Metropolitan Congregations United (MCU), is an interfaith organization dedicated to congregation-based community organizing in the St. Louis metropolitan region, MO. Founded in 1997, MCU now has a membership of approximately thirty congregations and institutions, as well as a number of individuals, working to develop leaders who move their congregations, organizations, and communities and change public policy for the common good. St Louis has faced a long history of racial divides, depopulation, disinvestment, deindustrialization, and discriminatory housing policies. It is considered to be one of the most segregated cities in the US. Since the killing of Michael Brown Jr. in Ferguson in 2014, communities in the region have been immersed in conversations about racial injustice and have progressed further along the journey of racial reckoning than many others. MCU provides a foundation for faith-based groups to organize their community, inspire direct action, and build racial equity.
A young St Louis resident promoting MCU’s Break the Pipeline campaign. Photo: Metropolitan Congregations United
Residents participate in, and are at the heart of, every MCU effort – its governance, its culture, and its programming. Predominantly people of color, MCU has a small team of community organizers, supported by a three-person board, collectively making a powerful impact. Current work includes Break the Pipeline, a multi-system campaign to end the school to prison pipeline; Environmental Justice, which includes AirWatchSTL, a community-based air quality monitoring program; EXPO STL, formerly incarcerated individuals devoted to prison reform; and Sacred Votes, MCU’s integrated voter engagement strategy. Their efforts have brought policy changes to remove lead from school drinking water, raise the minimum wage, expand Medicaid, ensure racial equity in hiring and contracting, and ensure that 17-year-olds are treated as juveniles rather than adults. Emerging as a regional powerhouse, MCU is now heading up Missouri’s first-of-its-kind State Organizing Committee, a coalition of six frontline groups united to fight back against water pollution, air pollution, and flood vulnerability.