempting to improve conditions in an apartment complex where they live and to change relationships with city agencies, including police and garbage collection.

In Pine Apple, Ala., the staff provided technical help to residents of a rural area with “the highest infant mortality rate in the country,” Father Conroy said.

Water dipped from polluted streams was believed responsible, he said, and the community’s action led to the implementation of new water system.

“The work we did will continue because when people claim their won dignity, nobody ever takes it away from them,” he said.

“Even in light of the fact that the center has closed, it is very important that the ministry continue,” he said. “This creates a wonderful opportunity for new expressions of the ministry to emerge.”

The Glenmary priest plans to go to India with the approval of his order for a period of spiritual renewal.