Reformers to Radicals

by Thomas Kiffmeyer

  Reformers to Radicals

  Reformers to Radicals

  The Appalachian Volunteers and the War on Poverty

  THOMAS KIFFMEYER

  THE UNIVERSITY PRESS OF KENTUCKY

  Copyright © 2008 by The University Press of Kentucky

  Scholarly publisher for the Commonwealth,

  serving Bellarmine University, Berea College, Centre

  College of Kentucky, Eastern Kentucky University,

  The Filson Historical Society, Georgetown College,

  Kentucky Historical Society, Kentucky State University,

  Morehead State University, Murray State University,

  Northern Kentucky University, Transylvania University,

  University of Kentucky, University of Louisville,

  and Western Kentucky University.

  All rights reserved.

  Editorial and Sales Offices: The University Press of Kentucky

  663 South Limestone Street, Lexington, Kentucky 40508-4008

  www.kentuckypress.com

  12 11 10 09 08 5 4 3 2 1

  Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

  Kiffmeyer, Thomas, 1963-

  Reformers to radicals : the Appalachian Volunteers and the war on poverty / Thomas Kiffmeyer.

  p. cm.

  Includes bibliographical references and index.

  ISBN 978-0-8131-2509-1 (hardcover : alk. paper)

  1. Appalachian Region—Social conditions. 2. Appalachian Region—Economic conditions. 3. Social reformers—Appalachian Region. I. Title.

  HN79.A127K45 2008

  306.0975—dc22

  2008028014

  This book is printed on acid-free recycled paper meeting the requirements of the American National Standard for Permanence in Paper for Printed Library Materials.

  Manufactured in the United States of America.

  Member of the Association of American University Presses

  To Laura and Theresa angels always

  Contents

  Acknowledgments

  Introduction

  A Time for Change

  1. On the Brink of War

  The Council of the Southern Mountains and the Origins of the War on Poverty in Appalachia

  2. The Shot Heard Round the World

  The Battle for Mill Creek, Kentucky, and the Culture of Poverty

  3. A Splendid Little War

  Helping People Help Themselves, 1964

  4. The War to End All Wars

  A National Quest to End Appalachian Poverty, 1965–1966

  5. The New Model Army

  The Appalachian Volunteers Splits from the Council of the Southern Mountains

  6. Operation Rolling Thunder

  The Political Education of Mountaineers and Appalachian Volunteers

  7. Peace without Victory

  Three Strikes and a Red Scare in the Mountains

  Conclusion

  Live to Fight Another Day

  Notes

  Bibliography

  Index

  Illustrations follow page

  Acknowledgments

  During the “long strange trip” that led to this book, I accumulated many, many debts. Though this brief statement will not come close to repaying those intellectual, financial, and emotional obligations, it brings me great pleasure to acknowledge those generous individuals who were instrumental in bringing this project to completion.

  Quite a few years ago, Nancy Forderhase of Eastern Kentucky University related to me, a young graduate student, that Berea College housed a virtually untouched collection of papers generated by a certain organization—the Appalachian Volunteers—that operated out of Berea in the 1960s. This collection, she rightly contended, would make the basis for a wonderful study. Thus it was Nancy who started me on this strange trip. Despite our frequent debates on the merits, or lack thereof, of the Volunteers, her guidance was, without a doubt, critical to my development as a historian. I do hope that I have lived up to the faith in me that she demonstrated. Others at EKU, especially Bill Ellis, David Sefton, Gene Forderhase, and Walter Odum, also contributed as both advisers and friends.

  The second stop along the road was Berea College. Though I do not remember the exact day I first walked into the special collections department in Berea’s Hutchins Library, which was then crammed into a tiny space on the second floor, I do remember the two men, Gerald Roberts and Shannon Wilson, that I met. Shannon, the college archivist at Berea, has been a part of this project since the beginning (Gerald retired some years ago). I have known Shannon for more than twenty years now, and it is impossible to overstate how important and how special he is to me as a colleague and friend. I know he realizes that, given the complexity of the War on Poverty, the Appalachian Volunteers, the Council of the Southern Mountains, and the Appalachian region itself, I will be in “my chair” in the reading room for years and years to come. I also want to thank Steve Gowler, who took over as head of the Hutchins Library’s special collections after Gerald’s retirement. Also a special thanks to the staff, especially Jim Pritchard, at the Kentucky Department of Libraries and Archives.

  As the journey continued, I incurred more debts at the University of Kentucky. Ron Eller, Theda Perdue (now at the University of North Carolina–Chapel Hill), and David Hamilton all went beyond the call of duty, pushing me not merely to graduate but to produce the best work possible. While Ron offered probing insights into Appalachian history, David never let me forget that the War on Poverty was also a 1960s story. Professor Hamilton still gives me thorough, written comments whenever I ask him to review a piece I am working on. Theda is in a class by herself. She did everything, from overpaying me to clean her gutters to boosting my confidence when I needed it. She is a very special, unique person. In addition, I want to thank Mike Green of UNC, who could teach a student a lot in the time it took to drink a twelve-ounce beer, and George Herring of UK. George is both an inspiration and a great friend. I also owe a special debt of gratitude to Robert Hodges and Andy McIntire, great friends and great historians.

  The next stop along the road, Morehead State University in Kentucky, also blessed me with a talented group of colleagues. John Ernst, John Hennen, Steve Parkansky, Yvonne Baldwin, Alana Scott, Adrian Mandzy, Kris Durocher, and Jason Holcomb are the core of the best department at MSU. I wish to extend a special thanks to Jason (he knows why) and to Gregory Goldey. The tragic loss of “Big Daddy” Goldey to cancer in late 2007 left a void that will never be filled.

  The last stop on the journey was, of course, the University Press of Kentucky. Without the guidance, help, and faith of individuals such as press director Steve Wrinn, acquisitions editor Anne Dean Watkins, and editing supervisor David Cobb, this study would never have come to fruition. Thanks also to copyeditor Joseph Brown, who gave me more than a few grammar lessons.

  Still, the road is not all of the journey, so, before I slip my bicycle into its rack, I need to remember the people who assisted me in unexpected ways and made the trip worth taking. Paul D. Newman of the University of Pittsburgh–Johnstown is a brilliant historian, great friend, and relentless task master (I mean that positively). Thanks, Paul, for keeping the fire. Also at UPJ is Dan Santoro, who, along with Paul, gave me the opportunity to present my ideas to his classes. My students at Morehead State University, especially Jessica Pugh, Holly Beach, Tony Curtis, Phil Howard, and Valerie Edgeworth, provided the inspiration to keeping plugging away even while we discussed the Jacksonian era. Chad Berry, director of Berea College’s Appalachian Center, provided fantastic insights, as did the former Appalachian Volunteers and Council of the Southern Mountains members whom I interviewed all those years ago.

  A special thanks goes to the cats at the Drum
Center of Lexington, especially the late Kevin Toole, another dear friend lost to cancer in 2007, and the folks at the Cave Run Bicycle and Outdoor Center, especially John and April Haight. These people provided the outlets needed—the escape—to refresh the brain.

  Finally, I would like to thank my family. Bill and Mary Jo Kiffmeyer and Bob and Audry Dwyer helped me financially and, more important, emotionally. Their support was crucial this last, most difficult year. Kathleen, Laura, and Theresa gave me the strength, courage, and drive required to finish this project. Without their love and support, on every level imaginable, I would not have completed it. This project is as much a part of their lives as it is of mine. Kathleen has sacrificed more than any one person should, and, while acknowledging this in no way comes close to paying the debt—really a debt that can never be paid—I hope that it is a start. Laura and Theresa have never known me to be doing much of anything else except writing this book (Laura actually sat through two days of War on Poverty discussions at the University of Virginia in November 2007—probably not a fifteen-year-old’s idea of a good time). I owe them time and attention, and I cannot wait to start repaying them—they deserve it. While I hope that I can learn from the past and make this world a better place, I pray that Laura and Theresa learn from my mistakes and make their world even better still.

  Introduction

  A Time for Change

  Looking back on the 1960s, one activist recalled that he was “motivated by a desire to do . . . good works and to be involved in change that was going on all over the country.” “It was a time for doing things; was a time of social activism,” he declared, “and that was sanctioned and supported and our President had told us to do that—President Kennedy.” Inspired by the new president’s 1961 inauguration speech, “where he challenged the American youth to do something for the country,” this individual eventually did take action and, toward the middle of the decade, joined an antipoverty organization known as the Appalachian Volunteers (AVs).1

  About six years after Kennedy’s inauguration, this same activist and the whole of the Appalachian Volunteers made national headlines as they faced accusations that they were “seditious” and “un-American.” Initially leveled by local officials in Pike County, Kentucky, these accusations reflected the growing frustrations that many people felt with the reform efforts that emerged from Kennedy’s 1960 campaign rhetoric, his promise of another “New Deal” for Appalachia. While traveling through the West Virginia coalfields during that state’s Democratic primary campaign, the senator from Massachusetts promised, if elected, to end the human devastation he witnessed in one of the poorest regions in the country. Though Kennedy did not live to fulfill his promise, the Appalachian Volunteers became, in 1964, one of the first programs funded by the War on Poverty. Created that year by Kennedy’s successor, Lyndon Johnson, the War on Poverty sought to make good on the late president’s pledge, end the plight of want in the country, and help create what the new president called a “Great Society.”2

  The period during which the Appalachian Volunteers existed certainly was a time of change. Young Americans in particular, overcome with self-confidence precipitated by the victory in World War II and the subsequent economic boom of the 1950s, truly believed that they could solve the nation’s social problems. Blessed with university educations, a material culture that featured products and technologies unimaginable just a few years earlier, and rising levels of personal affluence, baby boomers—nearly 20 percent of the U.S. population in 1960—maintained that they and their government had, according to the historian James Patterson, “the knowledge and the resources to create a progressive, advanced society like none before in human history.” Calling the twenty-five years following the end of the war a period of “grand expectations,” Patterson observed that optimism “lay at the heart of American liberalism in the sixties.”3

  While Americans’ confidence came from success in the war and the growing economy, their conscience came from a small but growing cadre of critics. Perhaps most influential was Michael Harrington. His The Other America, published in 1962, exposed what he called the nation’s “invisible” problem—poverty. Buried in inner-city ghettos under mountainous skyscrapers of glass and steel, and hidden in the country’s “forgotten” regions, including Appalachia, as many as 50 million citizens, Harrington argued, felt the grip of poverty. His was not the only voice raised. While individuals such as Rosa Parks and Martin Luther King Jr. contributed significantly to the beginning of the modern struggle for civil rights and brought racial discrimination to the nation’s attention, it was the spontaneous actions of four African American college students from North Carolina A&T in Greensboro that, on February 1, 1960, precipitated the national “movement.” After purchasing a few items at the local Woolworth’s, the four sat down at the lunch counter and ordered coffee. The store’s refusal to serve them highlighted the pervasiveness of discrimination in the country. How, young Americans, black and white, asked, could these problems exist in their country? The United States had, after all, just defeated fascism and stood as the protector and guarantor of freedom and democracy in the face of a growing Communist threat. Its economy, moreover, generated more wealth than did that of any other nation on the planet. These two issues—poverty and discrimination—because they directly countered those sources of confidence, became the new enemies, threats to the real America that needed the same degree of attention that the country had given its wartime enemies in the 1940s. Nothing short of the heart and soul of the United States was at stake.4

  Young America entered the fray through a variety of organizations. In the South, many blacks, but also some whites such as the Alabama native Bob Zellner, joined the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC), commonly referred to as “Snick.” Founded in 1960 as a direct result of the Greensboro sit-in, SNCC “became a community for a small but growing number of idealist activists, whites as well as blacks.” A predominately African American organization, it welcomed, in the early years of its existence, any and all support in its “grassroots efforts to overcome racial oppression.” Northern white students created their own vehicle for change: Students for a Democratic Society (SDS). Rising Phoenix-like from the student wing of the languid League for Industrial Democracy, SDS offered a biting critique of the United States in its 1962 declaration called the “Port Huron Statement.” Issued following a meeting of some sixty SDS participants at Port Huron, Michigan, the “Statement” expressed concern over nuclear weapons proliferation and the denial of civil rights to Southern blacks. Nevertheless, it also echoed a fundamental belief in democracy, the principle that differentiated the United States from all other nations. In the early years of the decade, then, both organizations, SNCC and SDS, sought the same basic goal, the integration of African Americans into American society so that the blessing of the nation could be extended to each and every citizen.5

  Relative latecomers to the “movement” were the poverty warriors. Though charitable institutions, such as the American Friends Service Committee and other religious organizations, had always maintained a presence in the country’s impoverished areas, a concerted, national effort to deal with this problem did not begin until President Johnson launched his antipoverty crusade in 1964. Equipped with the same confidence and conscience as their civil rights counterparts, young Americans joined organizations such as Volunteers in Service to America (VISTA) and the Appalachian Volunteers and relocated to economically depressed areas for periods as short as a weekend or as long as a year, hoping to improve the lives of their beneficiaries. Through remedial academic instruction, health education, job training, and home and school refurbishing, the poverty warriors thought that they could bring that affluence from which they came to the nation’s poor. Like the civil rights activists, they had as their goal “integration.” They believed that if they overcame the obstacles to integration—which to the initial reformers in rural Appalachia, for example, included a dysfunctional culture, an inadequate ed
ucation system, and geographic isolation—then poverty would disappear from the land. As the battle against want in the nation progressed, however, this notion of integration took a different form. Rather than simply immersing the poor in a “mainstream” culture and environment, the poverty warriors undertook to integrate them more fully in the nation’s political and social dialogue, explore and then explain to them the root causes of poverty, and suggest alternative paths—often different than those proffered by the local, state, and national administrators of the War on Poverty. This new version of integration, then, also offered a critique of the country’s prevailing social, political, and economic structures, and this assessment located the cause of poverty in inequities in the nation’s political economy, as opposed to “cultural deficiencies.”6

  When the antipoverty activists began to question the fundamental causes of poverty and to move away from conventional explanations that focused on the shortcoming of individuals, their thoughts and actions resembled those of their counterparts in the civil rights struggle. In his study of SNCC, Clayborne Carson traces the evolution of an organization that, through such efforts as “Freedom Summer,” attempted to integrate Southern blacks into the American political mainstream. Though SNCC took the lead by moving to areas, such as rural Mississippi, where few civil rights workers ventured, the goal still was political integration. Following Lyndon Johnson’s rejection of the Mississippi Freedom Democratic Party, a freely elected delegation from that state to the Democratic National Convention in 1964, however, SNCC workers began to question the efficacy of working with mainstream American liberals. “They also questioned,” Carson observed, “whether their remaining goals could be best achieved through continued confrontation with existing institutions or through the building of alternative institutions controlled by the poor and powerless.” Unfortunately, these alternative organizations often led to internecine conflicts over leadership, direction, and issues. The Appalachian Volunteers, for example—under attack by antireform forces, and weakened by internal strife—like their SNCC brethren, “withered in the face of the same tactics of subtle cooptation and ruthless repression that stifled the entire black struggle.”7