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DISENTANGLING RACE AND POVERTY

The Civil Rights Response to Antipoverty Policy

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  10 December 2008

Catherine M. Paden
Catherine M. Paden*
Affiliation:
Department of Political Science, Simmons College
*
Professor Catherine M. Paden, Department of Political Science, Simmons College, 300 The Fenway, Boston, MA 02115. E-mail: [email protected]
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Abstract

Throughout their histories, civil rights organizations have chosen to advocate on behalf of the poor, despite disincentives. This paper examines SNCC's and the NAACP's activities concerning the Economic Opportunity Act during the early and mid-1960s. First, I establish the level of attention SNCC and NAACP devoted to the War on Poverty. Based on analysis of the groups' archives, I find that both groups increased their attention to antipoverty policy during a period when other issues were salient to all African Americans. Second, I assess why these shifts in organizational priorities occurred. My findings indicate that competition among civil rights organizations drove the NAACP and SNCC to commit attention to antipoverty issues, and to focus attention on grassroots organizing concerning the War on Poverty. Differences in the organizations' structures mediated what form this attention would take.

Keywords

Civil Rights OrganizationsNAACPSNCCEconomic Opportunity ActAntipoverty PolicyWelfare ReformInterest Groups
Type
STATE OF THE ART
Information
Du Bois Review: Social Science Research on Race , Volume 5 , Issue 2 , Fall 2008 , pp. 339 - 368
Copyright
Copyright © W.E.B. Du Bois Institute for African and African American Research 2008

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