Civil Rights Advocacy on Behalf of the Poor

Notes

N o t e s Chapter 1. Anti-Poverty as a Civil Rights Issue? 1. Polling in the immediate aftermath of Katrina exposed different perceptions of the Bush administration’s response for African Americans and whites. A Pew Research Center poll revealed that 83 percent of African Americans and 63 percent of whites believed President Bush had not moved quickly enough with relief efforts. See Frymer, Strolovitch, and Warren 2006. 2. Barbara Bush, Marketplace radio program, National Public Radio, September 5, 2005. 3. On the racial implications of welfare policy, the equation of African Americans with welfare recipients, and the negative implications of this association see, for example, Gilens 1999; Omi and Winant 1994; Lieberman 1998; Quadagno 1994. 4. See Jackson 2007; Hamilton and Hamilton 1997; Carson 1995. 5. John Lewis, interview with author, June 11, 2008. 6. See Appendix A for detailed information about archival holdings and analysis. The archives of the NAACP, SNCC, SCLC, and CORE are available in their entirety on microfilm through the late 1960s. NUL archives are housed at the Library of Congress, Manuscript Division, Washington, D.C. NAACP archives are also housed in their entirety at the Library of Congress, Manuscript Division. For materials during the 1960s, I relied on the collection as microfilmed: John H. Bracey, Jr., and August Meier, Papers of the NAACP (1995a–f ). For materials beginning in the late 1960s, I relied on the archives at the Library of Congress. SNCC archives, housed at the Martin Luther King, Jr. Center for Nonviolent Social Change in Atlanta, are available on microfilm, The Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee Papers, 1959–1972 (New York: New York Times Company Microfilming, 1982). CORE archives are housed at two locations: the State Historical Society of Wisconsin and the Martin Luther King, Jr. Center for Nonviolent Social Change. CORE papers are available on microfilm, The Papers of the Congress of Racial Equality, 1941–1967 (Sanford, N.C.: Microfilming Corporation of America, 1988) and The Papers of the Congress of Racial Equality, Addendum: 1944–1968 (Ann Arbor, Mich.: University Microfilms International, 1982). SCLC archives are available, with the exception of the Treasurer’s Department, 186 Notes to Pages 7–8 on microfilm from the Black Studies Research Sources. Materials from the Treasurer ’s Department are incomplete, and are available at the King Center (Bracey and Meier, 1995g). 7. Extensive research examines the internal structure of groups and the influence of structure on group operations. I am more specifically interested in the influence of internal structural factors on priority-setting and decisionmaking . Works that focus on internal dynamics and their influence on prioritysetting include Moe 1980; Rothenberg 1992; McFarland 1984; Barakso 2004. On the internal structures of organizations and the significance of structure to group operations, without specific application to priority-setting, see, for example , Michels 1949; Lipset, Trow, and Coleman 1956; Truman 1960 [1951]; Greenstone 1969; Hrebenar and Scott 1982; Bacharach and Lawler 1982; J. Wilson 1995 [1973]; Clemens 1997; Polleta 2004. 8. See Barakso 2005; Tierney 1994; and Baumgartner and Leech 1998. 9. See Lowi 1979; Gamson 1975; Ross 1970; Heinz, Laumann, Nelson, and Salisbury 1993; Baumgartner and Leech 2001; Berry 1999; Walker 1991. 10. See Goluboff 2007 on the NAACP’s shift away from labor issues after Brown v. Board of Education. See Frymer 2008 on NAACP attention to labor issues, and explanations of institutional constraints faced by the organization when addressing such issues. See Hamilton and Hamilton 1997 on civil rights organizations ’ attention to economic policy generally. 11. NAACP involvement with some unions such as the AFL-CIO, which was part of the implementation of the War on Poverty, could have increased the organization’s attention to Johnson’s antipoverty policies. The NAACP labor department recognized the large number of potential NAACP members in the trade union movement (on Labor Department engagement with unions, see Frymer 2008). Although attention to the preferences of union members on policy may have contributed to the NAACP position on, and public statements about, the War on Poverty, it did not require that the War on Poverty become a top priority for the organization. Concern with addressing the needs of members , however, certainly included cross-membership with unions. See Chap. 5 for more detailed discussion of NAACP concern with membership retention in the determination of its priorities. 12. Public support for welfare declined dramatically beginning in the early 1960s. In response to the question, ‘‘Are we spending...