War on Poverty: A New Grassroots History, 1964-1980

The War on Poverty in Mississippi and Oklahoma: Beyond Black and White

DANIEL M. COBB The War on Poverty in Mississippi and Oklahoma Beyond Black and White The War on Poverty is typically seen in black and white. Economists and political scientists marshal statistics to argue that it either succeeded or failed. Sociologists debate whether the approach taken toward poverty was right or wrong. These disputes are seldom painted in shades of gray. Historians have looked through a similar lens. Historical assessments overwhelmingly focus either on local case studies of black or white communities or on a national narrative that situates the antipoverty campaign in the context of the civil rights movement . The experiences of other ethnic communities fall outside the field of view. A case study of the War on Poverty among Indian communities in Mississippi and Oklahoma sheds light on additional struggles for racial and economic justice , complicating the historiography of the Great Society’s most controversial undertaking. CONTEXTS On a most basic level, the antipoverty campaign intersected with and ultimately enhanced an ongoing battle for what one Native scholar has called “civil rights of a different order.” Through the 1960s and into the 1970s, Native and nonNative rights advocates used the War on Poverty as leverage against their opponents in Congress and their supposed friends within the Bureau of Indian Affairs (bia). A vestige of colonialism, the bia consisted of a central headquarters in Washington, D.C., and a host of regional and local offices that administered federal programs for Indians. Citing the bureau’s penchant for paternalism , disempowerment, and overcontrol, reformers effectively translated the [388] Cobb War on Poverty’s philosophy of “maximum feasible participation of the poor” into demands for more tribal self-government, self-determination, and sovereignty . They met with both success and failure. All told, more than sixty Indian-run community action agencies (caas) encompassed more than one hundred reservation communities. Some of them served only one nation, while others in California, Nevada, New Mexico, Wisconsin , and Washington were regional and multitribal in scope. In addition, several regional Indian community action projects located at major universities provided training and technical assistance, and War on Poverty initiatives including Legal Services, Head Start, Job Corps, and Volunteers in Service to America (vista) operated in many parts of Indian Country. The most visible and generously funded programs could be found in the northern Plains and Southwest. But across the Pacific Northwest, California, and in southern states from Maryland and North Carolina to Florida and Texas, American Indians residing both on and off reservations engaged in the assault on poverty. Indian community action became implicated in power struggles not unlike those found in urban areas. Newly formed caas upset institutionalized structures of power by channeling resources to tribal communities. bia superintendents had long been criticized for being insensitive toward Indian people. Some administrators mismanaged individual and tribal finances or jealously guarded control over everything from economic development to education. Even when they operated efficiently, local bia offices were not seen as indigenous institutions but instead as colonial impositions. The architects of the War on Poverty understood the situation and realized that Native people perceived the bureau the same way as residents of other impoverished communities across the United States perceived mayors, city council members, and social service providers . “It was very threatening to vested interests,” observed Richard Boone, one of the lead designers of the attack on poverty. Tribal governments held a less certain place in this matrix. Throughout the nineteenth century, the United States set about undermining indigenous political institutions for a number of reasons, not the least of which was that policymakers were either unable or unwilling to see such institutions as “civilized” and therefore legitimate governing mechanisms. By the end of the nineteenth century, Native communities had been defined in federal law as “domestic dependent nations” and deemed incapable of self-governance. The bia exerted tremendous control over reservations under the auspices of “trusteeship.” In the infantilizing language of federal Indian law, the United States served as “guard- Poverty in Mississippi and Oklahoma [389] ian” and tribes as “wards.” The reform movement known as the Indian New Deal, which led to the authoring of tribal constitutions during the 1930s and 1940s, attempted to resuscitate tribal self-government, with mixed results. The governing institutions that emerged during the first half of the twentieth century possessed limited power, with the secretary of the interior reserving the right to nullify any decision. The bia also retained firm...