Sounds of poverty; The people speak, part two

And it's pretty hard even to get get born like I don't know like to put you off. Totally hard to get an appointment just to go in and say they want to and that you should talk to but I think I'm like they should have what I had but three answers and they promised us why they didn't like us it's pretty hard to get to talk to them but you know they just don't seem like they're interested in much you got to. See. You're suggesting then for the community of Chandos drive is legally part of the city of Charleston but it's only recently the streetlights proport up some residents admit to sitting up the entire night to marvel over the newly installed lights. While street lights are a welcome addition to Chevys drive they don't dispel all the shadows. The community still

has many problems. Though they live within the Charleston City Limits many genders drive youngsters attend schools over eight miles away. We've been fighting for school bus and we went up there and I think when they told us to get in other areas walked this far and not got the same thing that is right they did someone from the north city walk two miles that they have sidewalk street I had to walk on and not get locked out of the Stratman around in spite of my you know process. They are other words when they leave them out of the draft you they're walking a spell you have life in the mud there's no sidewalk so much they have when they walk this every day if they don't have the mindset is 50 cents less pay than they walk up there and back something like that they get their hands on that they're not allowed to wear spikes it's clear they're not allowed to wear slacks none not the children's aren't allowed to go to school especially here in the Noid Valley area. It's loud where any kind of slacks or anything school they're all required to wear reversible blows you know starts classes there's a children's riddle. What's round them so that all of a bit will answer Ohio.

The residents are trying to describe could well paraphrase the riddle. What is paved on both of them and in the middle. And why you took her. Several years ago my husband was that was a city building see. I mean you know fussing about because we need the right type We policy for years and years and years and they told me that's not it he had something and he said he said he had the site but it's not fighting but then saying Come up to your knees and I can explain why it's not right. I know the money was requisitioned that was never typed. They don't know where the money went when we went from my pocket ideas. The residents of gender stripey sewage taxes but have no sewers. They pay exorbitant rates were higher insurance but have no fire hydrants. They have no garbage pickup no mail delivery. And until recently. They have had little voice with which to complain.

Here braces if you want to count points is that there was people going to the man for you and then the people to get them. There's been a meeting to get a lot more recently through action for Appalachian Youth Community Development Incorporated community council it was organized in janitors drive the council has its work product. In an area notorious for the buying and selling of votes the poor have never been represented to their own advantage. One resident whose home adjoins a cemetery of two election officials she saw walking from head stone to hit stone entering the names of persons along did you know registry of voters. The Community Council is a group of citizens organize to improve their neighborhood but this is no simple task. State and local officials seem content to hide behind a tangle of red tape. Their

techniques range from buck passing to procrastination and just plain ignoring the legitimate requests of the people they have been elected to govern. Prescribe we talk to the people. And we listened as people talk to each other. We hear a candidate for office being interviewed by members of the Community Council. I would like to say that we find everything we hear on line and this is what happened. What is your goal for the coming year. What would you like to get out of it. All that I knew all this would be a worthwhile project naturally was a study that was going to be that it be built at the proper expense you know where the city of Charleston

is so you expect that you go well and the prince is when it will Nice history and he was paid to buy things and I went to talk to Mr. Gentry this summer and I told him that the Ready think I don't know I think he wanted at home obviously the city to anybody it's the only time the better they like the middle and the mailman walk right up there in the garbage men went up there we pay our garbage people we carry the garbage from the top that you really want I just read all the way down here we carry down the steps and they mail service and the car incinerators is that when I get the right they'll run the truck. You're right we don't have any protection. Nice history. They ran a house on the right. This one right here at my house catches on fire they got us going all the way through another man's property to get to my house from a 500 page payoff. Oh yes we part timers.

That's not like actually what your your group worked on as far as as far as as far protection going to you as an individual but to the neighborhood as a whole like I point here earlier the city of trolls is you can only install far hydrant where the water company has a magic what size pipe and we have no power so the trolls has no power to force the water company to install sufficient size water main in this respect us or for hundreds and I'm sure that I speak for the city council when I say that if you had a magic working line that would be happy to put up for either one but your your organization along with the help of a why should you contact the public service watching the water at me and try to get them. Can operate in their overall cap improvements to larger

runs in this area there is no lines on the street and water runs from the main run down they are the same way the cars are kind of very short runs to the main rest down here. Well that's what I was trying to point out most of this is not the city's responsibility trying to get in that will say when Marland both people who are aligned with or there are many times we can take the land back to their car but we did and we thought the city commission trying again to put a line around me and I absolutely would not go if they want to pay $500 to get it done. So what do you do that you can't want to remove people can't buy Public Service Commission How do you get to help. Well this this is I'm sure a big part of the purpose of the way he was directed to go there. Separately. Compasses go. Places. Taxes high taxes and other taxes or services that she doesn't get. Well you couldn't say that she didn't get her action or service was if I said I said I'm down to seriously here because I think that my

department could reach it in time and the pressure by coming up the pressure wasn't enough because it's all the way of the hill. Well again I say that if the far department is called they will def. trucks out and but the law again I say we if we don't have the harbor Oh no world can we connect on time as well. I know it and I know I gave her as a solution to her problem is go to the public service commission every time we've tried that we try to we fund the one time down the other just to get a water line in our house never mind the final draft so we can flush the come out right and talk about people out here like drunk around on the road at their money back and that was the end of it. They just kind of told us they wouldn't do it unless we want to take $500 and I'm not $500 but certainly you wouldn't blame the city of Charleston this out with you. Well I don't know who to blame for that we got a half an hour behind us from somewhere you won't put the blame where it belongs. I mean it is the law it is a bailout it belongs to the water company Public Service Commission. Yeah we don't have an hour to get back to you I think

yes I'm going to write that. Yes yes we have we have known this area nationally or the city of Charleston is responsible to have an interest in all areas. We we constantly are fighting for the better water service and here. A lot of ways I think he was constantly there you know damn well that you know what this means is that things like what is well or we can do all the council meetings or answer the phone call have complaints of what 20 services that the people are out. Why they call you know a name and they don't know how do I know I'm sort of I'm sure the kid on the base nothing has been done this or whatever. Well now we do some part like when we did the street like that they don't have a straight male

rather a garbage but oh your your one of the unfortunate ones I think you're going to I'm sure of that that you're trying to prove this to you if you work but we have the line the documents that we have done in this area just don't really know what I do or that you tell us which often. I'm sorry I'm going to cut the short regular Get back with Joy Behar and was this is all you people are always going to do. What you have will be like if you talk too much you get yourself in trouble. Perhaps better than any other single thing we saw or heard the interview with The Charleston candidate for political office sums up the problem of the people. Remember these are not people who are lazy or shiftless or unwilling in any way to work or to help themselves. This is the greatest tragedy of all. They are willing. But they seen

until recently to have been trapped by forces beyond their ability to control their vitality and energy has been sapped in no small part perhaps by decades of listening to the political power has promised them everything before Election Day. And deliver a nothing. Once the votes were in. When they came to America in the first place the forbearers of these people who have been speaking to and with us they came with a dream the freedom. They labored hard to repay the cost of their passage here and then debts paid migrated north to the hills and hollers of West Virginia the Mountain State. On the lawn of the state capital of Charleston stands an heroic figure of a new year. Engraved on the pedestal beneath the statue with the words mountaineers are always free. But today's real people are not they are bound by the chains of poverty bound by the ravages inflicted upon their land. Bound by their lack of knowledge in a world where knowledge is freedom.

And I even tried to get them to haul me rock down had put you have made money no I know I had so much burden that I couldn't just you down and fix the old myself which I have put in football has now made all this row. We had full he'll come out to the rig which took me about 30 years to finish the show chorus goodbye asshole would. Have made a much road has his sights higher up US going to buy We need a road up to yours some bridges I hear one thing cause he creeks they get some bridge you cause he creeks down here it would be so bad we live on the left for that matter would when you create Get said very much you know you know bridges. In the creek get sad. Or. If the snow would get to leave. Can you have a notion of the creeks they get they get up just we think you know we try to get in their fixer and you're here but I'm saying I care too much about. I don't know how to go about to get. Get home that right person to to do anything. When the creature at the meeting I get even the mail can't get through.

You mean we don't need the money. Sometimes Craig stays up for days and then. We don't need them that you. Know I don't know myself or my husband don't know which. One person to talk to you get anything done. Yeah scuba Sepehr would help if we could get one when they talk about putting a through f here but then you need new house they will get let down here yeah you already know here I'm going to cry you don't hear a whole lot of stuff I mean yeah I know I'm going to once more the talk of roads. Once more perhaps strange to city ears. But vital to people for whom roads or jobs or roads or education or roads or medical care roads can be on occasion. The difference between life and death. The condition of the roads is a symbol of evil to the man who tries to live without them. Let's shift gears and ask another question. One vital to the people of the communities we visited. What is poverty. We know that it's not just a lack of money

all of the people we spoke with told us. Poverty was in part a powerlessness. Poverty is in part the inability to help oneself the inability to improve one's own condition. We speak with John frisk of the West Virginia Office of Economic Opportunity one of the things that strikes me again and again. In the yoyo program is that the right people have made mistakes in many many cases the poor haven't been vested with any ability to really make decisions on. Their way of life. But God knows those of us who are in the driver's seat. From. Good white middle class America have made enough mistakes. We've made enough on their behalf. It doesn't seem too far out to the media expected or people ought to be entitled to a few mistakes on their own. I think this is at the root of the the entire

O U concept and it's the part to which we paid less faithful attention. Many of the people actually in the party room and not have not really come to grips with the problems of poor people at any level. And I think one of the things that students really bring us eyeball to eyeball with when they're working at the grassroots level through the Appalachian volunteers or or another organization is that here is a real live body with some real life problems. And we've got to take a stand at the conference in Ripley which served as a springboard for this entire experience we've been sharing with you. We chaired a panel of concerned professionals. John first can we just heard was on Ed suffered the director of the Community Action Project Open Kentucky Dom Turner a community intern for the Appalachian volunteers and brother Cody Kentucky. Tom Gish editor of the mountain eagle were also petal us. A word about these many. Dumb Turner as a

local community organizer hired for the community itself. His task is to get the people of his own brother to come to the largest county in Kentucky the second poorest in the United States to organize to help themselves. Tom Gish is mountain eagle who is perhaps the only paper in the area that admits that poverty exists. Perhaps the reason why is that Thomas's own publisher editor reporter editorial writer and sells whatever subscriptions and ads he can. Give them the best of all possible worlds. And I would look over accountability for funds and I'm limited funding. What would you do first. What's what's the number. The number one target on your list. You have all the money in the world. So my answer there is the same as if I have. Almost no money or the amount of money we have now. I would try to create real live action groups for people. Looking to their own problems. And seeing what can be done about you through their own

resources or through others. Yeah I wouldn't trade part of all the money in the world to see just we are just giving to the poor people. I would trade some of that for all the time in the world. Given that we're talking about poor people's time this was purely for a professional programmer basis. I would like to have a long term coherent funding so that we have a better idea of where we are going and we can prepare for it or we don't have to spend nearly a billion dollars the first year in order to try and produce a showpiece that will get a programmer refund it in the second year I had all the money in the world will do is I get so do I give away look I don't think all the money is the it's really close to people that's in

eastern Kentucky and it would since I would soon spend the money on the DO SOME with. What we need is something that we can do for the generations to come. Whose children are grown up now that need something to do. We need a better education what the children get. If things don't change remember when you get it. I don't think that we need money so much as we got success. There are moments of things to do. There for the private sector who just had the guts to do it. Let's hear from Dawn Turner once more. They keep putting him off. The problem is you just about anything. Just after the election they want to speak to you when they come up. But you know the day before the election saying we'll do this we'll do that. Q Did you ever see me me me me me me

me me you know me. Thank you. Oh yeah. Let's spell it out once more. They pat you on the back and afterwards they don't know you. Here's the feeling of powerlessness and isolation from political realities. The poor people foolishly help them. Here as we translate in reverse this time from the people speech to the sociologists understanding. Is alienation from the power structures that govern either electively or pointedly the lives of the people in this isolation the alienation syndrome be shattered. This is the task of action for Appalachian youth and Appalachian volunteers. To educate the people through a wide variety of community relations techniques to the fact that they are a political power that they can organize to help themselves that they in the final

analysis control far more of their own destiny. Alay have ever realized before. Let's go back a left fork to Leatherwood. You will find Leatherwood on the map. But its people are very very real. I would tell them. That what they need most. On the left for Clinton is a school bus. To put bridges and the state road commission but bridges and on the left fork a little so that school bus they could have put a school bus route apply here and we sand Taisha and I don't know how many names they had on we had it and I got applications that sad to try to get a bridge a better road that way. So far we haven't got home. And there's no home no immediate hope they don't look like much unless something gives no hope.

Unless something gives. The historian of the America of the 60s will have much to write about and perhaps one of the most distinguishing features of the sticky it will be the role that youth has played in making things happen. The sixties were he may say a period of protest when youth rediscovered the cause of the marvelous vitality of young people spilled over the campus walls and onto the social scene. The conference in Ripley was in part designed to test whether this might help be channeled towards areas like apple each year where vitality and energy and stamina are needed. It can become an even more constructive social force. The college students who gathered at Ripley were there to see it as well to use for their idealism. Leslie Pepper out the president of the Johnson Foundation of Racine Wisconsin a sponsor of the project spoke to them on the first day they met all the issues which seemed to be the Paix on which students hang the garment of their current unrest. Really the most important

thing. Or is there an inner turbulence for which they're searching for an expression in some issue that relates to that time into which they can apply their skills and their energy. Even in new solutions. We felt that this was possible and searching about for those important issues of our present day society. It came to rest. On this knowing persistent disturbing phenomenon of. Chronic poverty. And I asked what students might have to contribute to an amelioration of the conditions of poverty in part of course out of compassion but also in good part. Looking toward. This is an exercise of mind and of

spirit. Often of hands as well which might help students fulfill themselves and aware also that. This condition perhaps more than any other internal. State within our country could render us asunder. Related as it is in so many ways to other issues including civil rights and all the problems of of race conflict. We therefore believe there's a potential for student activity. It goes deeper than this. We think it's very possible that there are. New seeds of a new species that can flourish in the minds of students. The Johnson Foundation had joined forces with West Virginia State College action for Appalachian youth and Appalachian volunteers. Our next program will become involved in the

conference itself. 100 students social workers from the federal state and local levels. Community organizers local poor people who helped in the planning and running of the meeting. Will hear the professionals and the experts and the students themselves as they seek to define their own role their purpose in participating. And as they voice their anxieties and fears as most of them face an experience completely foreign to their lifestyles. We call this program. We were strangers when we came. You've been listening to the people who speak the first program in a series of sounds of poverty. The program was prepared for the Johnson Foundation by Herman Ladd and associates and it was written and produced by Elie Segal and myself my name is Burt County. We'd like to thank David Michael stood in the way and you have him in Washington

D.C. Steven Gemini who's in New York. Miss Mary Holden of the staff of the Johnson Foundation and Gary Wilson and Jerry theory of action for Appalachian youth. Thanks you do Milton Obote of the Appalachian volunteers Folkways Records miss ma door and doctor one are Blumberg James especially. May we express our gratitude to the students of twenty nine colleges whose lives and thoughts we mercilessly pursued with tape recorders and microphones and to the people who were our gracious hosts. This program has been presented by the Johnson Foundation in the belief that the encounter of American youth with our nation's problems is an event which merits the interest of all our people. The observations expressed by the participants are of course theirs alone and their inclusion in this program does not imply approval by the Johnson

Foundation. This is the national educational radio network.