The Movement for Economic Justice (MEJ) was founded in January 1973 by George Wiley, a black civil rights and welfare rights activist (whose personal papers are also at the Wisconsin Historical Society). Wiley's involvement in social activism, which had begun in college, intensified in the early 1960s while he was a professor of chemistry at Syracuse University. He eventually became associate national director of the Congress of Racial Equality. Although he resigned both from CORE and his chemistry position in 1966, Wiley remained a social activist, focusing on poor people and economic reform. Wiley founded the Poverty/Rights Action Center (P/RAC) in 1966 as a communications center for various local groups of poor people. In 1967 these groups consolidated into the National Welfare Rights Organization (NWRO), with Wiley as executive director. NWRO's membership and board consisted entirely of people on welfare. Internal conflicts and a desire to initiate a more broadly based organization devoted to economic reform led to Wiley's resignation effective January 31, 1973.
Wiley's experiences with welfare rights and civil rights organizing led him to conclude that the constituent base necessary to generate enough political power to achieve social and economic reform must include the middle class. The essential building-blocks of the reform effort were to be the numerous local, regional, and national citizen action organizations. Again working through P/RAC (and the Misseduc Foundation, NWRO's tax-exempt funding arm), Wiley founded MEJ.
Wiley envisioned MEJ as serving the network of groups in two main ways: first, as a clearinghouse for information and approaches on a broad array of social action issues--resources, strategies, fundraising, and legislative activity; second, as a center for social action organizing around these issues--initiating, promoting, and aiding organizing efforts, producing organizing materials, and training organizers. Although initially focused around issues, the eventual goal was to build and integrate the grass-roots organizations into a national movement and membership organization.
In August of 1973, during the initial fundraising, research, and planning phase of the new organization, Wiley died in a boating accident. Bert De Leeuw and Madeleine Adamson took over the administration of MEJ. Both had worked with Wiley at NWRO and moved with him to MEJ.
During its existence MEJ did serve as an information clearinghouse. Adamson gathered extensive information about local organizations, national resource organizations, and issues of common concern, including taxes, utility rates, unemployment, revenue sharing, welfare reform, and neighborhood preservation. MEJ produced and distributed mimeographed mailings, small publications, and a newsletter edited by Adamson, Just Economics, published from 1973 to 1980.
MEJ also sponsored conferences and issue-oriented projects. Among the more notable were the Citizens Energy Conference (1974), organized during the first oil embargo; an unemployment conference (1975); and a series of regional conferences on welfare reform (1977).
MEJ's major issue-oriented projects were the Tax Justice Project (TJP), the National Committee for Tax Justice (NCTJ), and the Jobs and Justice Campaign.
TJP was an attempt to transform low and moderate income taxpayers into advocates in the tax reform fight. The project's efforts involved influencing Congressional tax reform and sponsoring more than 100 free local income tax clinics. TJP was initially directed by John Franzen, then by Julia Mark.
NCTJ was a national coalition formed in March 1974 by tax reform groups and local community organizations, including MEJ. One of its major activities was drafting the Tax Justice Act of 1975, a comprehensive tax reform package introduced in Congress. Julia Mark also became NCTJ coordinator in 1975.
The Jobs and Justice Campaign began in May 1978. Co-sponsored by Massachusetts Fair Share, its goal was to organize the unemployed in Boston. Although it continued in some form until 1980, attempts to develop a national program were unsuccessful.
In addition to conferences and projects, MEJ further encouraged local organizing by assisting groups to secure grants and loans, and acting as administrator for funding that they obtained. It also provided seed grants for several new local organizing projects, such as Massachusetts Fair Share, Chelsea Fair Share, and Carolina Action.
With the loss of Wiley's leadership and prominence, MEJ's second goal--as a center for social action organizing--never materialized. Because MEJ never became a membership organization, funding was mainly through project grants. Its most active years were 1973 to 1975. From 1976 to 1978 most activities involved participation in coalitions or in projects initiated by others. Although there seems to have been no formal statement, MEJ effectively ceased to exist when Bert De Leeuw resigned as director of MEJ in 1980 to become director of the Citizens' Party.
