Support for Grass Roots Advocacy

Throughout its history NCLEJ has worked with and in support of grassroots groups of low-income people who seek to participate in the democratic process. Our Low Income Networking and Communications (LINC) Project is a recent example of our creative work with grassroots groups.

Recent NCLEJ Activity:

LINC: Empowering Low-Income Groups Through Technology

The Center has from the beginning adopted a very distinctive stance toward the poor people and organizations who were its clients. From its early work with the welfare rights movement of the 1960s, it regarded the people and and groups whose cases it researched and litigated as partners. I know this from my own work with the welfare rights movement. It is also apparent in the fact that welfare recipients served on the Center's board, and in the Center's selection of people it honors at its annual banquet. Of course, the important work was to take difficult cases for benighted people and to win them, especially in dark political times. But to also consistently stand shoulder to shoulder with poor people over the years has been in my view truly admirable.

-Frances Fox Piven