Foreword to the Mechanism report “Manufacturing's Emerging Partners: Faith-Informed Organizations Supporting Employment and Entrepreneurship”

Ronald C. Williams

Ph.D., Interim Dean, School of Graduate Studies and Research | Coppin State University

President & Chair | Mechanism

Faith, work, and education have always been central to my life and the communities that shaped me. I write not only as an academic leader and former pastor but as the grandson of two men whose lives showed the power of faith to lift people beyond their circumstances. My paternal grandfather was an African Methodist Episcopal Zion pastor who mined coal during the week and preached on Sundays. My maternal grandfather, a Baptist deacon and mathematics teacher, earned a master’s degree—a rare achievement for a Black man born in the late 1800s. In fact, his wife, a deaconess, born during the same era, earned a college degree.

They embodied a truth: Faith is not escapism, but propulsion. It moves hardworking communities from subsistence to aspiration. Their faith, grounded in hope and community, gave them courage to believe in a better life. For coal miners, immigrants, and Black families migrating north, faith spoke of dignity and possibility. It inspired long days underground, night shifts in mills, and lantern-lit classrooms because it promised that sacrifice could yield something greater, something unseen but deeply trusted.

For many, the industrial era, with livable wages and steady work, allowed hope to bear fruit. Families bought homes, educated children, and retired with dignity. My grandfather's stories reflect this. The coal miner-preacher sent his son to college; that son, a middle school principal by day and independent contractor/entrepreneur by night who married the deacon’s daughter, who had earned her bachelor’s degree, sent seven children to college. All earned degrees; five gained graduate credentials and two reached terminal degrees. Though he never finished his own dissertation while pursuing a doctorate in education, extra work in the trades took priority as a means of paying the tuition of his children, leading West Virginia University to later bestow him with an honorary doctorate at the young age of 97 for his educational and community contributions.

So faith and education are generational investments. This is why, even as production shifts—from coal mines to makerspaces, from assembly lines to advanced labs—faith-informed organizations remain essential. Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCUs) for example, many founded by churches, continue this legacy. They educate, lead, and model self-reliance. Institutions like Howard University (founded by the First Congregational Society) and Coppin State University (named after a former slave who rose to be an educator, missionary, first lady in the AME church, and entrepreneur) remind us that faith births education and economic independence. Today, Catholic Charities workforce programs, Jewish vocational services, and Muslim-led entrepreneurship initiatives show how faith intersects with education and industry for the common good.

This report, Manufacturing’s Emerging Partners: Faith-Informed Organizations Supporting Employment and Entrepreneurship, explores this landscape. Even as economies change, the values that built generations—faith, education, and productive work—remain vital. These organizations help individuals and communities navigate change, gain skills, and build enterprises honoring both heritage and innovation. And that’s why, as you’ll read in the report below, they can stand as a major pillar in the types of local production ecosystems Mechanism is striving to create. They empower their people by providing a sense of belonging and collective responsibility. When that philosophy spills over into areas like workforce development and innovation, the benefits to workers (and therefore businesses) is invaluable.

Faith communities worshipped, yes, but they also organized, taught, and advocated, often becoming the first banks, schools, and job centers for those with few resources. Their theological foundations affirm that people are called to create, steward, and improve their world. Faith traditions reflect these foundations vividly: Communion, for example, centers on a shared table, and in many traditions the central figure is a teacher inviting others to eat, learn, and imagine a better life.

Faith moves hands and minds to build schools, cooperatives, businesses, and industries. Its communities invest in people and expect returns measured in lives changed, advocating for economic mobility through human- and community-centered creativity and production, always grounded in the sacredness of work, the dignity of each person, and service to the common good.

That’s why, at its best, manufacturing is not just machines and materials; it is meaning. It is people who believe in something bigger, investing labor not only for wages but for legacy. It is communities guided by faith and knowledge, creating futures brighter than their past.