Civil Rights Advocacy on Behalf of the Poor

5. Explaining Priority Shifts During the 1960s

C h a p t e r 5 Explaining Priority Shifts During the 1960s [CORE] is of necessity in a transitional stage, moving from a small elite corps working in the interest of the Negro community and the broader community to a ghetto-oriented group seeking maximum involvement of ghetto folk in the drive to manifest economic and political power. If we do not make this transition effectively—if we do not navigate these treacherous waters successfully—the organization will cease to be relevant. —Letter to James Farmer, CORE Executive Director, from James Peck, former CORE-lator editor, November 30, 1965 Throughout the civil rights movement, national and local activists gained deeper understandings of the extent and effects of poverty.1 Activists saw firsthand the depressive effects of poverty on political participation —poverty interfered with the organizations’ goals of voter registration . For some national organizations, like SNCC and CORE, this exposure at the local level pushed poverty onto their agendas. After the passage of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the Voting Rights Act of 1965, some civil rights organizers argued that economic equity should be the next step in the struggle for civil rights—the movement’s recent victories would be meaningless because of the high levels of poverty faced by African Americans. However, not all activists shared this vision for the future of the movement. Some argued that civil rights organizations should focus on overseeing the implementation of the Civil and Voting Rights Acts, which would allow the groups to pursue similar goals to those during the early and mid-1960s.2 90 Chapter 5 Figure 5.1. Organizational attention to anti-poverty policy. On the other hand, giving priority to economic issues, and specifically anti-poverty policy, would affect low-income African Americans, and would indicate a shift in focus for the movement. Additionally, representation of the poor was an expensive endeavor during a period when civil rights organizations were struggling to maintain public support. Despite these disincentives, some organizations did devote a high level of attention to anti-poverty issues during the 1960s, and all groups at least considered whether they would give priority to alleviating poverty among African Americans. Figure 5.1 summarizes the findings presented in Chapters 3 and 4, and illustrates that levels of attention varied among organizations and legislative periods. In this and the following chapter, I assess the factors that explain these shifts. Before discussing the factors that led organizations to shift their priorities, I present evidence concerning factors that did not lead to such shifts. In the next section, I consider whether changes in the groups’ constituencies, or in anti-poverty policy itself, led the organizations to shift their priorities. Secondly, I analyze the internal and external factors that led the NAACP, NUL, SNCC, and CORE to increase their attention to anti-poverty policy leading up to, and immediately after, the passage of the Economic Opportunity Act. Finally, I assess why CORE and the SCLC made anti-poverty policy a priority during the late 1960s. My findings indicate that organizations’ increased attention to anti-poverty policy during the 1960s was determined by interactions Explaining Priority Shifts During the 1960s 91 among internal structural factors and external factors such as interorganizational relations. For example, the NAACP struggle to maintain relevance to the civil rights movement was precipitated by internal factors , such as the organization’s historic elitist reputation, and the push of competition from other organizations for membership. These interactions led each organization to increase its policy advocacy on behalf of low-income African Americans. Obvious Explanations? Changes in Constituencies and Policy Perhaps civil rights organizations paid more attention to anti-poverty policy when African American poverty rates increased.3 Based on existing literature, one might expect changes to an organization’s constituency to affect its priorities (Clark and Wilson 1961; Moe 1980). However, as Figure 5.1 illustrates, each organization follows a unique trend in its attention to anti-poverty policy; therefore, as my findings in the next section indicate, shifts in levels of poverty and AFDC receipt do not consistently coincide with shifts in organizational attention to anti-poverty policy. My examination of priority changes within organizations is based on shifts in their response to welfare legislation during four legislative periods . Another prediction based on existing literature might be that changes in the legislation itself explain shifts in organizational attention to the policies (March and...