New Orleans after the Promises: Poverty, Citizenship, and the Search for the Great Society

2. Establishing the Early War on Poverty

CHAPTER TWO Establishing the Early War on Poverty Our party has always been a group that you could come to with any bellyache of injustice. . . . It thrives and exists as long as the poor and the downtrodden and the bended know that they can come to us and be heard. And that’s what we’re doing: we’re hearing them. —President Lyndon B. Johnson to Walter Reuther and Hubert Humphrey, August 25, 1964 In the 1960s, Louisiana was home to some of the least educated, most poorly paid, and most persistently violent citizens in the United States. The Bayou State led the nation in overall illiteracy and had the fourth highest black illiteracy rate.1 In New Orleans, 35 percent of residents had less than an eighth grade education.2 Statewide, infants died at a rate almost 30 percent higher than the national average. Louisiana also experienced almost twice as much violent crime per capita than the national average. In 1947, the state’s murder rate was 12.6 per 100,000, compared to a 6.1 national average. By 1963, the ratio was only slightly better. Interestingly , Louisiana fell well below national averages in nonviolent crime. Louisiana residents were less likely to steal, but more likely to kill. In 1964, the average per capita income was $1,864, almost $700 below the national average of $2,550, but slightly higher than neighboring states of Alabama ($1,737), Mississippi ($1,444), and Arkansas ($1,633).3 Like other cities in the Deep South, New Orleans was ill-prepared 38 to fight a War on Poverty. Until the early twentieth century, state obligations to the poor in the United States were minimal. Compared to other industrial nations, the United States’ response to poverty was hesitant, inconsistent, and grudging, and it reflected racial and ethnic cleavages in American society. Historian Michael B. Katz characterized the American welfare state as a “semi-welfare state.” That welfare state originated in federal efforts to provide pensions to Civil War veterans and in state efforts to provide pensions to widowed mothers. During the Progressive Era, legislation designed to aid women, children, and workers added form to the welfare state. Its chief formative moment came with the New Deal, especially the 1935 Economic Security Act that created contributory social insurance programs mainly for white male workers and state assistance for others.4 In Louisiana, until the Poor Law of 1880, private charity was the only recourse for the unemployed. During Reconstruction, New Orleans Republicans allowed poor people to shelter in police stations, but once the Democrats took power again, relief efforts declined dramatically . From 1880 until 1933, the Poor Law called upon parish police juries to take care of their needy citizens. Churches and charitable agencies bore responsibility for supplementing the typically insufficient aid police juries provided to the poor. During the Progressive Era, the Regular Democratic Organization’s hope that economic growth would relieve poverty was reflected in the addition of bureaucracies that included the ineffectual Board of Charities and Corrections, the Sewerage and Water Board, the Board of Commissioners of the Port of New Orleans, and the New Orleans Public Belt Railroad Commission. Another development was the Charitable Organization Society movement, which led to the professionalization of social work and relief efforts.5 Prior to 1933, Louisiana’s social welfare efforts were limited to charity hospitals, prisons (which often sold labor to private firms), and asylums for the mentally insane.6 In 1932, New Orleans ranked last among 31 American cities for spending for public relief. Most telling, it offered no relief at all for poor black residents, something that even Birmingham, Atlanta , Charleston, and Memphis provided.7 Private organizations helped fill this gap, and one of the most important was the Kingsley House in the Irish Channel; founded in 1896 by the Episcopal Church and rooted in The Early War on Poverty 39 the Social Gospel, it was the first settlement house in the region. Another product of the Progressive Era was the Council of Social Agencies, called the Social Welfare Planning Council by the 1960s. Organized in 1925, it coordinated a growing number of social service agencies in the city. Other important groups included the Associated Catholic Charities, the United Fund, and the Urban League of New Orleans (ULGNO). Formed in 1935, the Urban League was one of the primary organizations serving the needs of the black...