The Center for Community Change was born into an era of upheaval. America was at war in Vietnam. At home, anti-war protesters filled the streets. The assassinations of Martin Luther King, Jr. and Robert F. Kennedy left the country marred in grief. Black and brown Americans organized, marched and raised their voices to stand up for their civil rights. In so doing, they spread a movement across the country that won historic victories and empowered new leaders. Into this decade of counterculture and resistance, CCC was born as the first project of the Robert F. Kennedy Memorial Foundation to realize his belief that all families should thrive and live in peace and prosperity.
The Center for Community Change was just getting started in its mission to become a national beacon for community organizing and community development. CCC was a rarity in that time as one of the few organizations created, controlled and staffed by poor people, especially those of color. During the 1970s, the organization honed its core mission to grow and develop leaders and organizations through mentoring and training. The number of community organizations that CCC helped grew from six in 1968 to 21 in 1973. CCC staff provided hands-on help in issue areas, such as housing, jobs, health care and economic development. CCC also provided organizational support that included planning, staff and board development, management training and fundraising. CCC helped groups conduct community organizing, a strategic approach in which people affected by injustice act on their own behalf to seek change. CCC also created and advanced a sweeping effort known as the community development movement that redefined what it means to place economic power in the hands of poor people.
Ronald Reagan billed this era as “Morning in America.” But not if you were poor. Reagan immediately gutted social programs and ushered in the largest tax cuts in history. Morning in America allowed the wealthy to get rich off the backs of hard-hit low-income communities. In response, CCC did what it does best: Created a national coalition to fight for and protect families that needed government resources to access food, housing and health care. In so doing, CCC cemented its role as an incubator of new movements and new movement ideas. The coalition to fight Reagan and his minions was called the Coalition on Human Needs. The coalition, which grew to 100 member organizations, later became a separate organization, funded by CCC.
The decade of grunge music, the collapse of the Soviet Union and free trade between the U.S., Canada and Mexico brought seismic shifts not just to the world and the U.S., but the Center itself. The U.S. economy boomed under a Democratic president, the first since 1981, Congress switched to Republican control for the first time in 40 years and a new welfare program ended the U.S. commitment to poor people. Terrorism was gaining a foothold in the U.S. with bombings in Oklahoma City, Atlanta and the World Trade Center. And in Los Angeles, the verdicts in the Rodney King and O.J. Simpson – and their dramatic aftermaths – exposed simmering issues of race and class. And a virtual network was gaining a foothold by connecting the world through computers. For CCC, an iconic leader stepped down when Pablo Eisenberg resigned after 23 years at the helm and a new one, Andy Mott, stepped forward. The Center worked with groups to manage community development projects and preserve homes from local housing authorities that sought to raze public housing in favor of profits. By the mid-1990s, the Center worked with 200 grassroots organizations in 48 states that included offering grant-writing assistance to Los Angeles-based groups in the smoldering aftermath of the King uprising and creating 39 new housing trust funds.
The new millennium ushered in a roller coaster of highs and lows for the country and CCC. In the first part of the decade, the Center faced a grim reality: Thirty years of painstaking work by radical conservatives resulted in a nationwide sweep of their ideas and representatives in elected office. George W. Bush came into the White House intent on eradicating the hard-won safety net for people trying to make ends meet. Poverty was widespread but no one, except for the Center, was talking about it. So CCC looked for new strategies to bring poverty back into the national discussion and galvanize the people directly affected. We found it with the National Campaign for Jobs and Income Support, which released a damning study that found 46 states had stockpiled $4 billion in federal welfare funds instead of spending it to help families transition from welfare to work. The report exploded into newspaper headlines. That plus a later report that found states regularly – and sometimes unlawfully – denied eligible families from receiving Medicaid, food stamps and other support led the federal government to re-examine how states spent resources and re-invigorated a new poor people’s campaign. The success of this effort showed the power of coordinated national campaigns and led to CCC’s next big venture, the Fair Immigration Reform Movement, FIRM, which today is the largest coalition of immigrant activist groups. The end of the new millennium brought a crippling recession that roiled working families, especially families of color. The Center opened the decade with a new leader, Deepak Bhargava, and the nation ended the decade with its first black president.
This decade of social justice movement and resistance brings us back full circle to the birth of CCC. The decade ramped up slowly as the nation sluggishly pulled itself out of the Great Recession. CCC went all in to support a new plan that would insure millions of Americans without healthcare. In 2010, Congress passed, and President Barack Obama signed, the Affordable Care Act. Meanwhile, FIRM solidified its place as a leader for immigrant voices when the network and its allies brought 250,000 people to the National Mall in D.C. to demand immigration reform. The Campaign for Community Change, now the Center for Community Change Action, mobilized Latino voters, contributing to the “Latino firewall” credited with keeping the Senate in Democratic hands in 2010. The work of the Campaign for Community Change, and the birth of CCCA, represented a dramatic shift for CCC toward building power for people of color through elections, particularly in mobilizing young black and Latino voters. Powerful movements, such as the Women’s March, Black Lives Matter and MeToo, grew and strengthened, especially after the election of Donald Trump who won on a white nationalist wave. CCC was at the center of many of these fights, standing up for immigrants, Muslims and other marginalized groups. At 50 years old, CCC remains true to its mission: To realize a world where every family can thrive and live in peace.
John F. Kennedy becomes the youngest man ever to be elected president of the United States, narrowly beating Republican Vice President Richard Nixon. For the first time, presidential candidates engaged in televised debates. Photo: Civil rights leaders meet with the president in the oval office. Warren K. Leffler, photographer. Source: Library of Congress.
2020Latino farm workers organized by César Chávez and Dolores Huerta. Photo: Chavez speaking at a 1974 United Farm Workers rally in Delano, California. Source: Wikipedia. Taken on June 1, 1974. Photo by Joel Levine.
2020Photo: President Kennedy in the limousine in Dallas, Texas, on Main Street, minutes before the assassination. Also in the presidential limousine are Jackie Kennedy, Texas Governor John Connally, and his wife, Nellie. Source: Walt Cisco, Dallas Morning News. Work in public domain; copyright expired in 1991 without renewal.
2020Incident at 133rd Street and Seventh Avenue during the Harlem Riots of 1964, photographed by a staff photographer of the New York World Telegraph & Sun. Source: New York World-Telegram and Sun collection, Library of Congress.
2020The War on Poverty is the unofficial name for legislation first introduced by United States President Lyndon B. Johnson during his State of the Union address. Photo: President Johnson visit during his Poverty Tour of Appalachia on April 24, 1964. Source: LBJ Library photo by Cecil Stoughton.
2020Civil Rights Act, landmark civil rights and labor law, passed. Photo: Participants, some carrying American flags, marching in the civil rights march from Selma to Montgomery, Alabama in 1965. Pettus, Peter,, photographer. Library of Congress.
2020Citizens’ Crusade Against Poverty (CCC’s predecessor) established. Photo: Demonstrators participating in the Poor People’s March at Lafayette Park and on Connecticut Avenue, Washington, D.C. Warren K. Leffler, photographer. Source: United States Library of Congress’s Prints and Photographs division.
Watts riots after the arrest of an African American motorist in Los Angeles. Photo: Police arrest a man during the Watts Riots. Image marked as August 12. Source: New York World-Telegram collection, Library of Congress.
2020Photo: President Lyndon B. Johnson signing the Voting Rights Act of 1965. Source: The U.S. National Archives.
2020Housing and Urban Development Act passed, establishing Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD). Photo: Robert C. Weaver Federal Building, the United States Department of Housing and Urban Development headquarters. Washington, D.C. Photo by Kjetil Ree.
2020Community Development Corporations (CDCs) are devised
2020Kerner Commission appointed to investigate heightening racial tension and riots occurring across the U.S. Photo: President Lyndon B. Johnson with some members of the National Advisory Commission on Civil Disorders (Kerner Commission) in the Cabinet Room of the White House. Source: Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Division.
2020Violence breaks out between Vietnam War protestors and police at Democratic National Committee convening in Chicago. Photographer: David Wilson. Taken on August 10, 1968. Source: Wikipedia. Some rights reserved.
2020American Indian Movement begins. Photo: Indian-Owned Shop on One Side of Route 66 Challenges White-Owned Shop on the Other. Source: The U.S. National Archives.
2020Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. assassinated in Memphis. Photo: Dr. King at apress conference. Trikosko, Marion S.,, photographer. Source: Library of Congress.
2020Senator Robert Kennedy assassinated in Los Angeles after winning CA presidential primary. Photo: Robert F. Kennedy speaking to a crowd of African Americans and whites through a megaphone outside the Justice Department. Warren K. Leffler, photographer. Source: United States Library of Congress’s Prints and Photographs division.
2020Published: Hunger USA. Photo: Mrs. John Whitehead, wife of miner, and two of her children (or grandchildren) in the kitchen of her three room house. The house has no running water, no electricity, access is over a mountain trail. By Russell Lee. Kentucky, August 31, 1946. Source: National Archives and Records Administration.
Photo: Close-up view of an astronaut’s leg and foot and footprint in the lunar soil, photographed with a 70mm lunar surface camera during the Apollo 11 lunar surface extravehicular activity. By Neil Armstrong , July 20, 1969. Source: National Archives and Records Administration, Records of the U.S. Information Agency.
2020CCC started and housed the Agribusiness Accountability Project
Despite a decade of growth in the number of women in the job market, the pay gap still amounts to women earning only 71% of men’s wages
2020Co-authored: National Survey of Housing Abandonment, report on redlining in communities of color
CCC helps community organizations raise more than $3 million
Number of community groups assisted by CCC grows from 6 in 1968 to 21
CCC sponsors Voting Rights Litigation Project. Photo: Demonstrators marching in the street holding signs during the March on Washington, 1963. Source: Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Division.
Watergate investigation begins. Image: The Senate Watergate Investigating Committee, Associated Press file photo
2020President Richard Nixon wins re-election
2020CCC supports first national conference on housing and finance. Photo: Play Area Of Black Housing Project In North Philadelphia, August 1973. Source: The U.S. National Archives
Second Nixon administration issues severe funding cuts to social and anti-poverty programs
2020Roe v. Wade Supreme Court ruling overturns state laws against abortion
2020CCC collaborates on National Revenue Sharing Project
CCC organizes The Citizen’s Energy Conference
Gerald Ford becomes President following Nixon resignation
2020Community Development Block Grant Program created
2020Vietnam War ends after two decades of conflict, culminating in the deaths of more than 58,000 American soldiers, over 1 million North Vietnamese and Viet Cong fighters, and as many as 2 million civilians.
2020CCC published the first citizen action guide, General Revenue Sharing: Influencing Local Budgets.
National Committee for Responsive Philanthropy founded as project of CCC
CCC convenes Working Group for Community Development Forum
CCC launches Neighborhood Revitalization Project
President Jimmy Carter elected
2020CCC creates National Congress for Community Economic Development, first CDC trade association
Published: Opportunities for Abuse: Private Profits, Public Loses and the Mortgage Banking Industry
First personal computer released for retail sale. In picture: Steve Wozniak holding an Apple II.
2020Television miniseries Roots airs to critical acclaim
2020Community Reinvestment Act (CRA) passed. The Community Reinvestment Act is intended to encourage depository institutions to help meet the credit needs of the communities in which they operate, including low- and moderate-income neighborhoods, consistent with safe and sound operations. It was enacted by the Congress in 1977 (12 U.S.C. 2901) and is implemented by Regulation […]
2020CCC launches Rural Coalition
CCC helps community groups file first formal complaints under new CRA, winning $21 million in housing loans for low-income communities
National Citizens’ Monitoring Project on Community Development Block Grants established
CCC organizes Indian and Native American Employment and Training Coalition. Photo: Navajo Women weave a rug at the Hubbel trading post, first trading post on the Navajo Reservation. Source: U.S. National Archives. Photo by Terry Eiler.
United States Refugee Act established
2020President Ronald Reagan elected
2020Reagan administration overhauls tax codes and cuts budget for public and subsidized housing by half, resulting in an explosion of homelessness
2020Tax cuts severely impact federal programs aimed at helping low-income communities
2020Published: Runaway Mortgages: A Review of the Early Experiences with Unrestricted Adjustable Rate Mortgages
Sandra Day O’Connor becomes first woman appointed to the U.S. Supreme Court. Photo source: Library of Congress
2020AIDS epidemic officially recognized in the U.S.
2020Women’s Technical Assistance Project begins as project of CCC
CCC founds the Coalition on Human Needs
More than 11 million Americans are unemployed, highest rate since 1940
2020Following economic downturn, 15 percent of U.S. population is living in poverty.
2020CCC first receives support from individual donors
CCC purchases historic headquarters building in Georgetown area of Washington, DC
President Ronald Reagan wins re-election
2020As a result of steep federal funding cuts, CCC reduces number of community groups assisted from 65 to 50
By 1985, CCC has launched or assisted 10 national coalitions focused on the federal budget.
Housing Trust Fund Project launched by CCC.
Stock market crashes on what becomes known as Black Monday
2020President H. W. Bush declares a “War on Drugs”
2020Berlin Wall comes down
2020First Gulf War begins
2020CCC’s Public Housing Initiative helps local groups save 5,200 low-income housing units from demolition
Cold War ends
2020Rodney King brutally beaten by four white police officers in Los Angeles
202035.7 million Americans are living below the poverty line
2020Riots tear through Los Angeles for five days after officers are acquitted in Rodney King case
2020President Bill Clinton elected
2020CCC launches four-year grassroots leadership program
CCC now provides assistance to 200 community organizations and coalitions in 48 states
Welfare Reform Act passed
2020President Bill Clinton wins re-election
2020CCC and allies launch multi-million-dollar grants pool to finance the efforts of low-income grassroots organizations working on welfare reform in their states
CCC launches Transportation Equity Network (TEN) in partnership with community organizations
Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF) established
2020Housing trust funds have invested $1.5 billion in building and preserving almost 200,000 housing units for low-income families
2020National Campaign for Jobs and Income Support established to help shape future TANF re-authorization
Transportation Equity Act for the 21st Century enacted, including four TEN policy proposals
2020President Clinton is tried for impeachment and acquitted
2020The world prepares for the new millennium amid fears of an impending so-called Y2K technological disaster
2020National Campaign for Jobs and Income Support now operates in dozens of states and raises almost $3 million annually
President George W. Bush elected. Photo Source: The U.S. National Archives.
2020National Campaign for Jobs and Income Support officially launches in Chicago, with an expanded scope of advocacy work including living wage initiatives, Medicaid expansion, and more
More than 150 housing trust funds are in operation in the U.S.
2020Apple releases new product announcement for first iPod
2020Iraq War begins
2020September 11th terrorist attack kills 2,753 Americans. Photo: A helmet and flower sit atop a rack at New York City’s Engine Co. 55 firehouse in New York City. Source: The U.S. National Archives.
2020Published: Risk or Race?
Department of Homeland Security created in response to 9/11 attacks. Photocredit: Ridge. Mark Wilson/Getty Images Staff
2020CCC shifts direction from providing technical assistance to building social movements
CCC establishes The Campaign for Community Change – now Center for Community Change Action (CCCA) – a 501(c)(4) sister organization to allow for more targeted advocacy and organizing on critical policy issues
CCC partners with 53 organizations in 26 states to launch the Community Voting Project
CCC’s Community Voting Project mobilizes over 275,000 new and infrequent voters for the 2004 election
Facebook launches as an obscure online social network for college students
2020CCC convenes first-ever national gathering of worker centers
CCC sells its Georgetown building and buys a new headquarters building on historic U Street
FIRM and CCC play key roles in preventing the deportation of high school student Marie Gonzales – the first national DREAMer campaign
Hurricane Katrina devastates the Gulf Coast, with low-income communities being hit the hardest as hundreds of thousands of people are displaced
2020FIRM participates in massive national immigrant mobilization
CCC pilots Generation Change internship program
Twitter’s founder sends the first tweet on fledgling social network
2020Great Recession begins, due in large part to sub-prime mortgage and housing market crisis
2020CCC brings together presidential candidates Clinton, Obama, Edwards, Dodd, and Kucinich to answer questions directly from low-income people, before an audience of 3,600 people from 32 state, for the Heartland Presidential Forum
President Barack Obama elected, becoming America’s first African American president
2020CCCA and allies launch Reform Immigration for America, which uses cutting-edge data model to identify millions of immigrant rights supporters, then mobilizes them to advocate for reform.
Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission Supreme Court ruling drastically changes regulation of political campaign spending by organizations
2020CCCA mobilizes Latino voters, contributing to “Latino firewall” credited with keeping Senate in Democratic hands
Landmark health care bill, Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (ACA) signed into law
2020CCC, FIRM, and allies conduct March for America, bringing some 250,000 people from 40 states to the National Mall in DC to demand immigration reform.
Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) created
2020CCC and FIRM launch the national Change Takes Courage campaign to push President Obama to take executive action to help DREAMers
Across the Middle East and North Africa, anti-government protests and demonstrations flourish in the so-called Arab Spring
2020CCC launches MHAction, focused on low-income seniors residing in manufactured homes in rural communities
Trayvon Martin, an unarmed Black teenager, is shot and killed in Florida, sparking national outcry
2020Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) is established by executive order following several failed attempts at passing a DREAM Act and extensive organizing by CCC/FIRM
2020President Barack Obama wins re-election
2020CCC arranges for leaders from FIRM groups, including DREAMers, to meet with President Obama in the Oval Office
46.5 million Americans are living in poverty
2020Enrollment begins in ACA online health insurance exchanges
2020CCC launches multi-year anti-poverty project with focus on creation of good jobs in neglected communities of color
The opioid epidemic begins, hitting rural and low-income communities hardest
2020Obamacare officially goes into effect
2020Reform Immigration for America, now the digital organizing arm of the immigrant rights movement, has generated more than 2.87 million messages to Congress and 1.5 million messages to mobilize activists
Unprecedented numbers of women and children fleeing violence in Central America cross the border into the U.S., sparking a humanitarian crisis. In this July 12, 2014, photo, a young boy is helped down from a freight car, as Central American migrants board a northbound freight train in Ixtepec, Mexico. Many smugglers take their charges from […]
202013 year-old Tamir Rice is shot and killed by police while playing in a park amid growing outrage at instances police violence against unarmed black people
2020CCC helps partner groups win thousands of jobs and millions of dollars in investment in low-income communities of color
35 housing trust fund campaigns win more than $400 million for affordable housing
2020CCC transfers ownership of headquarters building to sister organization, Center for Community Change Action
CCCA and FIRM Action host a summit and presidential candidate forum featuring Bernie Sanders and Martin O’Malley in Las Vegas
Protesters and police clash in Baltimore following the forceful arrest and death of Freddie Gray, leading to the establishment of the Movement for Black Lives
2020DACA and DAPA (for parents of DREAMers and U.S. citizen children) held up by court action, leaving millions of immigrant families in limbo
Former CCC board member Dorian Warren becomes President of CCCA
CCCA launches Immigrant Voters Win, historic $15 million Super PAC to amplify voices of Latinos in three crucial states
CCC convenes Real Solutions for Real People forum on economic, racial, and environmental justice in Des Moines, IA featuring presidential candidates
CCC’s Child Care cohort advocates for winning pre-K ballot initiative in Ohio, which results in thousands more children gaining access to quality early education
DREAMer and immigration activist Astrid Silva addresses the Democratic National Convention
2020Donald J. Trump walks down the West Colonnade of the White House | January 3, 2017 (Official White House Photo by D. Myles Cullen). Source: The White House
2020CCC launches Reinvestment Campaign to secure community-controlled funds for sustainable job development and economic stimulation in areas of concentrated poverty from decades of racialized divestment
Women’s March is the largest single-day protest in U.S. history
2020Protests erupt in airports across the U.S. following Trump administration’s proposed travel ban of Muslim countries
2020CCC, FIRM, and allies organize nationwide May 1st Rise Up marches, rallies, protests, and town halls in resistance to the Trump administration’s anti-immigrant agenda
DACA is rescinded by President Trump. Photo Credit: Michael Sullivan at the newnormalphotography.com
2020CCC’s Safety Net Campaign successfully organizes against last-ditch efforts to repeal ACA and restrict Medicaid
CCC has incubated 165 new social, economic, and racial justice projects and organizations