Group Snapshot
Mothers on the Move (MOM)
Mothers on the Move/Madres en Movimiento (MOM) has grown from a single-issue community group in 1992 to become a catalytic power-based social justice organization in 2005. Michelle Fine, Distinguished Professor in the Social/Psychology Program at the CUNY Graduate Center, writes that the MOM founders’ “...story reveals the sweat, struggle, despair, tears, false victories, and the wins of a groups of well organized, fearless, and dedicated activist mothers...MOM speaks back to the conscience of America with organizing brilliance, a sense of victory, humor, despair, possibility, and outrage.”
MOM organizes South Bronx residents who want to build a society rooted in the values of equity, democracy, justice, and community. MOM has a very clear role in creating social change. We are a vehicle for low and moderate income people of color in the South Bronx to build and share power in our society. Given the persistence of oppression and domination in shaping the lives of South Bronx residents – through under-resourced schools, over-resourced pollution sources, and lack of local economic or political control – MOM’s persistence as an institution is critical. We believe that South Bronx residents, like similar constituencies of people who are systematically excluded from power in America, bring a perspective on reality that is vital to constructing a true democracy. Leaving political and economic control to elites gives us social systems warped by the desire to protect privilege. All of our lives are diminished in such a world. We engage low and moderate income people of color, primarily women and youth, in a contest for shared power in America because we believe that the struggle itself is liberating for all parties and that successfully shared power will create a more just and loving world.
MOM serves the South Bronx neighborhoods of Hunts Point, Longwood, Port Morris, Soundview, West Farms, and the eastern halves of Morrisania and Mott Haven. Our work is located in Bronx Community Board 2, and the eastern halves of Community Boards 1 and 3. Aggregate 2000 census data from the three Community Boards tells a story of multi-racial neighborhoods facing intense economic pressure. The median household income in 1999 was only $16,432, with 44% under 100% of the poverty line and 58% under 150% of the poverty line. Almost 20% of households are on public assistance. Racially, African-American/Black residents comprise 31% of the population, Hispanic/Latinos 65%, with Whites, Asians and Others the remaining 4%. There are 202,380 people, with 92% of households renting apartments.
Our history is replete with countless individual victories to improve housing conditions, successful outcomes for students, and improved health and safety. We are also very proud of our work to create systemic public policy change in educational, environmental, and housing conditions. Our first ten years of education victories are well documented in Kavitha Mediratta and Jennifer Karp’s “Parent Power and Urban School Reform: The Story of Mothers on the Move.”1 We removed District 8 Superintendent Max Messer from office and held the new superintendent accountable for returning real resources to our local schools. When young Crystal Vargas was killed in the summer of 1998 by an eighteen-wheel commercial truck on a residential street in Hunts Point we launched a successful campaign to alter a sixty-year old commercial truck route. The new truck route adopted formally in 2004 pushes all commercial truck traffic out of the 12,000 person residential community. In 2002 and 2003 we played a critical role in saving the Banana Kelly Community Improvement Association by organizing more than five hundred tenants to demand the preservation of their affordable housing. The tenants secured leadership change at Banana Kelly CIA and today all nineteen buildings that we organized have received major repairs. Today, MOM is organizing a critical mass of people, voters, and money in service to a shared vision of social justice and societal transformation.
As for the challenges we face, it would be difficult to intentionally design the South Bronx to be less healthy for the people who live here. The housing stock in the South Bronx has suffered at the hands of speculators, slumlords and bank red-lining to produce a culture of disinvestment. Hunts Point is the epicenter of the childhood asthma epidemic in New York City, with 11,000 truck trips per day generating tons of dangerous particulate pollution every year. Hunts Point is also home to 60% of the city’s sewer sludge processing industry. With far less green space per capita than the city average (1/2 acre vs. 6 acres) as well as low-performing and overcrowded schools, the South Bronx is bereft of opportunities for youth and adult residents. Schools in southern Region 2 continue to face an uphill battle in improving educational outcomes. The schools in the South Bronx are mostly low-performing in low-income community areas. Many schools are overcrowded, especially our high schools. We still lack updated textbooks, 21st century libraries, and modern science labs. But even locally, the needs go beyond the central question of academic performance to the related need for increased community leadership in school reform and public accountability for school improvement.
After an inclusive strategic planning process, the MOM Board of Directors voted on a new set of organizational goals and objectives for 2004-06.
- Goal: Build the power to win campaigns on affordable housing, education, and environmental justice. Objectives: Create strategic alliances and coalitions at city, state, and federal levels on these three issues; Run campaigns that address root causes as well as winning concrete victories.
- Goal: Expand our organizing to include youth, seniors, and faith-based organizing. Objectives: Grow/strengthen Youth Committee and start youth organizing; Build relationships with ten senior centers; Build relationships with ten congregations.
- Goal: Increase membership and retain leaders. Objectives: Build membership base of 400 paid members by end of 2004; Add 250 members per year in 2005 and 2006; Retain 75% of our members per year; Increase core leadership by 50 people per year.
- Goal: Increase accountability of public and corporate officials. Objective: Hold three public meetings or actions per year per committee.
- Goal: Expand our political power. Objectives: Register at least 1,000 people to vote every year; Turn out at least 1,000 MOM voters to the polls in election years; Hold at least one Candidates Forum in election years; Initiate “Base-Building Committee” at MOM for members to work on membership recruitment, leadership development, and voter work.
Mothers on the Move in the Media:
For more information on Mothers on the Move, visit the group's website at mothersonthemove.org.
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