Reformers to Radicals

by Thomas Kiffmeyer

  13. While the term culture of poverty was not used until the mid-twentieth century, its implications were present in the literature of the time.

  14. Frost, “Our Contemporary Ancestors in the Southern Mountains,” 311 (quote). On the concept of Appalachian “otherness” and how it affected America’s responses to the region, see Shapiro, Appalachia on Our Mind, On how the country used these images, see Batteau, The Invention of Appalachia, For the early reformers in the mountains, see esp. Whisnant, Modernizing the Mountaineer and All That Is Native and Fine; Forderhase, “Eve Returns to the Garden”; Campbell, The Southern Highlander and His Homeland; and Weller, Yesterday’s People, On Weller’s book as a training manual, see Oral History Interview with Thomas Parrish, April 1, 1991, Berea, KY, WOP Oral History Project.

  15. Caudill, Night Comes to the Cumberlands,

  16. Eller, Miners, Millhands, and Mountaineers, 197–98.

  17. Hevener, Which Side Are You On? 14.

  18. Shifflett, Coal Towns, 12, 191, 54.

  19. Whisnant, Modernizing the Mountaineer,

  20. On the conflicts precipitated by divisions among contenders for control of community action programs, see Matusow, The Unraveling of America, 243–71.

  21. O’Connor, Poverty Knowledge, 15.

  For another biting critique of American social policy, albeit one that takes an entirely different tack, see Murray, Losing Ground, Murray contended that social policy in the United States, especially in the 1960s, actually increased poverty by fostering dependency on entitlement programs. That is, programs that provide entitlements create an environment in which the poor, rather than taking advantage of the opportunities that society offers, instead choose unemployment, illegitimacy, and welfare over marriage and jobs. In the end, according to Murray, America “lost ground” since those decisions, though “rational” in the short term, created more significant, long-term problems, including an increased number of individuals on welfare and, more important (sounding very close to the 1960s idea of a culture of poverty), a pattern of self-perpetuating, pathological behavior.

  Though critics, including O’Connor, countered Murray’s data, they were hard-pressed to counter his popular appeal, which reflected the Reagan era’s focus on individual responsibility and conservative American values. For critiques of Murray, see O’Connor, Poverty Knowledge, 247–50; Greenstein, “Losing Faith in Losing Ground”; Jencks, “How Poor Are the Poor?” and Schram, Words of Welfare,

  22. Dittmer, Local People,

  23. Scholars of Appalachia, like their counterparts studying the civil rights movement, are beginning to develop a greater appreciation for the importance of local people in effecting change. See, e.g., Fisher, ed., Fighting Back in Appalachia,

  24. Pope, “Introduction,” 3.

  25. Interestingly, American historiography focuses on radicalism on the left of the political spectrum and hardly ever on the right. See, e.g., Young, The American Revolution; Wood, The Radicalism of the American Revolution; Foner, Tom Paine and Revolutionary America; Banner, Elizabeth Cady Stanton; Fink, Workingman’s Democracy; Cameron, Radicals of the Worst Sort; Woodward, Tom Watson; Goodwyn, Democratic Promise; Montgomery, Beyond Equality and The Fall of the House of Labor; Miller, Democracy Is in the Streets; and Rossinow, The Politics of Authenticity, For an interesting but dated look at American radicalism, see Lasch, The New American Radicalism,

  26. O’Connor, Poverty Knowledge, 136 (first two quotes), 134 (last quote). For a discussion of some of the dilemmas that activists from the Left (who usually gain the term radical) face, see Pope, “Introduction,” 4–7.

  27. For a discussion of this philosophy throughout the twentieth century, see O’Connor, Poverty Knowledge,

  1. On the Brink of War

  1. Oral History Interview with George Brosi, November 3, 1990, Berea, KY, WOP Oral History Project. For an analysis of Southerners involved in social activism, including civil rights, in the 1960s, see esp. Michel, Struggle for a Better South,

  2. Oral History Interview with George Brosi, November 3, 1990, Berea, KY, WOP Oral History Project.

  3. Ibid.

  4. Ibid. For an examination of the “great migration” and its effects on Northern metropolises, see Brown and Hillery, “The Great Migration.” In addition to mountain whites, a significant number of African Americans also migrated to the nation’s industrial centers during the war and immediate postwar years.

  5. Adelbert Z. Bodnar to Council of the Southern Mountains, March 10, 1964 (quotes), Council of the Southern Mountains Papers, 1913–1970 (hereafter CSM Papers), box 102, Special Collections, Hutchins Library, Berea College, Berea, KY. For a discussion of Southern industrialization strategies, see Cobb, The Selling of the South, On Appalachian migration to Northern industrial centers, see Berry, Southern Migrants, Northern Exiles,

  6. For a concise yet critical assessment of the Council of the Southern Mountains, see Whisnant, Modernizing the Mountaineer, 3–39.

  7. Whisnant, “Workers in God’s Grand Division,” 8. Whisnant’s Modernizing the Mountaineer provides an excellent, comprehensive view of various reform efforts in central Appalachia. Chapter 1 covers the Council of the Southern Mountains. On the Ayer years, see pp. 18–25. Though Ayer did revive a dying CSM, the decade of the 1950s was still uncertain financially. Whisnant reports that, as late as 1958, Ayer had to borrow $5,000 from Berea College to meet costs. See Whisnant, Modernizing the Mountaineer, 19.

  8. Galbraith, The Affluent Society; Harrington, The Other America, 23–24; Coles, Children of Crisis, xi–xii.

  9. Vance, “The Region,” 7.

  10. On pluralism, see Dahl, A Preface to Democratic Theory, Polyarchy, and Dilemmas of Pluralist Democracy, Given that theorists equated pluralism with democracy, it is not surprising that the theory gained popular support during the Cold War.

  11. Created in 1943 following the Detroit race riot of that same year, the Mayor’s Friendly Relations Committee initially worked to prevent racial tensions precipitated by the influx of African Americans to Cincinnati during World War II. See Burnham, “The Mayor’s Friendly Relations Committee.”

  12. Tucker, “Imagining Appalachians,” 105 (first quote); “Hands-across-the-Ohio” Program newsletter, no. 4, September 10, 1962, grant no. PA 61–62, sec. 4 (second quote), reel R-0255, Ford Foundation Grants Files (hereafter FFGF), Ford Foundation Archives, Ford Foundation, New York; Pamphlet [on Characteristics of Southern Appalachian Migrants] prepared by Roscoe Giffin, [ca. 1958], grant no. PA 58–42, sec. 5 (last quote), reel R-0170, FFGF. See also Roscoe Giffin, “Some Aspects of the Migration from the Southern Appalachians,” 1957, and James Gladden, “How the Church May Increase the Resources of the Community,” both in grant no. PA 58–42, reel R-0170, FFGF. The records of the urban workshops are located in the CSM Papers, boxes 280–84.

  Appalachia’s critics did have a point when they discussed the Southern mountains’ position in the political arena—an interpretation that, unfortunately, fed into their view of the region being without community structures. Because the mountains run in what is essentially a north-south direction, they are perpendicular to state boundaries. This, in critics’ analysis, made the Appalachians the “backyards” of states dominated by lowland interests—e.g., the Bluegrass region in Kentucky or the Tidewater-Piedmont region of Virginia. Thus, the mountain regions were minority regions inhabited by a disjointed population. Should reformers succeed in creating a greater sense of community there, mountaineers would then have the organizational force to effect positive change. See Docket Excerpt—Board of Trustees Meeting, Public Affairs: Council of the Southern Mountains, 9/26–27/63, grant no. PA 61–62, reel R-0255, FFGF. This document also recognized a “‘mountain culture’ which is extremely resistant to change of any kind” and claimed that many Appalachians “will and should leave” (emphasis added).

  13. Bigart, “Kentucky Miners.”

  14. Perley Ayer to Jess Wilson, October 5, 1962 (first quote), CSM Papers, box 98; Pe
rley Ayer to D. M. Aldridge, October 9, 1962, CSM Papers, box 70; Perley Ayer to Wilson Wyatt, March 7, 1961 (second quote), CSM Papers, box 68; Perley Ayer to CSM Board, September 13, 1963, CSM Papers, box 70.

  15. The 1925 “Program for the Mountains” called for “God fearing homes,” improved health and sanitation, agriculture fitted to the mountains, better roads, schools and recreation opportunities, and stronger churches. See “Program for the Mountains,” Mountain Life and Work 1 (April 1925): 20–22.

  Mountain Life and Work was the official journal of the Council of the Southern Mountains. Complete runs of the periodical are in both the Margaret I. King Library at the University of Kentucky and the Hutchins Library at Berea College.

  16. Eller, Miners, Millhands, and Mountaineers, 7 (quote). On the traditional community in central Appalachia, see ibid., chap. 1. See also Thelen, Paths of Resistance, chap. 1; and, for a short discussion of this traditional community in action, Sellers, The Market Revolution, 8–16. Waller’s Feud shows how this traditional community broke down under the weight of late-nineteenth-century industrialization in central Appalachia.

  17. Perley Ayer to George Bidstrup, January 26, 1961, and Perley Ayer to John Bischoff, January 26, 1961, CSM Papers, box 40; “Better Life for People Is Council’s Aim,” West Virginia Hillbilly (Richmond), March 7, 1960, 1, 3.

  18. Lawson quoted in Carson, In Struggle, 23–24 (emphasis added).

  19. The general correspondence files of the Council are replete with requests to governors, U.S. senators and representatives, and cabinet members to attend these annual conferences. “Community Resources: Theme of the 48th Annual Conference of the Council of the Southern Mountains,” Berea Alumnus, April 1960 (quote); Loyal Jones to Charles Hansell, Eastern Kentucky State College, April 14, 1960, CSM Papers, box 51.

  20. Bert T. Combs to President John F. Kennedy, November 9, 1961, CSM Papers, box 42; Memorandum, Perley Ayer to D. M. Aldridge, September 27, 1961, CSM Papers, box 39; Perley Ayer to Phillip Aylesworth, U.S. Department of Agriculture, December 18, 1961, CSM Papers, box 70; Senator John Sherman Cooper to Perley Ayer, June 16, 1960, CSM Papers, box 42; D. M. Aldridge to Perley Ayer, October 2, 1961, CSM Papers, box 39. On the ARA, see Matusow, The Unraveling of America, 100–101. For a critical assessment of the ARA in Appalachia, see Whisnant, Modernizing the Mountaineer, chap. 3. The ARA will be discussed in greater detail in the next chapter.

  21. Perley Ayer to Brooks Hays, December 5, 1962 (first quote), CSM Papers, box 81; Milton Ogle to George Hubley Jr., Maryland Department of Economic Development, January 11, 1961 (second quote), CSM Papers, box 171; Perley Ayer to Otto Klineberg, January 31, 1961 (third quote), CSM Papers, box 54.

  22. “President’s Appalachian Regional Commission Report,” October 30, 1963, CSM Papers, box 70; P. F. Ayer to Louis Smith, Dean of Berea College, March 9, 1964 (first quote), CSM Papers, box 117; Perley Ayer to Island Creek Coal Company, March 29, 1962, CSM Papers, box 82; Perley Ayer to W. Ross “Pop” Baley, March 8, 1960, CSM Papers, box 40; B. F. Reed to Milton Ogle, January 6, 1961, CSM Papers, box 171; Perley Ayer to Donald Cook, President, American Electric Power, February 27, 1964 (second quote), CSM Papers, box 100. On the anti-strip-mining movement, see Montrie, To Save the Land and People,

  23. Loyal Jones to Philip Young, October 10, 1963, CSM Papers, box 99. See also Phil Young to George Chumbley Jr., Battery Park Hotel, October 17, 1963, CSM Papers, box 99.

  24. Perley Ayer to the CSM Board, September 13, 1963, CSM Papers, box 70.

  25. Perley Ayer to Brooks Hays, January 20, 1962, CSM Papers, box 81; Brooks Hays to Perley Ayer, April 6, 1961, CSM Papers, box 51.

  26. Perley Ayer to John Sherman Cooper, January 24, 1961, CSM Papers, box 42; Perley Ayer to John Whisman, January 2, 1961, CSM Papers, box 68; Milton Ogle to John Sherman Cooper, June 2, 1961, CSM Papers, box 236; Perley Ayer to Carl Perkins, July 19, 1961, CSM Papers, box 61; Perley Ayer to John Whisman, February 16, 1961, CSM Papers, box 68. See also Perley Ayer to Wilson Wyatt, February 1, 1961, CSM Papers, box 68; and “Berea Sociologist Raps Welfare ‘for Free.’”

  27. Loyal Jones to Charles Drake, December 17, 1960 (quote), CSM Papers, box 45; “A Demonstration Project Utilizing a Broad Welfare Concept,” n.d., CSM Papers, box 243. See also Oral History Interview with Loyal Jones, November 19, 1990, Berea, KY, WOP Oral History Project.

  28. Loyal Jones to Frederick Kirsch, December 1, 1960, CSM Papers, box 54; W. Ross “Pop” Baley to Loyal Jones, April 6, 1961, Loyal Jones to Joe Barker, September 27, 1960, and Loyal Jones to Hattie Bates, December 19, 1961, CSM Papers, box 40. See also Alice Slone to Loyal Jones, June 27, 1961, CSM Papers, box 65.

  29. Perley Ayer to Loyal Jones, July 26, 1960, CSM Papers, box 53; Perley Ayer to D. M. Aldridge, June 30, 1960, CSM Papers, box 39; Minutes of the Kentucky Rural Development Executive Committee Meeting, April 7, 1961, CSM Papers, box 45.

  30. Milton Ogle to A. Lee Coleman, August 18, 1960, CSM Papers, box 236; “Projects of Progress in Laurel County,” November 1962, and “Projects of Progress in Perry County,” November 1962, CSM Papers, box 237. It should be noted that, while these were projects with which CSM members worked, the Council was not solely responsible for them.

  31. (Mrs. Ray) Judy Drukker to Perley Ayer, November 8, 1961, and Perley Ayer to D. M. Aldridge, January 12, 1961, CSM Papers, box 39. On the Chicago project, see Whisnant, Modernizing the Mountaineer, 22–23 (Tribune quote, 22). For further information on the Appalachian Fund, see Parrish, To Make a Difference, See also Gitlin and Hollander, Uptown, On the Great Cities–Gray Areas program, see O’Connor, “The Fight against Poverty.”

  32. “Mountain Life and Work . . . Its Scope and Purpose,” Mountain Life and Work 35 (Spring 1960): 18–19. In the next issue of Mountain Life and Work, the Council member Joe Mobley commented that, until 1950, the coal industry actually was a positive force in Appalachia. See Mobley, “A Hard Look at Tomorrow.” For more on the importance of the coal industry in the central Appalachians prior to mechanization, see Shifflett, Coal Towns,

  33. Quentin Allen to Loyal Jones, October 2, 1963, and Quentin Allen to Perley Ayer, October 24, 1963, CSM Papers, box 70.

  34. Press Release, Eli Cohen, Executive Secretary of the National Committee on Employment of Youth, [on his Address before the Forty-ninth Annual Conference of the CSM], February 10, 1961, CSM Papers, box 42. See also Eli Cohen to Loyal Jones, January 3, 1961, CSM Papers, box 42. Cohen’s theme was echoed by the economist Robert Theobald at the 1964 annual conference when he spoke of the cybernetic revolution that was then sweeping the world. Again, in terms of the implication for impoverished mountaineers, the significance of the speech was the need for improved education.

  35. For an overview of Appalachian “otherness,” see Harney, “A Strange Land and Peculiar People”; Frost, “Our Contemporary Ancestors in the Southern Mountains”; Fox, The Little Shepherd of Kingdom Come, Trail of the Lonesome Pine, and “The Southern Mountaineer”; Semple, “The Anglo-Saxons of the Kentucky Mountains”; Wilson, “Elizabethan America”; and Weller, Yesterday’s People, For an examination of how literature in the late twentieth century still created an “other” Appalachia, see Duke, Writers and Miners,

  36. Max Miller, Professor of Education, Pikeville College, to Perley Ayer, January 19, 1963, CSM Papers, box 86; Loyal Jones to Harriette Arnow, September 5, 1961, CSM Papers, box 39; Loyal Jones to Allen Trout, Louisville Courier-Journal, June 12, 1963, CSM Papers, box 96.

  37. “Council Newsletter” no. 2, 1962, CSM Papers, box 172; Grazia Combs to Perley Ayer, May 7, 1963, CSM Papers, box 74.

  38. Charles Drake to Loyal Jones, [ca. November 1960], CSM Papers, box 45. See also Loyal Jones to Charles Drake, November 9, 1960, CSM Papers, box 45.

  39. Jones, Parrish, and Perrin, “Problems in Revisionism,” 176.

  40. Minutes, Board of Directors Meeting, September 16, 1961, CSM Papers, box 17; Perley Ayer to CSM Board, September 13, 1963, CSM Papers, box 70.

  41. On the Peace Corps, se
e Anderson, The Movement and the Sixties, 59–60; and Matusow, The Unraveling of America, 31, 243–44. For the book project, see Charles Drake to Loyal Jones, February 1961, CSM Papers, box 45; Minutes, Board of Directors Meeting, February 7–11, 1961, Gatlinburg, TN, CSM Papers, box 17; and Charles Drake to W. R. “Pop” Baley, February 24, 1961, CSM Papers, box 45.

  42. Loyal Jones to Charles Drake, March 9, 1961, and April 6, 1961, and Charles Drake to Harry Ernst, April 15, 1961, CSM Papers, box 45.

  43. Loyal Jones to D. M. Aldridge, April 21, 1961, and Loyal Jones to Louis Armstrong, April 4, 1961, CSM Papers, box 39 (first quote); “University of Kentucky Appalachian Resource Development Project,” November 12, 1960, CSM Papers, box 236 (other quotes); Paul Ylvisaker, Ford Foundation, to Perley Ayer, July 2, 1962, and Perley Ayer to Paul Ylvisaker, August 1, 1962, CSM Papers, box 100. See also Septima Clark to Perley Ayer, April 4, 1961, CSM Papers, box 39.

  44. Remember that the Peace Corps was supposed to aid underdeveloped countries. Thus, by asking for Peace Corps volunteers to come to Appalachia, the Council of the Southern Mountains reinforced the conception, in its own mind and that of the nation, that Appalachians were “contemporary ancestors.” Windmiller (The Peace Corps and Pax Americana) criticizes the colonial implications of the Peace Corps. On the Kennedys and Operation Bookstrap, see Charles Drake to Mrs. Kendall Bryan, April 15, 1961, CSM Papers, box 45. For the Peace Corps in the Southern mountains, see Warren Wiggins, Acting Director of the Peace Corps, to Loyal Jones, May 11, 1961, CSM Papers, box 88. See also Perley Ayer to Robert F. Kennedy, December 21, 1962 (CSM request of NSC volunteers), CSM Papers, box 85; and Matusow, The Unraveling of America, 117 (quotes on the NSC).

  45. Matusow, The Unraveling of America, 118 (first quote); Richard Boone to Perley Ayer, January 31, 1963 (other quotes), CSM Papers, box 88.