Continued...

Roland Anglin, executive director of Rutgers University’s Center for Race and Ethnicity and former deputy director of the Community Development Resource Unit of the Ford Foundation, says that Newark’s political climate inhibited a Ford-funded project he oversaw in the 1990s to increase local nonprofits’ capacity through collaboration with corporations and foundations. Cooperation from the city and approval for large-scale projects was “always a fight and a question,” Anglin recalls, in part because “everything in Newark is political.” Anglin says that officials were unable to act on the principle of “public good apart from and distinct from electoral politics.”

The HCDNNJ’s Sterner, who previously worked for community development groups in Newark and other cities, also notes that Newark’s political life impeded the relationship among CDCs in ways that differed from other New Jersey cities. In equally troubled Camden, which also suffered from disinvestment and municipal corruption, Sterner said, “the dynamic with the mayor and city government has brought people together—not because it’s a better situation—but the groups have stronger bonds and have been united in dealing with the challenges, while Camden’s mayor was not well-enough organized like the James machine, so it didn’t pull people apart.”

Newark community organizer and veteran activist Richard Cammarieri says he is frequently asked about Newark’s distinctiveness. “I always get that,” he says, ” ‘Why do people put up with all they put up with in Newark?’ I mean, two mayors in 36 years! ... But I’m not an essentialist when it comes to Newark. The issues are the same as every other city. People are pretty much the same. But one thing that is unique about Newark is the geography: It’s just so damn small, only 23 square miles.”

Cammarieri attributes some of Newark’s enduring problems to the fact that the residents who comprise the backbone of grass-roots organizations “either work for City Hall, work for the Board of Education, for the Housing Authority and are vulnerable to all sorts of political pressure. I really think that contributed to part of the difficulty of organizing in Newark and producing some kind of counterpoint to the mainstream.” In this climate, Cammarieri notes, many CDCs prioritized development over organizing in ways that ultimately reinforced their own silence. ”[T]he CDCs became institutionalized over the years, and instead of speaking out and being outspoken advocates, as they got more CDBG money, more contracts with the county, they became more dependent on government funding. They didn’t generate the kind of protective community organizing with grass-roots residents that would have distanced them or isolated them from reprisals. They began to be quieter and quieter.”

For years, Cammarieri’s employer, New Community Corporation, was something of an exception. Like many early CDCs, NCC had ambitious plans for businesses and housing developments that would help subsidize their other goals and promote self-sufficiency. Many of these goals seemed to come to fruition as its early successes earned the organization a national reputation as an innovator in the field. NCC’s founding leaders Monsignor William Linder and Queen of Angels member Joseph Chaneyfield oversaw the organization’s initial housing developments in the early 1970s, while Mary Smith forged the first network of licensed childcare centers in the city to accept infants. NCC expanded its reach exponentially over the next two decades and by the mid-1990s, it housed more than 7,000 residents and ranked second only to the Newark Housing Authority as a provider of low-income housing. In the early 1990s, NCC opened a Pathmark supermarket in the Central Ward, where for 20 years residents had had to rely on street vendors and overpriced convenience stores, or travel hours to do their shopping.

Linder has consistently criticized the limited reach of downtown development policies. His steadfast realism about the conditions of Newark’s neighborhoods—he told The New York Times in 1995 “We train people for jobs that don’t exist”—no doubt resonated with residents who had yet to see the benefits of downtown construction, such as the New Jersey Performing Arts Center, in their own lives. NCC’s size and significance in Newark allowed Linder freedom to criticize the James administration.

Linder’s reputation for tenacity extends far back. In 1969, he joined the “Newark 20,” a group of priests who published a searing denouncement of racism in the Newark Archdiocese. A colleague once admiringly described him as a “junkyard dog” when it came to defending NCC. Robert Zdenek, president of New Jersey Community Capital, who worked for New Community Corporation and wrote his dissertation on the group, said, “Father Linder has a lot of integrity but also a very aggressive side to him.” A management style shaped by these characteristics served Linder well during the 1980s and 1990s, fueling NCC’s growth into one of Newark’s largest private employers. But questions remain about whether Linder’s strategies are sustainable and whether his 40-year dominance over the organization and clashes with James may have also damaged NCC.