On September 11, 2001 I was supposed to be working for Fidelity Investments in the World Financial Center in New York City. That ill-fated day when the World Trade Center Towers fell, my job was lost and my life was saved. The next Sunday my wife Sarah and I attended the morning worship service at The Riverside Church of New York City. Broken-hearted and unemployed, I Ionged in my spirit to serve in this moment of national crisis.
Rev. Dr. James Forbes made a passionate plea, asking if there was anyone who wanted to volunteer down on Ground Zero. I felt the fire of the Spirit burning in my revolutionary heart in that moment and signed up after church, grateful for the opportunity to serve. It was a cold, dark morning when we gathered at Riverside Church to ride the subway down to the still-smoldering Ground Zero. Among the acrid smoke and the dust of the bodies of our fellow New Yorkers who fell that day, I entered the closest thing to hell I've ever experienced in my life. Asked to carry some crates of food from St. Paul's Chapel to a food distribution center on the other side of Ground Zero, I squinted through the thick air, opaque with ash, gazing into an abyss of soundless nothingness.
I walked through the long shadows of darkness cast from piles of debris and wreckage. A police officer who fought in the Korean War said he'd never seen a war zone as bad as this. United in despair and brokenness, rescue workers, policemen, firemen, Red Cross workers, ministers, and all the volunteers entered a collective dark night of the soul. It was on Ground Zero that I felt the call to work for a better future, a more just city and a more peaceful world.
In this liminal moment, I turned immediately to the writings of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., the "Drum Major for Justice." Dr. King said "If you're not living for something worth dying for, you're already dead." We've all got to figure our what we're living for. God has got us all down here for a reason and we've got to figure out what it is and do it! In the post-September 11th milieu, I joined the peace movement, marching in Manhattan against the War in Iraq and organized faith leaders to shut down WalMart Supercenters in cities around New Jersey.
When Rev. Joya Colon-Berezin, Ava Farkas and Jeff Eichler met with me in April 2010 and asked if I would be interested in organizing faith leaders in a city-wide Living Wage Campaign, I said a quick prayer, smiled and said "Let's roll!" If Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. was killed fighting for Living Wages in Memphis, Tennessee, I could dedicate my life to offering my gifts and graces to the faith-rooted movement for racial and economic justice.
With Ella Baker Fellows Rev. Dr. Edison Bond, Rev. Anita Burson, and Rev. Osagyefo Uhuru Sekou and Cesar Chavez Fellow Rev. Daniel Reinaldo Diaz, and Rabbi Michael Feinberg of the Greater New York Labor-Religion Coalition, we organized faith leaders to join community leaders and labor leaders in the Living Wage NYC Campaign, culminating in a city-wide worship service at Riverside Church on Monday November 21, 2011.
"We're in a Kairos moment when God is orchestrating the manifestation of justice in history. Like the abolition movement and the civil rights movement, the Living Wage Movement is energized by the Spirit of God to set the captives free," said Rev. Dr. Raymond Rivera, President of The Latino Pastoral Action Center in the Bronx. The thousands gathered that night sent a ripple effect through the New York City Council, which voted overwhelmingly to override Mayor Michael Bloomberg's veto and ensure that the Fair Wages for New Yorkers Act would become law on June 28, 2012.
On Thursday October 8, 2015 at 6:30 pm a growing coalition of faith leaders will launch a new Real Living Wage NYC Campaign at First Corinthian Baptist Church, where visionary Rev. Michael A. Walrond, Jr. serves as Senior Pastor. We hope you will be one in our number on that historic evening in Harlem.
As we prepare for Pope Francis's Apostolic Visit to the U.S. and the United Nations September 22-27, the faith leaders of New York City are reigniting the prophetic fires of Roman Catholic Social Teaching of old. As Msgr. John Augustine Ryan said in 1906 in his book A Living Wage: In Ethical and Economic Aspects, "the laborer's claim to a Living Wage is of the nature of a right.... A right in the moral sense of the term may be defined as an inviolable moral claim to some personal good." Our fight for a Living Wage is a fight for workers, a fight for the common good, a fight for a more just and equitable New York City, Nation and World.
On September 11, 2001, at 8:42 am, United Flight 93 left Newark International Airport in New Jersey, with a fellow Wheaton College graduate Todd Beamer on the flight to San Francisco. At 8:48 am, American Airline Flight 11 crashed into the World Trade Center's North Tower. At 9:28 am, United Flight 93 was hijacked by al-Qaeda and redirected toward Washington DC. After praying the Lord's Prayer and 23rd Psalm together, a group of passengers took the plane back from the hijackers, ignited by Todd Beamer's iconic phrase "Let's Roll!" They were able to reclaim the aircraft that crashed in Stonycreek Township, Pennsylvania, saving the lives of many Americans.
Todd Beamer put his life on the line to save the people on his plane, now it's time for us to put our lives on the line in the struggle for racial and economic justice. The hungry, hurting and homeless in our beloved city will truly flourish when they are paid a Real Living Wage.
There comes a time in all of our lives when we need to live for something worth dying for. I'm in this fight for a Real Living Wage because I dream of a world where everyone makes a Living Wage and can return home to a warm hearth to break bread with their loved ones and revolutionary friends.
"The arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends towards justice," said Dr. King. Let's roll for a Real Living Wage!