Sounds of poverty; Where the paved road ends, part one

When we had fried chicken last night for dinner which was great but when I first got into happening I saw I'd chicken to have broken my wrist flopping around and I was there now another ticket man knows this trick. Well last night at dinner I have tried trick or banner and here was this big fire fried chicken one of the drumsticks was my kind of watermelon home. We had a car there tomorrow. I mean I realize we're fried chicken perhaps but it's a lot more convenient to go to the supermarket and sit on the right. Go Tell Aunt Rody the old Greek instead of the one you choose.

Lest you be tempted to flunk us in our love ology we do know the difference between a chicken and a goose. But go tell Aunt Rody is a time honored song of the Appalachian mountain people and we are in the middle of actually in the middle of the other America poverty and despair. I'm Brooke Baldwin executive producer of this program series the sounds of poverty. We're out where the paved road ends. At the moment I'm kind of nervous about this whole thing but I'm really filled with excitement an experience like this before. You know so I haven't I haven't done much work at all with people or people and I don't know what to expect but I'm really looking forward to it. I hope they are the ones that are going to get it. Oh yeah I had apprehensions because for the first full first day we talk about problems with these people. Yeah. And by and large it's not the same

problems. Yeah so you have the feeling of being different and tend to forget the similarities but just met our hostess and she's done a lot to make us feel comfortable. Early this year a conference was convened in Ripley West Virginia. It brought together 100 young people from 29 colleges. These were mostly students from Appalachian colleges students who had indicated some interest in the problems of this area. For several days prior to the events you will soon hear. Federal state and local officials concerned with the problems of the area and the problems of the poor reached the student audience. They've learned the history of these hills. They've been told other riches were torn from the earth by promoters on the land grabbers how the area went from richness to wretchedness. Welfare became a way of life. They know that Appalachian has lost its youth through the many decades as young people fled to find jobs and security elsewhere with them. When I tell it in stamina energy and the magnificent ability of young people to view problems and solve them from a fresh point of view.

Designed into the conference was the experiment we mentioned. And when the talking was over the students were turned loose turned loose in the hills and hollers uprights and Crick to see for themselves by living with poor people. What the dimensions of the problem were. And how their talents could be utilized where the paved road ends I got this cloud harvest school. I didn't our eyes. I asked the superintendent. He didn't know exactly where it was and dumb jejune too harshly because at that time there by over 130 rural schools on July ski camp and there was no road no road that a car could get over to this school it was either walk or ride on horseback. The speaker is Harriet Arnaud was likely for some novel The Doll Maker provided perhaps the first introduction to an entire generation of the problems that beset the mountain people. The time of which she speaks nineteen twenty six forty one years ago.

We found once in the home of the. Trustee who was the big mean I had hired you and saw the building the someone and shop the lock off the other has no way of locking it or unlock it. You pulled it together with a lie that it was. Posts. Oh I suppose three or four feet above the ground there were no toilets no was all and no books with a stove in the center of the room and instead of desks the school had benches and there was a total in row Munt far the district of about 18 children. But some of them left three and four miles away. And so my average attendance for that year was only around 12. Here was a community without even a road into it that you could get a car

over. There were no books at all to get eggs or anything out of the community was a Y again a ride of about 10 miles to the ROI and money just for things like shoes was a great struggle. But understand the rest of the world are a lot of it was booming in the twenties. But these people I had no way of getting even a small income and some of mine children couldn't get shoes just getting money for books and all that was a problem. The feeling of this community cut off from the world for example there had never been a position. I was there there was a woman I don't like this bird just couldn't get a physician. And I would say they were extremely intelligent people.

Many of the conditions described by Harriet on over the same or worse today. She was talking about her early experiences as a mountain schoolteacher 41 years ago. During that week that we recorded the material of which the series is composed we sell school houses that look the same or worse. It would be tempting to see if a dramatic emphasis that nothing has changed except for the worse. But that would in truth be ignoring a new and potent development. But maybe as time goes on. And maybe the people of the Cumberland Plateau to return once more to the mainstream of American life. Remember these are the people we once proudly called pioneers. And while the land is poor and the problems seemed piled higher than the hills themselves. The spirit of the people is indomitable. There is hope. There is as the result of the work of a handful of dedicated volunteers through the involvement of young people through self-help and community organization the possibility of a

turnaround. This series was produced for the Johnson Foundation of race in Wisconsin who in cooperation with action for Appalachian Youth Community Development cooperated the Appalachian volunteers and West Virginia State College are seeking ways to improve life here. A y action for Appalachian youth is a beacon of hope in the attempt to help the poor help themselves to overcome injustices created by years of exploitation. By the powers that are and do not care. The people learning that in organizations they have strength. And the students role is to help explain this thesis and help with the massive chores of organizing areas that are distant unreachable and unaware. Now we can talk about how these sweeping changes that need to come about. But when it gets down to. We can only stock where we are I think that was a student participating in this effort. She spoke of sweeping changes and to those who may only know apple each year through the

offerings of its chambers of commerce and its tourist brochures. The necessity for change may not be obvious change from what. In 20th century America. Most of us take for granted that for our school taxes we receive books and bus services. For our road taxes we receive paved roads. For our fire taxes we have hydrants and for other taxes we receive sidewalks and street lights water and sewers here. This simply is not so. Taxes are for everyone. But opportunities are for the few in the operations as an anti-poverty projects. I think it becomes extremely important to connect these projects in ways that will have any effect. Developing a more competent people at the community level from the point of view of being able to deal with problems. Dr. Richard Postum of Southern Illinois University. We've heard from a student.

We've heard from a professional. Let us know reemphasize the purpose of the work carried on by a wife. I'm a coming as a resident of Chandra's Dr A community that pays its taxes to the city of Charleston. But those roads are unpaved whose fire service is minimal. Whose children slog through miles of mud to school. How did Mrs. Cummings become involved. Well for years we just like a site with just a few neighbors lived on our rag at which we just learned one group like the kind garden when he knocked on the door and wanted to invite the family very much about why nobody prompted me about it and I just wish that the family did elect him president like say and we've been doing the best we can with what little bit of knowledge we have in this short essay that we can go next week.

Problem is why you little people it's hard for little people to do anything but just holler. And you've got to get the people who organized. I think you people tell me that you want many voices. Yeah well you know this is a bunch of people. Thank you. When the formal work of the conference the carefully planned briefings and preparations were over the students were driven to Charleston to a white headquarters from the 10 communities in which people had agreed to have students share their homes. Ten communities within a hundred mile circle game the battered pickup trucks the months spent at all those to take their students home. No one knew it despite the hours of planning how this experiment would work. Mountaineers don't take lightly to strangers. So Randy Oakley shape student behavior patterns are unpredictable. Another cliche. And tension and anxiety were at full peak. They left for the fields where they went we went with microphones and

tape recorders. What they saw and felt and worried about we saw and felt and worried over as well. Once again as in the previous programs in the series there was no script when we started. There are no actors. What was recorded was on stage and I'm rehearsed. Let's join the students and the people where the paved roads and. I'll cop a mining community as deep in poverty as the abandoned mine shafts are deep in the West Virginia or. A community center the students are helping to bring. Them home in an urban community where an out-of-work craftsman talks about welfare. What are they going to use this place for. How does our girl painter feel fine with our girl better than the kilt and where you're from Shepard I

figured last night pretty well we're having our monologue you know. What did you do last night. Write me back our talk your ear off and you finally get to sleep in to us and you can burn anything worse than a particular something that you didn't know before about where community gardens operates or the problems of the young people here the same as you know my standing in the community the fire and snow you know just the girl and boy relationship having to get together and not being able to go out and I can't get the same problems growing up. Oh yes good will talk about it the more later. Stress ensures

that the employee who will feel to take care of it sooner or later will in trying to get a job which he was suited for couldn't support. And this is one of the things about well I think it has the effect of generally taking away of pride and the dignity. You know this morning. Same with a lot of you are something that if you are and at my work comes and goes. But if I don't work for a week now I can go up there and they yeah. Klarman and get a wrong object for that we get out offers $35 a week. But you know I gotta work two days a week. My own earning and make my own self. Then you can always look around you. When I go in there even up to today. I would much

rather die and enough to make fifty dollars. If I make fifty or sixty dollars every day you can draw your own drone. But I bet I would make good every four days and make fifty dollars a week. Money then I have to go up there and Jonathan Krohn now which I know that I had paid into it and I am part of a gift with a purse but all I plan for my children when I go on line in nine days. I drive to work for days and $50 in my own mind. And I wondered what I wrote before we can bring in Doug. From there. But triangle as it's called in Charleston. To the New Yorker it's the Bowery to the Bostonian Sculley square to Chicago. Skid Row. You know what. Wherever you live whatever it's me. It's where another trying to peep the road but your last night when you had a triangle District 7. Cameron

sorts of unexpected places there where I can sum it up visit places you hear back and you read it down here. Can assure that they exist but you don't think you'll ever see it like the tremendous experience where all your life I am by I would like to visit but I have and I can only say that they were they were parents to be a joint things like this. Life's amazing how you know and then gambling rooms and I just want to feel like them my own big question everybody is like you know I never been anything like the record. Yeah right catch. I know first it was a feeling of awe because you know I wasn't really sure what to expect or what even to think after I thought what to expect. They seemed to be happy and satisfied with what they were doing. This was just their way of life. They all seem to have been

really enjoying how completely happy I got was when I was I don't know how many I have just sitting around a woman who tells everybody you're a man forever is under the table with liquor I can see my happiness I want everyone I'm ready and waiting. And it is such a compulsion and we were standing in minute one place and they were playing cards. Things are going so fast you know I didn't mind because I am lonely. We're talking that this morning and we sort of canned the idea maybe this isn't sincere happiness that they think they're having a night this is because this is what they know their life and maybe it is really sincere genuine having whether good or not anything is to be discovered if they're at a baby let alone let them enjoy it because they're as long as long as they're not really harming anybody else

do gooder easily. Gleason already he was your guy to Yanukovych and to tell you the truth I would never go in these places with this I wouldn't go on as just that and when I am with a block of lesbian and it was a real experience stuff like this is my first experience meeting and I had no expectations to want to know him. So this is it. Yeah but you know just like. The sights and sounds and smells of poverty stuff and some students beyond belief. Some of us who are assigned to record their reactions had similar ones of our own. Others regarded the poor in a different light as you will soon hear. If in these conversations there

appears to be a preoccupation with the condition of the roads our experiences on the left fork to Leatherwood on the road to peach fork justify this. Here even the four wheel drive vehicle we had borrowed for the trip slipped and skidded through the miles of mud into the creek beds that are used for roads. There are super highways throughout the area. If your business is with factories or you're headed for the hunting camps the roads are superb. If your interests are where the people live the highways lead to no one. In an area filled with the ravines and creeks ridges or for mail but the bridges are on their. Bridges over electricity sewage disposal garbage pick up medical care school busses. But the bridges aren't there. Bridges what enabled as would pave the roads. The amenities of the century we live in to penetrate to where the people live. But the paved roads and the bridges aren't there. Some of the students have been invited to Leatherwood And as our vehicle grudgingly overcame the mud ruts

of the almost jungle like trail we began to understand what poverty is all about. Well boredom tarpaper shacks are set back from the road a hundred feet. Spanning the creek which lies between what bridges a plank or two with just once in a while the luxury of a guard rope. Slip. Down the creek ten feet below its coat. Slip. And the rocks are waiting. The students came to meet us. The people are like families anywhere else except they don't have as much that the families have seen and so what would you say they needed the most and most better housing roads our roads to but the most I think would be better housing. You can estimate the road is terrible I've never seen anything like it cries in creeks to get on the other side and everything else. I don't see how they ever gaining out here anyway. Rocky Racine Wisconsin. What would you say to an indoor.

We were invited him. We listened to the students and their hosts talked right at this very frank about it. They need to give someone out here they run a bus stop to get what they're paid to give to one guy here I'm sure. I mean paying the kids to walk I think you know medication to oh you want yes you know all these kids are walking to you all over again I'd say that's just right. Twenty cents that way. Well I just want to censor say yes 20 cents a day not to use the school. Yeah why not offer to walk the walk. If I'm off by 20 cents a day every day you know they don't get paid I mean you know I haven't missed one day I don't know OK I'm going to leave. Yeah. Who do you complain to if you have a complaint letter I don't ever complain. Nobody called I tried to get a bunch of I'm going to Jordan go to the state road a measurement and what not of new gear to get down there or nowhere to meet nowhere one night and always think when I'm trying to get some bridges and schools up here that nobody had to come up here that

you want to go. Why I don't know why he didn't do it. I was one of my main goal with him. What's the chances for a better job of a person a young person that lives up in yours what's his chances compared to the chances of a person who lives in the city. I mean you know him with his I don't know to a lot of changes against my pain here. To me it's more it would you say that yes one can finish by get me in and out you know. OK you say the person that educational opportunities is equal to those in the city up here. Yeah I'll be just say might be equal to the average kid on how the same privilege you know about going to school instead. But the Israeli cabinet is there any time during the winter so like I said that charges happen he can't get to school yes sir yes sir. What was once a reason was on account of British and so the Greeks and you can't because you Krishna Kripa Europe. No one is right for you to meet migrants walking on that oh dear

to any ideas why they won't get out and go you know what I mean I still don't know why they wouldn't go to a state road and do it I have a state with good luck. Yeah yeah. Did I hear I heard you don't hear a whole lot of stuff man. Yeah I know how you do. They can force me far I mean the fourth part but the way is a straight road. But your help at all. They say we'll get to next week. Keep it all week and they never get took. Well last night the meeting they said that the purpose of the area council for communities working together was so they could put more pressure on different agencies like the state commission and everything do you think if you could bring your complaints to them and then take them into the neighborhood council in Charleston that well one now they care about the school bus and they go oh my god a school bus upright for you know it goes almost to the head of the

wife or the other. But what we're trying to do now is get enough to get all of this right. Yeah. How do they get it. I don't know. Right it is a better road right for this way because the right for now. I always kept it great they start right after the break and graded all the way. Why not you one more I don't know when those roads up there were so bad they didn't want to put a school bus there or could it be because they are the people who live here complain they come together and come apply for life like this is their right and left to work. Combined upright more like he said we did have and this is a step to getting to know your perfect kids and then are you going to school to yours that well. Yes well you know I

meant what I thought. Flying out from up your home really and now you know mom dad has got three kids going to school. And from there clear out to reverse hot river he'll. If all of this and get together and go in and go flying about it I do believe we get something to get something done about the school bus and bridges and stuff like that. Are you going to do. Well I will talk to my dad and if he says OK we do it. The question a student asked to lead to a response which might just might lead to something happening that had never happened before. The road to education consists of as much of the right question at the right time as the right answer. Take student curiosity to the end of the paved road. The people's desire to help themselves through those hours of

community organizer effort. And from these building blocks can be structured. The students said goodbye to their hosts and we spoke of their experiences. Poverty as a subject. I think that many people have different concepts of what poverty is. One college student thanks to an income of 20000 or $50000 a year someone came before to me. Poverty would be going without the bare necessities for not having things in their system sufficient enough to lead a good life. Now these people of course have very few if any luxuries and the necessities they have are perhaps minimal to them to me this is poverty what we have just seen. It's one of the low grades of property.