This article examines the struggle for control over Rocky Mount's Community Action Program (CAP)— Nash-Edgecombe Economic Development (NEED)—as a turning point in a longstanding urban conflict. For decades, white businessmen and government officials had repeatedly blocked African Americans from using federal policy innovations to promote racial equality and black economic advancement. Implementation of the city's War on Poverty initially followed these well-established patterns. But by the summer of 1967, working-class African American neighborhood organizations, supported by federal and state agencies, loosened the white political establishment's grip on NEED, secured improvements in rental housing regulation, and increased their role within the city's evolving black freedom movement. In exploring these transformations, this essay argues that the CAP should be reevaluated from the perspective of how it altered the course of local economic and political struggles, and how local contests over implementation of the CAP reshaped the War on Poverty.
Minutes of Meeting of Board of Directors, NEED, Inc., July 12, 1967, Folder 4706, North Carolina Fund Papers (hereafter, NCF Papers), Southern Historical Collection (hereafter, SHC), University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.
2.
The controversial and ambiguous phrase "maximum feasible participation" originates in Section 202(a)(3) of the Economic Opportunity Act, which called for community action agencies to be "developed, conducted, and administered with the maximum feasible participation of residents of the areas and members of the groups served." Legislation quoted from Charles Brecher, The Impact of Federal Antipoverty Policies (New York: Praeger, 1973), 80.
3.
For examples of such assessments, see discussions of the CAP in Allen J. Matusow, The Unraveling of America: A History of Liberalism in the 1960s ( New York: Harper, 1984); Alice O'Connor, Poverty Knowledge: Social Science, Social Policy, and the Poor in Twentieth-Century U.S. History (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2001); Gareth Davies, From Opportunity to Entitlement: The Transformation and Decline of Great Society Liberalism (Lawrence: University of Kansas Press, 1996); Daniel Patrick Moynihan, Maximum Feasible Misunderstanding: Community Action in the War on Poverty (New York: Free Press, 1969). Studies mentioning the CAP's contributions to grassroots movements include Frances Fox Piven and Richard A. Cloward, Regulating the Poor: The Functions of Public Welfare (New York: Vintage, 1971); Sar Levitan, The Great Society's Poor Law: A New Approach to Poverty (Baltimore: The Johns Hopkins Press, 1969); Jill Quadagno, The Color of Welfare: How Racism Undermined the War on Poverty (New York: Oxford University Press, 1994 ); Thomas F. Jackson, "The State, the Movement, and the Urban Poor: The War on Poverty and Political Mobilization in the 1960s," in Michael B. Katz, ed., The "Underclass" Debate: Views from History (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1993), 403-39.
4.
Case studies that discuss local implementation of the CAP in detail include Annelise Orleck , Storming Caesar's Palace: How Black Mothers Fought Their Own War on Poverty (Boston: Beacon, 2005); Kent Germany, New Orleans after the Promises: Poverty, Citizenship, and the Search for the Great Society (Athens: University of Georgia Press, 2007); Susan Youngblood Ashmore, " More Than A Head Start: The War on Poverty, Catholic Charities, and Civil Rights in Mobile, Alabama, 1965-1970," in Elna C. Green, ed., The New Deal and Beyond: Social Welfare in the South since 1930 (Athens: University of Georgia Press, 2003), 196-238; Thomas J. Kiffmeyer, "From Self-Help to Sedition: The Appalachian Volunteers in Eastern Kentucky, 1964-1970 ," Journal of Southern History64, no. 1 (1998): 65-94; William Clayson, "`The Barrios and the Ghettos Have Organized!': Community Action, Political Acrimony, and the War on Poverty in San Antonio," Journal of Urban History28, no. 2 ( 2002): 158-83; Marc Simon Rodriguez, "A Movement Made of `Young Mexican Americans Seeking Change': Critical Citizenship, Migration, and the Chicano Movement in Texas and Wisconsin," Western Historical Quarterly34, no. 3 (2003): 275-300; Robert Bauman, "The Black Power and Chicano Movements in the Poverty Wars in Los Angeles," Journal of Urban History33, no. 2 (2007), 277-95.
5.
"History of NEED for the Process Analysis Report," [January 1968], Folder 4694, NCF Papers.
6.
For accounts of the War on Poverty in the Delta, New Orleans, and San Antonio, see John Dittmer, Local People: The Struggle for Civil Rights in Mississippi ( Chicago: University of Illinois Press, 1994); Germany, New Orleans after the Promises, and Clayson, "`The Barrios and the Ghettos Have Organized!,'" respectively.
7.
On the Gray Areas projects, see Alice O'Connor, "Community Action, Urban Reform, and the Fight Against Poverty: The Ford Foundation's Gray Areas Programs," Journal of Urban History22, no. 5 (1996): 586-625.
8.
For discussions of Fund-sponsored CAAs in other areas, see Charles McKinney, "`Our People Began to Press for Greater Freedom': The Black Freedom Struggle in Wilson, North Carolina 1945 to 1970" (PhD dissertation, Duke University , 2003); and Christina Greene, Our Separate Ways: Women and the Black Freedom Movement in Durham, North Carolina ( Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2005). On the Fund more broadly, see Robert R. Korstad and James L. Leloudis, "Citizen-Soldiers: The North Carolina Volunteers and the South's War on Poverty," in Elna C. Green, ed., The New Deal and Beyond, 138-62; and their forthcoming monograph on the Fund.
9.
For two noteworthy exceptions, see Orleck , Storming Caesar's Palace, and Marc Simon Rodriguez, Migrants and Citizens: Labor and the Mexican-American Struggle for Civil Rights in Texas and the Midwest, 1930-1980, forthcoming.
10.
For examples of abbreviated yet valuable discussions of the War on Poverty within the civil rights literature, see Dittmer, Local People; Greta de Jong, A Different Day: African American Struggles for Justice in Rural Louisiana, 1900-1970 (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2002); Rhonda Y. Williams, The Politics of Public Housing: Black Women's Struggles Against Urban Inequality (New York: Oxford University Press, 2004); Matthew J. Countryman, Up South: Civil Rights and Black Power in Philadelphia (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2006).
11.
G.R. Finch to Edward W. Pou, January 9, 1934, North Carolina Emergency Relief Administration Papers (hereafter, NCERA Papers), North Carolina State Archives (hereafter, NCSA).
12.
Dr. William H. Dixon to Harry Hopkins, September 21, 1934, NCERA Papers.
13.
J. S. Kirk, Walter A. Cutter, and Thomas W. Morse, eds., Emergency Relief in North Carolina: A Record of the Development and the Activities of the North Carolina Emergency Relief Administration 1932-1935 (Raleigh: Edwards & Broughton Company, 1936), 37, 51; Thomas Sellers Morgan, Jr., "A Step toward Altruism: Relief and Welfare in North Carolina, 1930-1938," (PhD dissertation, University of North Carolina, 1969), 96-98. On southern legislators' influence on New Deal legislation, see Ira Katznelson, When Affirmative Action Was White: An Untold History of Racial Inequality in Twentieth-Century America (New York: Norton, 2005).
14.
"The Truth about the High Point Unemployed League Holiday," statement by E. C. Morris and Lawrence Hogan, April [8], 1933, Box 22, Governor John Christopher Blucher Ehringhaus Papers, NCSA; "Relief Work Holiday Will Be Brought to End Today," Greensboro Daily News (hereafter, GDN), April 1, 1933, 11; "Harmony Is Restored among High Point Relief Workers" GDN, April 6, 1933, 11.
15.
For example, see V.B. Gray to Annie O'Berry, January 15, 1934, NCERA Papers.
16.
Robert Corbett, interview by author, July 5, 2001.
17.
Dr. Brenda Armstrong, interview by author, September 9, 2002; Dr. L. P. Armstrong and Rev. J. H. Clanton to Josiah Bailey, December 10, 1935, Box 522, Josiah W. Bailey Papers (hereafter, Bailey Papers), Rare Book, Manuscript, and Special Collections Library, Duke University (hereafter RBMSCL); "Our Second Line of Defense: What An Unusual NYA Project Offers," Norfolk Journal and Guide (hereafter, NJG), January 24, 1942, 9.
18.
Proceedings of Second National Conference of the Brotherhood of Sleeping Car Porters' Provisional Committee to Organize Colored Locomotive Firemen, July 21-22, 1944, 69, Box 68, Brotherhood of Sleeping Car Porters Papers, Manuscripts Division, Library of Congress (hereafter, BSCP Papers-LC).
19.
Herbert Northrup , Organized Labor and the Negro ( New York: Harper, 1944), 49-52; Eric Arnesen, Brotherhoods of Color: Black Railroad Workers and the Struggle for Equality ( Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2001), 126-28, 147-48; H. A. Dawson to F. S. Robbins, August 18, 1938, Reel 12, Records of the Committee on Fair Employment Practices (hereafter, FEPC Papers), Microfilm Edition, Glen Rock, NJ; Committee for Colored Firemen to F. S. Robbins, September 17, 1938, Reel 12, FEPC Papers; F. S. Robbins to H. A. Dawson, September 29, 1938, Reel 12, FEPC Papers; Thomas Edwards, Jr., Statement, June 15, 1943, Reel 12, FEPC Papers; Peter Johnson Deposition, July 14, 1942, Reel 12, FEPC Papers; Henry Dawson Testimony, Transcript of FEPC Hearing, September 16, 1943, 205-7, Reel 9, FEPC Papers.
20.
Summary, Findings, and Directives relating to the following parties to the "Southeastern Carriers Conference" or "Washington" Agreement, November 1943, Reel 10, FEPC Papers; C. G. Sibley, Marshall L. Bowie, R. R. Cummins, et al., to President's Committee on Fair Employment Practices, December 13, 1943, Reel 14, A. Philip Randolph Papers (hereafter, Randolph Papers), Microfilm Edition, Bethesda, MD; A. Philip Randolph to M. P. Webster, August 21, 1942, Reel 14, Randolph Papers; Ben McLaurin to A. Philip Randolph, [November] 1943, Reel 6, Randolph Papers; Proceedings of Second National Conference, 52, 67-68; Case of H. A. Dawson, Fireman, Atlantic Coast Line Railroad, Box 124, BSCP Papers-LC; N. J. James to A. Philip Randolph, April 13, 1949, Box 127, BSCP Papers-LC.
21.
Erle H. Austin, "Tobacco Market Shows Growth in Twenty Years: Local People's Help and Cooperation Factor in Success," Rocky Mount Evening Telegram (hereafter, RMET) August 14, 1946, 1.
22.
Ben F. Lemert , The Tobacco Manufacturing Industry in North Carolina (Raleigh: National Youth Administration of North Carolina, 1939), 14-16; Nannie May Tilley, The Bright-Tobacco Industry, 1860û1929 (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1948), 309-25; Mancie McNeil, interview by author, March 12, 2001; Elberta Roberson, interview by author, May 8, 2003 ; Nancy Joyner, interview by author, July 22, 2002 . On the FTA-CIO and TWIU-AFL postwar tobacco organizing campaigns in North Carolina, see Robert Rodgers Korstad, Civil Rights Unionism: Tobacco Workers and the Struggle for Democracy in the Mid-Twentieth Century South (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2003), 289-300; Stuart Bruce Kaufman, Challenge and Change: The History of the Tobacco Workers International Union ( Chicago: University of Illinois Press for the Bakery, Confectionary and Tobacco Workers International Union, 1987), 111-13; Lane Windham, "Greenhands: A History of Local 10 of the Food, Tobacco, and Agricultural Allied Workers of America in Greenville, NC, 1946" (Senior honors thesis, Duke University, April 15, 1991).
23.
R.A. Young, Weekly Reports, June 29, July 27, and August 24, 1946, Box 66, Series II, Tobacco Workers International Union Papers (hereafter, TWIU Papers), Maryland Room, University of Maryland , College Park; Windham, "Greenhands," 40.
24.
Mary Jackson Winston, interview by Lane Windham, September 29, 1990; Young, Weekly Reports, July 27, September 21, October 26, November 2, and November 9, 1946, Series II, TWIU Papers; George Benjamin, Weekly Reports , November 2, November 9, November 30, December 7, and December 14, 1946, Series II, TWIU Papers. Quote from Benjamin, Weekly Reports, December 14, 1946.
25.
Windham, "Greenhands," 40; Robert Black, interview by Lane Windham, April 29, 1990; Benjamin, Weekly Report, August 3, 1946, Series II, TWIU Papers; NLRB Ballots, Folders 51, 57, 60, and 70, Reel 2, Series I, Operation Dixie: The C.I.O. Organizing Committee Papers, Microfilm Edition, Sanford, NC.
26.
Windham, "Greenhands," 41-79; R. Korstad, Civil Rights Unionism , 295-98.
27.
"Leaf Workers Get 1st Contract in History," FTA News, December 1, 1946, 1; "Leaf Workers List Gains," FTA News, January 15, 1947, 11; "FTA Wins $960,000 for Leaf Workers," FTA News, July 1949, 1; " FTA Wins Raises in 7 Leafhouses," FTA News, July 1949, 7; Karl Korstad, "Black and White Together: Organizing in the South with the Food, Tobacco, Agricultural & Allied Workers Union (FTA-CIO), 1946-1952," in Steve Rosswurm, ed., The CIO's Left-Led Unions ( Piscataway, NJ: Rutgers University Press, 1992), 89-90.
28.
Black, interview, April 29, 1990; "Leaf Schools Held," FTA News, February 15, 1947, 7; "FTA Fights `Legal' Lynch Frameup in N. Carolina " FTA News, July 1949, 7.
29.
Windham, " Greenhands," 74-81; R. Korstad, Civil Rights Unionism, 336-37, 351-53; Robert Korstad and Nelson Lichtenstein, "Opportunities Found and Lost: Labor, Radicals, and the Early Civil Rights Movement," Journal of American History75, no. 3 (1988): 804; K. Korstad, "Black and White Together," 92-93.
30.
Madison Jones to Roy Wilkins, March 19, 1942, Reel 22, Series B, Part 19, Papers of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (hereafter, NAACP Papers), Microfilm Edition, Bethesda, MD; Madison Jones to Roy Wilkins, March 30, 1942, Reel 22, Series B, Part 19, NAACP Papers.
31.
Gloster B. Current to Z. E. Batchelor, October 5, 1946, Reel 2, Series C, Part 13, NAACP Papers.
32.
Raymond Gavins , "The NAACP in North Carolina during the Age of Segregation," in Armistead L. Robinson and Patricia Sullivan, eds., New Directions in Civil Rights Studies (Charlottesville : University of Virginia Press, 1991), 105-25; James R. Walker, Jr. to Roy Wilkins, February 7, 1958, Reel 10, Part 20, NAACP Papers; Loftus C. Carson, "Community Approach toward Implementation of the Supreme Court Decision on Education in North Carolina," Reel 4, Series C, Part 3, NAACP Papers; Anonymous to Wilkins, April 14, 1955, Reel 2, Series C, Part 3, NAACP Papers.
33.
"Mt. Zion First Baptist Church 100th Anniversary Centennial Celebration November 7th-December 1st: Historical Record, 1871-1971," in author's possession; Joyner, interview, July 22, 2002; Armstrong , interview, September 9, 2002.
34.
Armstrong, interview, September 9, 2002. Quote from "King Presents Case For Non-Violence," RMET, November 28, 1962, 1.
35.
Mayor's Good Neighbor Committee, "Blueprint for Progress," October 2, 1963, 1-2, Folder 4742, NCF Papers; "History of NEED for the Process Analysis Report," [January 1968], 7, Folder 4694, NCF Papers.
36.
Quote from Sanford in Howard E. Covington and Marion A. Ellis, Terry Sanford: Politics, Progress, & Outrageous Ambitions (Durham: Duke University Press, 1999), 296.
37.
Mayor's Good Neighbor Committee, "Blueprint for Progress," 2.
38.
Ibid.
39.
"History of NEED for the Process Analysis Report," 7; Joyner, interview, July 22, 2002; Covington & Ellis, Terry Sanford, 283-84.
40.
William H. Chafe, Civilities and Civil Rights: Greensboro, North Carolina and the Black Struggle for Freedom (New York: Oxford University Press, 1980 ); Catherine A. Lutz, Homefront: A Military City and the American Twentieth Century (Boston: Beacon , 2002), 123-24; David C. Carter, "The Williamston Freedom Movement: Civil Rights at the Grass Roots in Eastern North Carolina, 1957-1964," North Carolina Historical Review76, no. 1 (1999): 1-42; Marcellus Barksdale, "Civil Rights Organization and the Indigenous Movement in Chapel Hill, N.C., 1960-1965 ," Phylon48 no. 1 (1986): 29-42; "Racial Activity Ends in Truce," RMET, July 22, 1963, 8; McKinney, "`Our People Began to Press for Greater Freedom,'" 319-20; John L. Godwin, Black Wilmington and the North Carolina Way: Portrait of a Community in the Era of Civil Rights Protest (New York: University Press of America, 2000).
41.
"Rocky Mount Negro Leader Says Help Not Requested," Raleigh News & Observer (hereafter, N&O), July 13, 1963, 3.
42.
"School System To Integrate," N&O, June 29, 1963, 3; Mayor's Good Neighbor Committee, "Blueprint for Progress," 2; "Rocky Mount's Bi-Racial `Blueprint of Progress' Is Drafted," N&O , October 3, 1963, 28. On the Pearsall Plan, see Chafe Civilities & Civil Rights, 53-60.
43.
Mayor's Good Neighbor Committee, "Blueprint for Progress," 3-14; "History of NEED for the Process Analysis Report ," 8-9.
44.
Jim Nichols , "Final Action for Area Participation in North Carolina Fund Okayed Here," RMET, January 29, 1964, in Volume 50, North Carolina Fund Clipping Files (hereafter, NCF Clippings), North Carolina Collection, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill; "History of NEED for the Process Analysis Final Report," 9.
45.
Nash-Edgecombe Proposal: Summary, Folder 3406, NCF Papers; Michael P. Brooks, The Dimensions of Poverty in North Carolina (Durham: NC Fund, June 1964), 3, 6-7, 22-23, Folder 6833, NCF Papers; "History of NEED for the Process Analysis Report," 2-4.
46.
Staff Evaluation of Nash-Edgecombe Proposal, Folder 3406, NCF Papers; "History of NEED for the Process Analysis Report," 10-11; quote from Nash-Edgecombe Proposal: Summary.
47.
Staff Evaluation of Nash-Edgecombe Proposal.
48.
"History of NEED for the Process Analysis Report," 10-11; quote from Staff Evaluation of Nash-Edgecombe Proposal. For an extended discussion of indigenous participation and human capital theory as competing schools of social scientific thought that informed the Economic Opportunity Act of 1964, see O'Connor, Poverty Knowledge , 125-43.
49.
"History of NEED for the Process Analysis Final Report," 11; Staff Evaluation of Nash-Edgecombe Proposal; "Geographic Representation of Proposals Submitted to North Carolina Fund," Box 525.10, Papers of Governor Terry Sanford, NCSA. For an extended discussion of the Fund's eleven CAPs, see chapter two of R. Korstad and Leloudis' forthcoming book on the Fund.
50.
"First Meeting Slated By NEED Corporation," RMET, October 22, 1964, Volume 50, NCF Clippings; Nichols, "Final Action For Area Participation"; "History of NEED for the Process Analysis Final Report," 11, 16-21.
51.
R.D. Armstrong , "City Candidates Appear before Voters League ," RMET, May 1, 1964, B1; Armstrong , interview, September 9, 2002; " Three Vying for 2nd Ward," RMET, May 2, 1964 , 5.
52.
"Stroud Winner over Bishop in Tuesday's Close Run-Off," RMET, May 13, 1964, B1; Oliver Williams, "Hot Mayor's Race Turns on Industrial Progress," N&O, April 13, 1964, 3; "2 Campaign for Mayor," RMET, May 2, 1964, 5; "Two Candidates for Mayor Create Most Public Interest," RMET, May 3, 1964, 1; "Minges Defeats Harrison in Rocky Mount Balloting," N&O, May 6, 1964, 14; "Harrison Defeated in Record Turnout," RMET, May 6, 1964, 1; William Harrison, interview by author, September 19, 1998.
53.
R.D. Armstrong , "Voters & Improvement League Begins Job, School Projects" RMET, August 23, 1964, 3A.
54.
"History of NEED for the Process Analysis Final Report," 12-13.
55.
"Domestic Court Judge Quits Here," N&O , September 9, 1964, Folder 50, NCF Clippings; Morris H. Cohen, "Nash-Edgecombe Economic Development, Inc., Field Visit-October 20-21, 1964," Folder 4752, NCF Papers; NEED Board of Directors Meeting Minutes, December 9, 1964, Folder 4701, NCF Papers; "Thomas Quits Project Post," Nashville Graphic, January 28, 1965, Volume 50, NCF Clippings; "History of NEED for the Process Analysis Final Report," 12-13.
56.
"Anti-Poverty Chief Named," N&O, March 20, 1965, Volume 50, NCF Clippings; NEED Board of Directors Meeting Minutes, March 18, 1965, Folder 4702, NCF Papers.
57.
On the OEO issuing guidelines, see Matusow, The Unraveling of America, 247. On the Fund's relationship with the OEO, see R. Korstad and Leloudis, "Citizen Soldiers," and their forthcoming monograph on the Fund.
58.
Nash-Edgecombe Economic Development, Inc. , "Draft Program Resume, March 1965-August 5, 1966," Folder 4693, NCF Papers; "NEED Director Reports on Progress," RMET, August 26, 1966, Volume 52, NCF Clippings; Wayne Gray, "Tim Brinn, Director of NEED, Inc., Resigns, Gives Fiscal Year Report," RMET, July 27, 1967, Volume 53, NCF Clippings.
59.
"CAP Problem Areas," Folder 3433, NCF Papers; quote from " History of NEED for the Process Analysis Final Report," 14.
60.
"History of NEED for the Process Analysis Final Report," 16.
61.
Sarah W. Herbin, "Need, Inc., Rocky Mount, N.C," March 8-11, 1966, Folder 4752, NCF Papers; Kathy Futrell to George Esser, April 18, 1966, Folder 4751, NCF Papers; John Murray, "Report on Trip Made to Raleigh, Roanoke Rapids, and the Nash-Edgecombe Area, Week of May 9-12," Folder 4750, NCF Papers; "History of NEED for the Process Analysis Final Report," 15-21.
62.
"Composition of NEED Board of Directors, 1964-1967," Chart I in "History of NEED for the Process Analysis Final Report," 21; "Board of Directors Nash-Edgecombe Economic Development, Inc. (Sept. 1965)," Folder 4699, NCF Papers; "NEED, Inc. Board of Directors as of August 9, 1966," Folder 4699, NCF Papers.
63.
"History of NEED for the Process Analysis Final Report," 20.
64.
Sarah W. Herbin, "Need, Inc., Rocky Mount, N.C," March 8-11, 1966; "History of NEED for the Process Analysis Final Report," 20-22.
65.
Bill Flower Field Report, June 1966, Folder 4750, NCF Papers; Sarah Herbin, Field Report, "NEED, Inc., Rocky Mount, North Carolina" June 21-22, 1966, Folder 4750, NCF Papers; Sarah Herbin to George Esser, Memorandum re. Historical Document, September 29, 1966, Folder 4750, NCF Papers; quote from John Murray, "Report on Trip Made to Raleigh, Roanoke Rapids, and the Nash-Edgecombe Area, Week of May 9-12 [1966]," Folder 4750, NCF Papers.
66.
O'Connor, Poverty Knowledge, 172; Matusow, The Unraveling of America, 250.
67.
"History of NEED for the Process Analysis Final Report," 32.
68.
Greene, Our Separate Ways , 126-27.
69.
Robert I. Gould , "Political Activity and the North Carolina Fund ," June 20, 1966, Folder 4750, NCF Papers; Gould to Brinn, June 22, 1966, Folder 4750, NCF Papers; quote from "A Response to Robert Gould's `Political Activity in The North Carolina Fund: Summary," n.d., Folder 4750, NCF Papers, emphasis original.
70.
For an extended analysis of the War on Poverty as a mechanism for defusing the discontent of poor people and minorities, see Piven & Cloward , Regulating the Poor, 248-84.
71.
R.D. Armstrong , "N.C. Fund Leader to Speak," RMET, July 25, 1965, Volume 51, NCF Clippings; "North Carolina Fund Official Chief Speaker for Leadership Conference," RMET, July 28, 1965, Volume 50, NCF Clippings; Gould, "Political Activity and the North Carolina Fund."
72.
"History of NEED for the Process Analysis Final Report," 22-29.
73.
AnonymousQuestionnaires, #08, Rocky Mount Interns (1967), Folder 3249, NCF Papers.
74.
AnonymousQuestionnaires, #12, Rocky Mount Interns (1967).
75.
The Fund's 1967 summer interns program is extensively documented in "A Report on Summer Intern and Curriculum Development Programs Administered under OEO Grant CG 8995 A/2," December 1968, 45-46, Folder 3222, NCF Papers; "Proposal for a Summer Internship in Conjunction with Undergraduate Curriculum Development, May 12, 1967: Training Proposal," Folder 3221, NCF Papers; George Dudley to Howard Fuller, July 13, 1967, Folder 3229, NCF Papers; Fuller to Intern Hosts, June 22, 1967, Folder 3229, NCF Papers; "Minutes of Meeting of Board of Directors of NEED, July 12, 1967," 2, Folder 4706, NCF Papers; Billy E. Barnes, "Narrative Report on Rocky Mount Interns," Folder 3241, NCF Papers; Thelma Jean Miller, "Across Town Area," Folder 3240, NCF Papers; Tempie Poteat, "Bi-Monthly Report, Rocky Mount Intern Team," July 19, 1967, 2; Linda Annjenetta Snow, "Report on the Happy Hill Community, Rocky Mount, NC," August 27, 1967, Folder 3240, NCF Papers; Minnie Fuller, [Report on Internship in the Around the Y, Joyners Hill, and Planters Oil Mill sections of Rocky Mount, August 1967], Folder 3240, NCF Papers; Sharron McNeil Davis, interview by author, July 30, 2002; Mancie McNeil, interview, March 12, 2001.
76.
Minutes of Meeting of Board of Directors, NEED, Inc., July 12, 1967.
77.
Michael Harrington , The Other America: Poverty in the United States (New York: Macmillan, 1962); Daniel Patrick Moynihan, The Negro Family: A Case for National Action (Washington: U.S. GPO, 1965). For a recent critique of War on Poverty era culture of poverty ideology, see O'Connor, Poverty Knowledge.
78.
Minutes of Meeting of Board of Directors, NEED, Inc., July 12, 1967.
79.
Ibid.
80.
Recommendation of Community Organization in Action on August 7, 1967, Folder 4707, NCF Papers; Regular Meeting of Board of Directors of NEED, Inc., August 9, 1967, Folder 4707, NCF Papers; Regular Meeting of Board of Directors of NEED, Inc., September 13, 1967, Folder 4707, NCF Papers; Minutes of Meeting of Board of Directors, NEED, Inc., October 11, 1967, Folder 4707, NCF Papers.
81.
On Gardner's attacks on the Fund and the War on Poverty more generally, see "Gardner Hits Poverty War," N&O, February 26, 1966, Volume 221, NCF Clippings; "Gardner on Poverty," N&O, February 27, 1966, Volume 221, NCF Clippings; Arthur Johnsey , "Gardner Hits Salaries Paid in Poverty War," GDN, October 22, 1966, Volume 221, NCF Clippings; "Gardner Charges NC Fund Machine for Political Action," Durham Morning Herald (hereafter, DMH), July 26, 1967, Volume 221, NCF Clippings; "Mr. Gardner On a Scent," GDN, July 28, 1967, 8A; "Gardner Charges Antipoverty Workers with Agitation in Riots," DMH, July 31, 1967, Volume 221, NCF Clippings; George Esser, interview by Karen Kruse Thomas , October 3, 1995, Tape Log, Southern Oral History Project, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill;. On the OEO inquiry into Gardner's charges against the Fund interns in Rocky Mount, see Jack Williams to George Esser, Confidential Memo, [August 1969], Folder 3229, NCF Papers; McGeorge Bundy to James C. Gardner , September 6, 1967, Folder 888, NCF Papers.
82.
Jack Williams to George Esser, Confidential Memo, [August 1969 ].
83.
Anonymous Questionnaires, #05, Rocky Mount Interns (1967).
84.
Wayne Gray, "Costly Fire Strikes Tarrytown Mall," RMET, August 12, 1967, 1-2A; Wayne Gray, "Cause of Tarrytown Fire and Damage Still Undetermined," RMET, August 13, 1967 , 1-2A; "Rocky Mount Fire Damages 11 Shopping Center Firms," N&O, August 13, 1967, 1; Esser, interview, October 3, 1995; " Report on Summer Intern and Curriculum Development Programs," 46; Gray, "Tim Brinn, Director of NEED, Inc., Resigns"
85.
John H. Strange to George Esser, "Memorandum re. Rocky Mount Meeting-August 21, 1967," August 22, 1967, Folder 3240, NCF Papers; R.D. Armstrong, "Progress of Interns Given at Improvement League Meeting: Mayor, Officials Attend," RMET, August 22, 1967, 2; Barnes, "Narrative Report."
86.
Strange to Esser, "Memorandum re. Rocky Mount Meeting-August 21, 1967"; Armstrong, "Progress of Interns Given at Improvement League Meeting."
87.
Miller, " Across Town Area"; Fuller, "[Report on Internship in the Around the Y, Joyners Hill, and Planters Oil Mill sections of Rocky Mount, August 1967]"; Snow, "Report on the Happy Hill Community"; Poteat, "Bi-Monthly Report, Rocky Mount Interns Team, July 31-August 15"; quote from Neighborhood Council Petition for Inspection, attachment to Tempie Poteat, "Bi-Monthly Report, August 16-28," Folder 3240, NCF Papers.
88.
Strange to Esser, "Memorandum re. Rocky Mount Meeting-August 21, 1967"; Armstrong, "Progress of Interns Given at Improvement League Meeting"; Barnes, "Narrative Report on Rocky Mount Interns."
89.
Barnes, " Narrative Report on Rocky Mount Interns"; Meeting of Board of Directors of NEED, Inc, December 13, 1967, 11-13, Folder 4707, NCF Papers.
90.
Gray, " Tim Brinn, Director of NEED, Inc., Resigns"; "Odom Is Appointed Director of NEED," RMET, September 14, 1967, Volume 53, NCF Clippings; " Nash-Edgecombe Economic Development, Inc., Interim Report, November 28, 1967 ," Folder 4788, NCF Papers; "History of NEED for the Process Analysis Final Report," 33-34.
91.
"Nash-Edgecombe Economic Development, Inc., Interim Report, November 28, 1967"; "Consolidated Councils for Improvement Administrative Grant Proposal," Folder 838, NCF Papers; "Selective Buying Project Staged in Rocky Mount," Carolina Times, August 24, 1968, 1; Thelma Miller, "Report," Folder 3276, NCF Papers; "Consolidated Councils for Improvement-Rocky Mount," Folder 900, NCF Papers; "Report to the NC Fund, October 9, 1968-August 1, 1969, from FCD," Folder 882, NCF Papers; "Chamber Adopts Non-Bias Creed," N&O, October 13, 1968, 10-IV; "Rocky Mount Boycott is Halted," N&O, November 17, 1968; Joyner, interview, July 22, 2002; Mancie McNeil , interview, March 12, 2001; McNeil Davis, interview, August 30, 2002; Debra McNeil , interview by author, August 18, 2002.
