There has been a lot of press recently about how Jim Richter (aka “The Broom Guy”) was treated badly by the Nora post office in Indianapolis and asked to stop selling his brooms there after decades of doing so (see Indianapolis Star story). We at The Polis Center know this man beyond staff members buying his broom products.

Jim’s story is featured in the 2002 book, Urban Tapestry: Indianapolis Stories edited by Sandy Eisenberg Sasso. The Urban Tapestry publication was part of the larger Polis Center Project on Religion and Urban Culture and was designed to take the pulse of Indianapolis through the stories of its people. Although the stories are from Indianapolis, they transcend their locale to speak to the universal human condition.

Jim’s tale, “They Speak…and I Appreciate That,” is in the first section of this book entitled “Justice and Kindness and Giving to Kinsfolk,” pp. 25-27. Click the link above and enjoy this narrative in which Jim speaks about his blindness and how he came to make a living selling brooms.

The Project on Religion and Urban Culture was conducted from 1996 to 2002. The Polis Center used a community-academic collaboration to explore and understand the ways in which religion and community have shaped each other in Greater Indianapolis. In the process, it compiled the largest collection of meaningful religious data ever gathered on one American city.

Working through these community-based partnerships, The Polis Center cultivated public inquiry and civic conversation about the role of religion in this exemplar metropolitan community. This seven-year study of religion and community in Indianapolis was funded by grants from Lilly Endowment, Inc. and created a civic arena for examining issues of religion and community. The Polis Center presented project results to the community in many formats, including newsletters, a scholarly book series, two internationally distributed video series, and more. If you want to learn more about the Project on Religion and Urban Culture, click here.