WASHINGTON — Pastor Jim Dickerson didn’t grow up in church. But he learned valuable lessons about leading a congregation by witnessing a self-help group. Dickerson, born 68 years ago in Conway, first saw equality in action when his mother and stepfather, who both suffered from alcoholism, would take him to their Alcoholics Anonymous meetings. There, for the first time, Dickerson saw a diverse group of people united for one purpose — to encourage sobriety.
Some were well-to-do. Others were broke. Some had college degrees. Others were high school dropouts. Most were white, but blacks also attended at times,
The sense of unity was a far cry from the divided world around him.
“I didn’t realize it but that was a very influential moment in my childhood to experience this sort of egalitarian thing where everybody’s on a level playing field,” Dickerson said.
That lesson has imbued his life’s work. Dickerson founded Manna Inc. in Washington in 1982. Named after the food provided by God for the Israelites during their travels, according to the Bible, the organization provides a means to home ownership for low-income families in the D.C. area.
In 1997, Washingtonian magazine named Dickerson one of its citizens of the year, saying his organization has restored hundreds of “homes, dozens of city blocks, and a great many lives.”
The foundation for Manna Inc. was built long before Dickerson moved to D.C.
After suffering his own battles with addiction, Dickerson said he had a spiritual awakening in 1964 at age 22. He discovered Jesus, quit his job at the phone company and began working for the North Little Rock Boys Club, helping to integrate it.
“Every white kid except a few left, and we did not blink one moment because this was the good and the right thing to do,” he said. “We just continued to provide the best programs no matter who was there.”
North Little Rock minister Paul Holderfield, Jr. says it was “a mass exodus.”
“One black came in and a 100 whites left. it was crazy,” said Holderfield, pastor of Friendly Chapel. But Dickerson welcomed everyone, irrespective of their skin color — and the youths nicknamed Dickerson “Coach.”
Dickerson then worked to integrate churches in the area, to help low-income people with housing issues and, as a college student, become involved with race relations issues on the campus of what was then Little Rock University.
“It was a great time, though. It’s like I had a personal born-again experience in my own life and the whole society was in the throes of a born-again experience,” he recalled.
In 1971, Dickerson moved to Washington and eventually started his nondenominational church, New Community Church.
The small congregation embraced the social gospel while also emphasizing the importance of having a personal relationship with Jesus Christ.
At the same time, Dickerson started Manna to help low-income first-time homebuyers facing high interest rates and destroyed neighborhoods that were the center of D.C.’s riots after the assassination of Martin Luther King Jr.
“Nobody was developing anything in the neighborhoods in D.C. It was not what it is today. Whole blocks and whole neighborhoods were devastated,” he said.
The organization sells homes through equity-sharing loans in which it and the family form a partnership. Manna gets the tax benefits and the family comes up with a payment plan to buy the home within five years. Money from the sale goes into the organization’s Capstone Fund to pay for future projects.
Manna also has homebuyers’ clubs that provide support during the process. Participants meet monthly to learn the tools necessary to make it through buying a home such as how to fill out applications and money management.
Recently, Dickerson was been in preliminary talks to start a program similar to Manna in Arkansas, especially in Little Rock and North Little Rock.
Ethel Williams was one of the first to buy a home from Manna in Washington’s Shaw neighborhood in the 1980s. Although she always wanted to own her own home, she never thought she would be able to afford it.
“I told the homebuyers’ club that I was in that the only way I felt like would buy a home is if I hit the numbers or married a millionaire,” she said.
According to Manna President George Rothman, the organization has designed, built and sold 1,000 homes to low-income people in the D.C. area since its founding.
All of the elements that go into buying a house are handled by the organization.
“Most non-profits act as developers and coordinate the work. We actually do it all,” Rothman said.
Former Washington, D.C. Director of Housing Stanley Jackson first encountered Manna and Dickerson 15 years ago.
Although the relationship started off as an antagonistic one with Dickerson saying Jackson should do more to encourage home ownership for struggling D.C. residents, the two eventually became friends.
“The one thing he taught me was humility in service. What I realized is that service is such a noble profession,” he said. “To see a man who has devoted his whole life to service made me very humble and made me understand that I can take and transition my experiences into services that would benefit those among us that have the least.”
According to Jackson, Manna provides a crucial service.
“If you look at Manna’s performance compared to other organizations, even for profit organizations’ performance, you don’t see any group with such a low default rate,” he said. “Manna does an extremely good job of preparing its clients for the transition from where they are to home ownership.”
Ike Agbim agrees. Agrbim, an architect, lives next to one of Manna’s developments and sees a change in the neighborhood.
“Everything has improved, crime, safety and the feel of the neighborhood. Values have gone up already and are going to go up some more, so we’re really excited,” he said.
Dickerson says God brought him to Washington, but he sometimes longs to return to his home state.
“I’ve never quit missing and loving Arkansas,” he said.
Holderfield, the North Little Rock pastor and leader of a massive feeding outreach to the poor, has drawn inspiration from Dickerson. “He’s one of my closest friends in the world,” said Holderfield. “He just has a love for people that’s so genuine, you can’t help but be drawn to him.”