Mississippi Republicans and the Politics of Poverty

Chapter six explores the impact of the election of Richard Nixon on the war on poverty. It uncovers the conversations in the new Republican administration regarding the fate of the war on poverty, from questions over whether to rename the Office of Economic Opportunity to the appointment of Don Rumsfeld as OEO director. The chapter then moves on to discuss the way in which the evolution of massive resistance after 1965 and white opposition to the war on poverty shaped and contributed to emerging strands of conservative Republicanism in Mississippi. It places Mississippi’s “conservative color-blindness” in the broader context of the rise of the sunbelt South. Finally, the chapter illustrates the ways in which grassroots conservative groups—particularly women—were central to forging an ostensibly race neutral war against the war on poverty that was vital to the growing Mississippi Republican Party.

The Institutional Architecture of Progressive Democracy

This chapter describes examples of Progressive administration from the New Deal and the Second Reconstruction. This account explores the tension between public deliberation in the administrative process and efficient delivery of the services that make democracy possible. During the New Deal, the Tennessee Valley Authority and the Agricultural Adjustment Administration engaged in highly deliberative forms of land use planning. But these deliberative procedures tended to exclude low-income and minority farmers. The Farm Security Administration, by contrast, provided desperately needed goods and services to poor farmers, but did not generally engage them in administrative policymaking. As the New Deal drew to a close, the Progressive emphasis on participatory modes of administration were codified in a thin form in the Administrative Procedure Act. At the same time, the social impacts of the New Deal agricultural agencies created some of the conditions for the Second Reconstruction. During the Second Reconstruction, civil rights agencies attempted to combine public participation and efficient bureaucracy in new institutional forms. The Department of Health, Education, and Welfare developed broad understandings of the social background for segregation that enabled courts to integrate schools in the South. The Equal Employment Opportunity Commission deliberated with civil rights groups and the courts to develop the disparate impact theory of discrimination. The Office of Economic Opportunity instituted radical forms of public participation in implementing the “maximum feasible participation” requirement of the Economic Opportunity Act.

An Unexpected Rise in Outside Intervention

This chapter discusses the increased intervention from the Office of Economic Opportunity and the North Carolina Fund in Craven Operation Progress matters. Federal officials within both the OEO and the Department of Labor had begun to conclude, similarly to Fund staff, that local control of community action would never allow the types of social and institutional change they believed were necessary to meet the needs of the poor. From their perspective in Washington, D.C., too many businessmen, elected officials, and other power-structure types served on local boards. Moreover, these men and women were either incapable of making or unwilling to make the kinds of decisions likely to enhance the poor’s political influence or economic standing. Eventually, save for the rare instances in which the poor made up a majority of a Community Action Agency board, local community action experiments began to be seen as a roadblock to the War on Poverty’s goals of improving opportunities and justice for indigent populations (especially in the South, where many of the long-term poor were black). The executive director ultimately resigns following pressure from both groups to step down.

Triumphs of Moderation

This chapter introduces Craven Operation Progress’s new executive director who desired to ensure more poor people were reached, especially the white poor who were participating in very low numbers. A moderate compared to the previous director, he also sought to cooperate more with the local people and move COP in a less controversial direction. North Carolina Fund and Office of Economic Opportunity leaders generally distrusted the new director and believed he was too accommodating to the local power structure at the expense of those being served by COP. Yet despite such criticisms, some of COP’s greatest successes begin to show during Monte’s tenure, particularly within the Manpower training program. This chapter also details how black and whites on the COP board generally see the need to cooperate and work together for the sake of the community.

The Carcassonne Square Dance

This chapter examines the revival of the Carcassonne square dance in Carcassonne, Eastern Kentucky. In its current incarnation, the Carcassonne square dance began spontaneously in 1967, soon after the establishment of the Carcassonne Community Center. The dance at the turn of the twenty-first century reflected the century-old history of square dancing in Letcher County. This chapter first provides a historical background on Carcassonne School and how it helped to shape the Carcassonne dance before discussing life in the area throughout the twentieth century, with particular emphasis on farming and coal mining. It then traces the origins of square dancing in Letcher County and goes on to explore its decline during World War II. It also considers the role of folk revival and the Office of Economic Opportunity in the renewal of square dancing in Carcassonne, along with the Carcassonne square dance's relation to community identity and sense of self within the community. The chapter concludes with an assessment of the Carcassonne square dance after three decades of existence as well as growing attention and concerns for its future.

Padre Mike and NAFTA Man

Mike Allen’s Path to global dealmaker was a strange one. He graduated from Oblate College in San Antonio and was ordained a Catholic priest in 1964. As an oblate in the church, Allen committed his early adult years to the lives of migrant workers and others on the margins, and he considered himself a socialist. He lived in a grungy trailer near the impoverished members of his McAllen parish, where he was known as “Padre Mike.” Not unlike Ed Krueger, Allen worked with the United Farm Workers, taught his parishio­ners how to work the welfare system, and railed against the injustices of capitalism. He had a friendly relationship with Krueger during those years. When Krueger needed something mimeographed, for example, he would go to the office where Allen worked to use his machine. In 1974 Mike Allen left the priesthood and became that most diehard of capitalists: the convert. As he tells it, he evolved, realizing that handouts cannot offer the dignity of work. He took a job working with the Texas Office of Economic Opportunity, where he lobbied in D.C. to get money for Texas and handled economic development grants for Texas businesses. In the mid-1980s he started a company that sold corrugated cardboard to Mexico, invested in a shoe-making maquiladora, and did various consultancies. Then in 1987 Allen moved back to the Magic Valley to lead the McAllen Economic Development Corporation (MEDC) at Mayor Brand's invitation. He was the perfect choice; he felt as comfortable with a Mexican developer or impoverished colonia (neighborhood) dweller as he did with corporate executives or Austin politicos. He wasn’t only bilingual, he was bicultural—and persuasive to boot. In 1988, a year into his tenure at MEDC, Allen met with the mayor of Reynosa, Tamaulipas. A gritty border city of a few hundred thousand, Reynosa lagged behind Tijuana, Ciudad Juárez, and Matamoros, but had been relatively self-sufficient—supported for several decades by its petroleum and natural gas reserves.

How Johnson Fought the War on Poverty: The Economics and Politics of Funding at the Office of Economic Opportunity

This article presents a quantitative analysis of the geographic distribution of spending through the 1964 Economic Opportunity Act (EOA). Using newly assembled state- and county-level data, the results show that the Johnson administration directed funding in ways consistent with the War on Poverty's rhetoric of fighting poverty and racial discrimination: poorer areas and those with a greater share of nonwhite residents received systematically more funding. In contrast to New Deal spending, political variables explain very little of the variation in EOA funding. The smaller role of politics may help explain the strong backlash against the War on Poverty's programs.