Tent City residents march on Mellon HQ

People from across the country who set up a Tent City in Pittsburgh the week of the G-20 summit marched to the headquarters of Mellon Corp. on Sept. 22 to demand a national moratorium on foreclosures and evictions.

Ricardo Adams, unemployed worker from Rochester, N.Y., at Sept. 22 Mellon protest. WW photo: Brenda Sandburg

The dominant institution in Pittsburgh, Mellon Bank received billions in the government’s bailout of financial institutions. In return it was supposed to help people refinance their mortgages so they could keep their homes. But like all the other banks that made huge profits from predatory lending, its sole goal has been to boost its profits.

The protest was called by the Bail Out the People Movement and the Rev. Thomas E. Smith, pastor of the Monumental Baptist Church, who together organized the March for Jobs in Pittsburgh Sept. 20 and set up the Tent City dedicated to the unemployed and homeless. The encampment was located next to the church in the historic African-American Hill district.

Protesters marched from Freedom Corner, where there is a monument to civil rights activists. Chanting, “Housing is a human right! Tell those banks that we’re going to fight!” they walked behind a banner demanding jobs, housing and health care for all. Anti-war activist Cindy Sheehan joined them.

“Mellon Bank makes life-and-death decisions every day and pushes people into the streets,” Larry Holmes, an organizer of the Bail Out the People Movement, said at the picket line in front of the bank. “It’s a crime. Jobs and housing are not just rights for the robber class but for everyone.”

John Parker, a Bail Out the People organizer in Los Angeles, said the banks are like the kudzu vines that grow around houses. Their roots deepen and their tentacles “tighten around us,” he said. “But if we stand on each other’s shoulders we will be much more daunting than that building. We will crush it. We will be victorious.”

Many of the protesters had lost their jobs and homes. At a Sept. 21 press conference at the Tent City announcing the Mellon demonstration, Ricardo Adams of Rochester, N.Y., said he had been laid off in January. “I need a job,” he said. “I can’t be a good father or a good husband without a job.” Adams came to the Tent City with his spouse and two little girls.

At the press conference a reporter asked him how he could afford to come to Pittsburgh. He replied, “How could I afford not to come here?”