A People's War on Poverty by Wesley Phelps

Author:Wesley Phelps [Phelps, Wesley]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: History, United States, 20th Century, Political Science, Public Policy, Social Services & Welfare, Social Science, Poverty & Homelessness
ISBN: 9780820346724
Google: j8XDCgAAQBAJ
Publisher: University of Georgia Press
Published: 2014-03-15T02:42:33+00:00

SIX

National Changes with Local Results

De-escalation of the War on Poverty, 1969–1976

The first four years of the War on Poverty saw a diverse group of grassroots activists struggling against the city’s public officials, defenders of the status quo, and sometimes each other. This group included community organizers dedicated to the principles of Saul Alinsky; religious activists, who combined Old Testament prophetic social justice advocacy and Christian social gospel with confrontational politics in their sponsorship of VISTA volunteers; and more moderate advocates of social service delivery. They all shared in a quest to use the federal War on Poverty to expand the meaning of democracy in Houston.

As the experiences of these activists have shown, local implementers of the War on Poverty were indispensable for carrying out the poverty war on the ground, and in many ways they shaped the contours of the program. Yet they were not alone in engaging in these battles of the War on Poverty, nor did they create their own war on poverty in Houston without assistance. Rather, grassroots antipoverty activists in Houston used federal programs, resources, and governmental authority to wage their battle against poverty in the city. In many cases grassroots activists were also able to expand these federal programs into vehicles for social change in their crusade for racial and economic justice and the expansion of democracy. The federal government was equally important, however, in determining what the War on Poverty could accomplish. It was this fluid relationship between the federal government and grassroots activists that determined the fate of the War on Poverty in Houston.

In short, the federal government, in addition to grassroots activists, was key to implementing the War on Poverty in Houston. This work’s focus on the grassroots activists who implemented the poverty programs in Houston has revealed several important points about how the War on Poverty operated on the ground. But at the same time we must not lose sight of the significance of the federal government in relating this story. Actions of War on Poverty administrators at the national, state, and regional levels affected the implementation of programs at the local level, even while grassroots antipoverty activists at times transformed these programs in their efforts to empower Houston’s poor residents. Nowhere was the importance of the federal government illustrated more vividly, however, than in the 1969–1976 period when diminished federal support for the struggle against poverty doomed it to failure on the ground in Houston. The conviction and determination of grassroots activists were crucial factors in the implementation of the War on Poverty in the city, but it was virtually impossible for these activists to continue their efforts in the absence of federal support, funding, and authority. Grassroots activists in Houston had been propelled by the federal mandate to fight a War on Poverty. But the federal government’s abrupt retreat from its commitment to fight poverty took the wind out of their sails. The result, of course, was disastrous for the War on Poverty. It meant that local activists would

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