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In November, Rev. Carlos Perkins gained a new title: city-county councilor. His win, in which he received 55% of the vote in a three-way Democratic primary, was also a success for the Black Church Coalition.
“I stand here as a representative of the Black Church Coalition to say our voice must be heard in politics,” he told a crowd on election night. Perkins, formerly the leading clergy voice of the organization, has since stepped down from to focus on his council duties but still plays an active role.
The prominent Indianapolis-based clergy group was launched by community organizer Josh Riddick in 2021 as part of not-for-profit advocacy group Faith in Indiana. Its key priorities include criminal justice reform, police accountability and creating safer communities through efforts around mental health and poverty.
The group already seen some success: It successfully pushed for Indianapolis’ first clinician-led emergency response team—Mayor Joe Hogsett committed to the funding and later credited Faith in Indiana with the concept—and $100 million for mental health programs in the state’s two-year budget.
“We feel like we’ve had a number of opportunities to work closely with the Hogsett administration to get some real tangible differences made in the community,” Riddick told IBJ. “It’s because of the people power and the vote power we’ve cultivated, we feel like that voice has been respected and honored. There’s still more work to be done together.”
Over the next six to 12 months, Riddick said the organization will be scaling up in order to play “offense” in a statewide push for efforts intended to decrease poverty, a root cause of crime and will move away from Faith in Indiana to do it.
The advocacy group supports criminal justice reform, police accountability and crime reduction strategies. Riddick estimates that it has between 300 and 400 members
Riddick says the Black Church Coalition is likely the largest non-union organizing base in the state. It’s outgrown Faith in Indiana, the organization it was started under in 2021, and has joined national not-for-profit social justice network Live Free USA.
The decision to exit Faith in Indiana came from the Black Church Coalition’s central committee, which consists of about 15 leaders of the organization’s policy arm and clergy team.
The transition reunited the Black Church Coalition with former Faith in Indiana organizer. Rosie Bryant, who worked to implement the city’s Mobile Crisis Assistance Team and gun violence reduction strategies supported by the National Institute for Criminal Justice Reform, is now the national organization’s director of program and organizing. She said she’s excited to see the Black Church Coalition expand on the groundwork she helped lay at Faith in Indiana.
“I think that this is a great path for the Black Church Coalition,” Bryant told IBJ. “It gives them a space where they’re able to expand at a faster rate than what they may have been able to do just locally because now they’re connected national organization that has lots of relationships in the national space.”
While the coalition still needs to be “incubated” somewhere, Perkins said his goal is to eventually see it “stand on its own.”
The group also has a series of benchmarks: raise $250,000 for it’s political action committee by the next local election to fund candidates; increase membership to 500 by this time next year; and create a standardized membership dues process to fund the efforts.
So far, the coalition has relied only on pro bono lobbyists. Riddick said it will be up to the central committee to determine if paid lobbyists are worth the investment to further the organization’s goals, which include state-funded universal pre-kindergarten programs, an expansion of the state’s child tax credit and an expansion of paid family medical leave. Riddick said those goals are a “pro-working families agenda for the state of Indiana” to alleviate poverty and drive workforce development.
Riddick frequently reminds those working within the Black Church Coalition of the political theory that “there are no permanent enemies, there are no permanent allies, only permanent self-interests.”
State leaders are overwhelmingly Republican—a factor that makes U.S. Sen. Mike Braun the likely frontrunner in the race for governor against Democrat Jennifer McCormick and Libertarian Donald Rainwater. The politics have often also created a divide between largely Democratic Indianapolis city leaders and the GOP-led state Legislature.
But that doesn’t deter Perkins.
“It is a difficult task. We are still in a majority Republican state,” the Democratic councilor, told IBJ. “But that doesn’t mean that we cannot work with our Republican friends to be able to get what is important to the community and impactful for the community. The needs of the community centers everything that we do.”
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