The Thomas Merton Center was a non-profit grassroots organization in Pittsburgh with a mission to build and support collaborative movements that empower marginalized populations to advance collective liberation from oppressive systems.

The center was co-founded by Molly Rush and Larry Kessler in 1972. The Thomas Merton Center was named after Thomas Merton, a Trappist monk of the Abbey of Gethsemani who wrote prolifically about issues related to peace and justice.

The Center ceased operations in 2024 due to budgetary constraints, although a consignment store associated with it remained open.

History

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,Staggenborg, Suzanne. “EVENT COALITIONS IN THE PITTSBURGH G20 PROTESTS.” The Sociological Quarterly, vol. 56, no. 2, 2015, pp. 386–411. JSTOR, http://www.jstor.org/stable/24581945. Page 402. Accessed 10 Aug. 2026. 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.

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.Cangemi, bio), M. J. (2020). Translating Sorrow and Grief into Action: El Salvador’s Human Rights Abuses, U.S. Diocesan Newspapers, and Catholic Mobilization, 1977–1982. U.S. Catholic Historian, 38(4), N.PAG. https://doi.org/10.1353/cht.2020.0021. "In January 1981, Pittsburgh's Thomas Merton Center held a potluck dinner and screening of the film Salvador: Revolution or Death, followed by a memorial Mass for the four churchwomen." 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, 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.

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.Lefevere, P. (2006). FBI monitored Merton Center, files show. National Catholic Reporter, 42(21), 7.

Structure 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.

Publication 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 acted as an organizing tool for Thomas Merton Center members and the activist community.

Award Beginning in 1972, the Center gave the Thomas Merton Award to "national and international individuals struggling for justice."

Award recipients 1972: James P. Carroll 1973: Dorothy Day 1974: Dick Gregory 1975: Joan Baez 1976: Dom Hélder Câmara 1977: Dick Hughes 1978: Bishop John Harris Burt & Bishop James Malone 1979: Helen Caldicott 1980: William Winpisinger 1981: The people of Poland 1982: Archbishop Raymond Hunthausen 1983: Not awarded 1984: Bernice Johnson Reagon 1985: Henri Nouwen 1986: Allan Boesak 1987: Miguel D'Escoto 1988: Daniel Berrigan 1989: Comrades of El Salvador & Elisabeth Linder 1990: Marian Wright Edelman 1991: Howard Zinn 1992: Molly Rush 1993: Reverend Lucius Walker 1994: Richard Rohr OFM 1995: Marian Kramer 1996: Winona LaDuke 1997: Ron Chisom 1998: Studs Terkel 1999: Wendell Berry 2000: Ronald V. Dellums 2001: Sister Joan Chittister 2002: Bishop Leontine T. Kelly 2003: Voices in the Wilderness 2004: Amy Goodman and Stephen Bluestone for poetry category 2005: Reverend Roy Bourgeois 2006: Angela Davis 2007: Cindy Sheehan 2008: Malik Rahim 2009: Dennis Kucinich 2010: Noam Chomsky 2011: Vandana Shiva 2012: Martin Sheen 2013: Bill McKibben 2014: Jeremy Scahill 2015: Barbara Lee 2016: Frida Berrigan 2017: The Center for Constitutional Rights 2018: ArchCity Defenders 2019: Keeanga-Yamahtta Taylor

References

External links Homepage Fact Sheet - The Thomas Merton Center for Peace & Justice (3/14/2006) at ACLU Finding aid to the Thomas Merton Center Records at the Archives Service Center, University of Pittsburgh