Thomas Merton Center (Pittsburgh)

The traditional base of the center was radical Catholic pacifists, but has since expanded to secular humanists and diverse community perspectives concerned with building a more peaceful and just world. The center began in 1972 to protest the continuation of the Vietnam War,^[3] to work against federal cutbacks and to raise money to provide medical aid to Indochina.

The center has also protested and peacefully demonstrated against a variety of issues including world and local hunger, exploitation of workers, militarism, and racial discrimination.^[4]

During the 1980s, the Center worked extensively on nuclear disarmament, targeting local weapons makers Rockwell and Westinghouse, as well as organizing campaigns of solidarity and support to the people of Central and Latin American countries that were targeted by the Reagan administration.^[5] In the 1990s, organizing against the Gulf War and in response to the murder of Johnny Gammage by police, among other projects, were undertaken. With the invasion of Iraq in 2003, the Center became central in organizing Pittsburgh's large anti-war protests and most recently served to facilitate and organize many of the educational and protest activities in September 2009 against and in response to the G20 Summit, including the Peoples' March,^[6] which was one of the largest protests in Pittsburgh in decades. Several local institutions grew out of the center, including the Pittsburgh chapter of Amnesty International and the Greater Pittsburgh Community Food Bank. A 2015 journal article stated that it hosted or provided resources to around 25 local campaigns and projects, including the Raging Grannies and Code Pink; and counted a number of other groups as "friends and affiliates," including the Pittsburgh Organizing Group and the Pittsburgh Independent Media Center.^[3]

The TMC was monitored by the FBI's Joint Terrorism Task Force between 2002 and 2005, according to documents obtained by the ACLU through a Freedom of Information Act request in 2006.^[7]

The Thomas Merton Award, a peace prize, was awarded by the center annually. Recipients included Dorothy Day, Noam Chomsky, Vandana Shiva, Martin Sheen and Roy Bourgeois.

Its structure included a Board of Directors, committees, affiliates, friends, projects, and members. Membership dues and donations provide much of the funding and the Board of Directors are elected to make decisions related to governance of policies at the center. Several of the most active projects included Book 'Em, a books for prisoners program; the Environmental Justice Committee, the Pittsburgh Darfur Coalition, Haiti Solidarity, the Pittsburgh Chapter of Code Pink, Roots of Promise, Marcellus Protest Group, Fed Up! the Pittsburgh chapter of the Human Rights Coalition, and The East End Community Thrift Shop, which provides clothing and household items for low-income individuals in the area.

The Thomas Merton Center had four key focus areas: peace and non-violence; human rights; environmental justice; and economic justice. The Thomas Merton Center also acted as a fiscal umbrella for a number of smaller organizations that aligned with the peace and justice mission of the center. These include: the Pittsburgh Prison Book Project (formerly Book 'Em), Haiti Solidarity, Pittsburgh Progressive Notebook, Fight for Lifers West, Human Rights Coalition Fed' Up, Pittsburgh Darfur Coalition, Roots of Promise, Marcellus Protest Group, and Westmoreland Marcellus Protest Group.

The Thomas Merton Center published a monthly newspaper entitled The New People. It reported on issues of war, poverty, racism and oppression, by focusing on the non-violent struggle to bring about a more peaceful and just world. The New People also acts as an organizing tool for Thomas Merton Center members and the activist community.