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The War on Poverty. John F. Kennedy’s primary victory in West Virginia was defining, not only for the 1960 elections, but for the Kennedy and subsequent Johnson administrations.
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John F. Kennedy’s primary victory in West Virginia was defining, not only for the 1960 elections, but for the Kennedy and subsequent Johnson administrations.
John F. Kennedy speaking at the West Virginia State Capitol. Charleston Gazette photograph courtesy of John F. Kennedy Memorial Library. http://www.wvculture.org/goldenseal/kennedy.html
Ken Hechler in 2000. Photograph by Michael Keller Ken Hechler on John Kennedy
JL. If he could win on the religious issue here, that would be seen as an harbinger of his future success? KH. That's correct. The fact that so many people had predicted that he wouldn't win here, and he was able to beat the odds, that was sensational in terms of national exposure and national attention. A lot of people say that he bought the election, yet it was far more than money. It was his personality, charisma, organization, and focusing on the issues that really interested West Virginians.
JL. What were some of those issues? Do you recall? KH. Minimum wage was certainly one and, of course, the whole issue of poverty and what could be done to bolster the economy. He put a lot of emphasis on jobs and the economy. But he talked mainly about leadership and the importance of leadership in the presidency — the same type of issues that had motivated Franklin D. Roosevelt, Harry Truman, and others down through the Democratic years. To get America moving again. This was a contrast with the relative inactivity of the Eisenhower administration preceding him.
Also significant was Michael Harrington’s book, The Other America,published in 1962.
In the book, Harrington claimed that as many as 1/3 of Americans were living in poverty. • Supposedly Kennedy read the book and was moved to address the issues raised.
But it was Lyndon Johnson who would officially declare a war on poverty.
Lyndon Johnson’s Address to Congress March 16, 1964 • In that address, Johnson presented to Congress the Economic Opportunity Act.
The Economic Opportunity Act established: • Head Start • Job Corps • Expanded funding for vocational education and job training • Encouraged community action programs • Extended loans to farmers and small businesses • Established the domestic peace corps, VISTA
It placed the programs under a new Office of Economic Opportunity, headed by Sargent Shriver, husband of Eunice Kennedy. • Other “Great Society” programs included: • The Appalachian Regional Development Act • The Housing and Urban Development Act • Medicare
Elementary and Secondary Education Act • The Higher Education Act, creating need based scholarships for 140,000 and establishing a Teachers Corps • A higher minimum wage
On April 24, 1964, Lyndon and Lady Bird Johnson visited Inez, Ky., and the property of Tommy Fletcher, a father of eight whose living conditions epitomized the squalor that characterized Appalachia for decades. It was from that porch that Johnson declared the nation's War on Poverty. (The Associated Press)
The Appalachian Volunteers (established before Johnson’s program) and the VISTA volunteers began with relatively non-political activities like home repair. • They soon recognized that poverty in Appalachia was a consequence of industrial exploitation and political corruption.
Bob Tanner, a VISTA worker in West Virginia, wrote in 1968: • In West Virginia... as throughout Appalachia, we live in a system of absentee control by large financial and industrial corporations pursuing their economic ends without respect for the lives of the people in the state or region. The responsibility for the damage--political, economic, and social--can be attributed to these colonial exploiters.... West Virginia is a rich state. Yet it is obvious that West Virginia is a poor state. Much wealth has been extracted from West Virginia's natural resources, but little of that wealth has remained in the hands of West Virginians. (Quoted in Helen Lewis, "Fatalism or the Coal Industry?," in B. Ergood and B. Kuhre (eds), Appalachia (1976), p. 155.)
While certain centers have thrived—Knoxville, Tri-Cities, Charleston, Huntington/Ashland, Ashville, Pikeville—poverty has not been defeated.
