America's War on Poverty; 103; City of Promise

Major funding for America's War on Poverty was provided by the Ford Foundation the Charles Stuart Mott foundation the John D and Catherine T MacArthur Foundation the Corporation for Public Broadcasting. And by the annual financial support of viewers like you. In addition America's War on Poverty was also supported by the generous donations of foundations and individuals. A complete list of funders is available from PBS for the first time we could identify problems and solve them. And we saw the city turning around. You know that's what the anti-poverty program promised us. In 1965. The federal government began a controversial experiment to eradicate poverty in the nation's inner cities. The experiment ignited intense confrontations between the Corps and local officials and called into question the role of government as a force for. Not. For the first time since

1776. I have the right to fight city hall. It struck us essential as a government program to underwrite the confrontation rebellion. Against Government. We have the resources. We have the ingenuity. We have the courage and we have the compassion and we my bike to bring back Mike.

In America at home our own neighborhood of right and a community of opportunity have a shopping problem. Oh. By early 1965. President Johnson's War on Poverty had won the support of the nation's citizens and appeared to be gaining momentum. 965 we passed Medicare and Medicaid we preceed Elementary and Secondary Education Act. We press a lot of programs we've been. On Aug. 11 rioting erupted in the Watts neighborhood of Los Angeles. Americans were stunned and frightened. The violence and despair in inner city neighborhoods added a new urgency to the war on poverty. Now that war would be tested in the nation's cities among the urban poor who felt

shut out of the president's vision for America. In the summer of 1965 the city of Newark New Jersey faced economic crisis. The city's middle class was fleeing to the suburbs. Leaving New York's poor crowded into neighborhoods where housing was deteriorating and unemployment was three times the national average. Tree. Even though it was a little difficult I read the whole and time. Yeah and I do truly believe with all of my heart and soul that that program was going to solve a problem because I knew that no matter what people thought about us in the inner city that we all wanted jobs we will wanted good jobs and we wanted to

address the needs in our community. Oh yeah like our children. And we have the mayor support our house and like everybody else out we got to live in. This. Day and. Age. If we can get everyone to do to step out if that's a big word. The Office of Economic Opportunity which oversaw Johnson's War on Poverty was backing a controversial program called Community Action. Under community action. The poor themselves and not local governments would design and run anti-poverty programs. We inaugurated something called Community Action. Therefore we expect action at the community level. When you've got action you've got argument you've got to say you've got differences of opinion. That's what we're financing for the first time in history this country poor people actually have a place. And a way in which you express themselves.

That's community action. We got so many people to begin to volunteer to go around and try to bring that news to the community we when we try to organize a beautician is church is all a local stop on churches. We actually made a list of all of the churches in the community and began to go and visit them. And it is just such a excitement in our community for the first time hope. Real hope in the engine alone. Yes. A little bit in the history of this country have you ever heard of the federal government saying. To people in the community. You can have as much participation in this is you want. Right. And you can change your own destiny. And people believe this. People who have never seen a beautiful house lads. Dragging their kids out to meetings. Because they really believe that they were participants. In a structure that was going to better their lives delegating government

responsibility to neighborhood participatory groups I'm not sure what to call them in which votes of 40 people or 60 people determine who a leader is and what a program should be that. You can't delegate government responsibility that way. You're not a government if you do that. Johnson's view of that he knew what he was doing. I mean he his sense of that was here is the way we'll get these people engaged in politics. It's the fight against police brutality. They. Fight against job discrimination. So this was to start to put heat on the big city organizations that really hadn't done anything for poor people. People living in fear for the better. We. Should have. Newark citizens organized a united community corporation or UCC to promote community action. The UCC established eight area boards in the neighborhoods where the poor lived. Each area board was organized like a town meeting and run by people elected from the

local community. We would start meetings like six o'clock in the evening and sometimes those meeting would last until one and two o'clock in the morning. That's that's that's how people felt people who had never been opinion before that would get up on a crowded floor. Interview how they felt. And we felt that this is what the whole process was about. One of the members of the area boy wanted to be on housing. This is getting. One. Question out. I and a. You know. Local residents brought a variety of problems to their area boards in my gas cans. We complained to the City Housing Department about conditions at her apartment building was now facing eviction. No. No no.

Be taken. From their parents to do it. We young activists from the students for a democratic society STDs had moved into the neighborhood bringing radical new ideas to the area born. And they were going around trying to incite the black people to change things to do things to upset the city and namely to upset me as the south ward councilman. The whole idea was not to take care of people's problems but they help people to understand that together we can take care of our problems. One of the problems that was foremost in everybody's mind if you were poor people you had a problem with your landlord at one point or another. By the cities on a common. One third of Newark's housing was substandard. Landlords faced with soaring props. Do taxes. Raised rents and neglected repairs. As neighborhoods deteriorated. Residents found they could not get city officials to

enforce the housing come. There was one particular house that was really really terrible and people in the house were really. Angry about it. And. At some point I went. With This is Gaskin and Solomon L. who are two of the leaders of this particular building. To the. Housing complaint department. If the bishop made you leap. Was. I. And. They reported that. It. Was their parish. Yeah I think it was just. The. One building. And. It was not even my new. Home that made it. So the three of us got a promise that they were going to look into it and of course nothing happened. So the idea was to go to the area board and to see what kind of action the area board would take. Over. Where you. Go.

Very. Big. I. Think I. Did. I. Really want my will because he is I really think you are. Just. Doing. It. That is the only way. I. Can. Read right now. In a nearby white suburb. Area Board members picketed the landlords hall. Bunch of us went out there with signs pictures of the building you know slum lord. Rats and roaches don't pay rent. As our little slogan. And we did that. But again nothing really happened. And ultimately. Mrs Gaskins. Who had several children and was living in this situation was evicted actually.

And she eventually moved out. And you know the building just. Continued to deteriorate. Finding safe affordable housing was a growing problem for new works for. Federally funded urban renewal projects especially in the city's central ward. Continually disrupted the community. They moved me three times. I lived on Baldwin street to turn down the building for the Star-Ledger. Then I moved on High Street. They came to and taught. For more high rises. Then I moved into school loans housing project. And never move myself. Always been forced. Massive public housing projects built through urban renewal had concentrated New York's poor in the central ward.

When is no hope for a job. There's no hope having any effect over your community at the mercy of other people. And so people just begin to feel just the you know they had no control over anything in their lives and it just made us felt really in you like we were second class citizens. Unknown to residents more urban renewal was being planned. Early in 1066 Newark's mayor Hugh at new Zero was actively pursuing the construction of a new state Medical College. At new zeal had offered to clear 35 acres of the central ward to attract the Medical College to Newark. In the central ward. Residents continue to confront the city in public demonstrations about neighborhood problems.

Sure they come no problem number three we are the only people we are trying to we're not. Why not. By the spring of 1966. The UCC employed more than a thousand people. As organizers secretaries teachers and administrators. And an anti-poverty program. You're trying to lift people up. And get them a rung up on the ladder so that they can begin to see that there are opportunities for them the young what they envision before Cyril tracing Kaminey and determine to the war on poverty. It's going to take people who had the talent but never had the opportunity. And called and called Make them executives. He made me. Because when I go in the U.S. see I came out of a factory. He needed the Assistant Personnel Director and then a personnel director. And he showed that if you had the talent. And wanted to work hard that you could make it. I was scared to death. But they sent me to New York University. For six months.

And I just loved it. I didn't know that I could do so much until I went to that school. And I came back prepared. A lot of us came back they had family service workers looking at a new life. The U.S. sees growing organization and seven and a half million dollars in federal grants was making community action a threat to city hall. This was growing into a way a rival almost of city government and in some regards it was a provider of jobs and services. I think the point is they could not say. To their constituents that they got the job for them. Because if you can do that then there is an allegiance that's created. Which is difficult to get out of. Politics is power and part of the power in politics is your ability to hand out money. And we were handing the money out from Washington.

And it wasn't going through the mayor's office and it wasn't going through the governor's office and they didn't like that. I saw a problem that it was going to create jobs for a few and that money was going to filter down to the people that really needed it and really needed the help. Throughout its first year. The U.S. struggled with the central problem faced by New York sports. Unemployment. In response the UCC offered the Blazers. A program to train welfare recipients for jobs in food preparation. Auto repair and construction. We set up a maintenance program which like Christie. Brinkley. Plumbing. And all the associated trade.

New York city councilors had refused to support blazers with city funds. Finally local residents invested their own money to get the program going. Over 20 some people actually put a second mortgage on their homes to actually support this program in til they could get funding for the federal government. Once Blazer's was operating. UCC staff and community leaders look for ways to ensure that the federal dollars coming into the black community have the greatest possible impact. You get money. At for money goes into a typical white community. Typical American community it is circulated in that community anywhere from 10 to 20 times before it goes out. In the black community. It goes immediately. To an enterprise only lated. To the local community and its survival and growth needs and just spirals immediately out.

I sat down with the plaintiffs and I said Look. Why don't you as a part of your food training program. Provide the food for the emerging preschool counsel centers. And you will get paid for that out of the money that's in their budget. That way that money balances from the preschool council to the blazer program which it is also using to train people in food and other areas of training. Newark's urban renewal projects held the promise of good paying jobs in the construction trades. But for New York's black residents. The promise proved empty. But we got no jobs. I mean you know there was no such thing as getting a job to be doing. You either carried a book. Or you didn't get a job.

Construction some of the better paying jobs and jobs that. Men could get without a great deal of education. And so there are constantly things being built in the sense of wood schools housing government projects. So these became obviously visible points attention. How can. The government be building the school house or building up a community. And we can work. On that. We actually became dissatisfied with the anti-poverty program because we found that it led to a dead end street. Yes we would now participate but we weren't we weren't able to distribute those economic gains that well. And if people talk about I want jobs I want housing I want this I want that. And we couldn't deliver until we talk about political. In May of 1966. Mayor Hugh and me zero ran for re-election against a field of five challengers.

The incumbent was using his ability to attract large construction projects as a theme in his campaign. What would you say is your single most important accomplishment. Well I believe there are a number of them I would not single out any particular one we believe. Our urban renewal program now is moving at full speed. We have the biggest building boom going on in the history of the city. We feel that the reduction in crime among addin easier as opponents was kin Gibson a member of the UCC board of directors and an engineer with the Newark Housing Authority. You probably know Gibson attacked and uneasy as urban renewal program for spending 98 percent of its money on demolition and only 2 percent for rehabilitation. I have talked to many people in this particular area and they have told me that they have repeatedly asked for a correction of this kind of situation. Their only response is that from the people or city hall that we will take you say youve lived here all your life when was the last time you saw a candidate for mayor visit your neighborhood.

What does this mean to you that the candidates dont come out into the neighborhood. Well it made me very concerned. If you read about what the candidates have had to save us here. Will be. Heard. In 66. We want a black candidate and we determine that if we want a candidate. They have a possibility of winning. We had to have a squeaky clean individual. We said can't give something. You can say OK he was working in a housing authority. He'd been in early pre anti-poverty poverty game. And was an actor also at UCC and was a pretty decent guy everybody knew and liked and. So about. The. Candidates and. The country can deal with him. So we wrote a bunch of surveys and he didn't show up at all.

We started going out through the projects through the houses in the black community registering people who had never been refused to do both. And it's unique that people in the south had been. Involved in registration. We had nor had not. So in those the UCC became a platform. The people involved in the electoral process. In the predominantly black central war more than 3000 new voters were added to the role. I was not against the fact that they were using. They wanted to become part of the political structure. But I did think it was right that they should use the telephones of the U.S. see the mimeograph machines of the U.S. see the loudspeaker systems of the U.S. see the vehicles of the U.S. see the campaign against us. In the week before the election for five nights running we were confronted with telling stories which began in Newark New Jersey may become the first major American city to get a black mayor. He's Ken Gibson.

There's a certain amount of racial pride involved of course will get votes because of that by the vote will be mainly from those people that know that we represent a new kind of administration that the city of New York needs. On Election Day. Gibson's unexpectedly strong showing force that uneasy go into a runoff election. A month later. The voters return the mayor to office but his support in the city's black wards was now in question. I recall lots of phone calls. From various mayors and I think I was one of them complaining about the Community Action Program and what they were doing. And you know largely was in the context of They'll destroy the Democratic Party. They will make it impossible for me to get anything done. As Lyndon Johnson faced the growing dissatisfaction of Democratic mayors nationwide. The president also watched popular support for his war on poverty undermined by a third consecutive summer of urban riots.

Home in the summer of 1960 but the high hopes that had marked the first year of community action were dashed when federal officials told. Workers they should expect no increase in funding. Lack of money more than 20 programs designed by the area boards. Including a tutorial program for schoolchildren medical and legal services for unwed mothers. And a center for Spanish speaking residents. We were horrified and how could we be on a money that we had written and was still in the process of writing additional around things that we saw as as some of our problems when we could not believe it. We worked our hearts out for the air we board to try and get programs going. What sort of programs will we have functioning without any money. When we ask for monies for

certain programs for buses to take a bus trip to the zoo if they have no money why not. We have been given excuses excuses excuses. The war on poverty helped create. Among blacks. To deepen the sense of dependency the sense that they were marginal in the nation's life. And needed to depend upon the largess of others. People need a sense of self worth. Of being. And of self-reliance and those things were not created. For. Black America. Across the nation a push for black self-determination was expressed in a

controversial new movement Black Power. I have no problem with the concept of Black Power. If by that concept we mean the amassing of political and economic power to achieve our legitimate and justifiable goals I think everybody recognizes that the great problem that the negro confronts in the ghetto is that he's powerless and he must transform this powerlessness into positive and creative power. Right now it is not anti-white. It is pro human race with an emphasis on the right of black people to enjoy the same privileges of American society as others do. Black power is not rooted in violence. Anymore. White power. Grab powers of the demand that all people be man and women

and be treated as adults with dignity and respect. In Newark. The police viewed advocates of black power with suspicion. We have been putting out all kinds of leaflets throughout the city talking about black power and no you know they accuse me of putting out a leaflet on how to make a Molotov cocktail and stuff like that I mean they were always kids and they would run up and I would run up where we rehearsed they would go one time they ran up to him where we were sitting with the guns out and took the scripts like I was like you know like like drugs you know we bust you got two scripts given no scripts I mean I was like man and people were afraid of the police. I would take my luck anytime and with any person in the street than. Police to me were not signs of comfort and protection. You can walk down the street and have a cup of tea if you didn't like the way you look he put you embrace you call you nigger call you all sorts of names and there is no priest you go with. In the summer of 1966.

UCC members joined in massive citywide protests denouncing the police department. Badge relationship with the police was one of the first issues that really came in the forefront between both black and Hispanic community. I'm happy. That. I've. Got. A quick background. Check back right. Now. But. Then. I creep out. There. And one of the first issues that emerging which we were together was on the issue of a billion police review board. I mean not HIM NO NO NO NONO NO NO YOU DIDn't NO NO NO NO NO NO. The ad in New Zealand ministration refused to create a citizens born to review alleged police brutality.

After a summer of frustration. Newark residents filled 19 buses and headed for Washington. To lobby for increased Community Action Fund. I remember going around Washington meeting with Congressman and all the people that was in front of the White House actually picketing demanding that this money be put back into the budget. It was really because as we began to talk to Congress people give us much hope we're getting our programs and we're going to fund it because we're not. Voting for war as long as the Community Action Program is out. For the first time since 1776. I have the right. I tried to get the president to double the appropriation for the entire war against

poverty right at that moment he said Sarge we can't go that quickly. Well I'll give you two hundred fifty million dollars more in our next budget. But he said you have to understand programs like this have to grow incrementally week and I'd make huge jumps. The U.S. sees picketing was in pain. Congress approved a war on poverty a budget that restricted community action and meant that the UCC could start no new programs. A month later. The president launched model cities. A new effort that aimed to improve upon previous urban renewal programs that model cities program recognizes that our cities are made of and not just brick and mortar. There was no good to clean out our homes if you will there have no place to go. The idea of model cities was that the people who live there will keep them living there and will build new housing next to them and will build

stores or will build recreation areas and they'll be part of it they'll be part of the whole Reno on the the question became with the mayors and the governors have veto power over who sat on these boards and what have you alternately. We said yes because we didn't think we could pass without them. The model cities program. Representative to us the antidote to. Community Action Program. Is that it represented. It was quite consciously an effort by. By government to by federal government. As a result of pressure from local governments like ours to. Moderate. A key. Committee action in particular. My intent was to pick up all this federal money and create one of the finest medical facilities in the country. And at that particular time as far as the medical school is concerned. Many buildings had to

be knocked down. Newark officials redoubled their efforts to become the new home of the State Medical College. There and uneasier won the competition. By promising the college trustees 150 acres of land. The site he selected was in the city's densely populated central ward home to more than 100000 residents. I received my morning paper on Sunday morning and I saw why they were coming into New York. Martin said so many acres of land. The brain demands school from Jersey City. My reaction was oh why would they want to take all of our houses for the med school. This make sense to me. It was Mission Hills home. It was Miss Scott's hotel. It was released on Sugata education clothing in Paris.

It was miscast. Own called a mansion. It was Dr. William here leaving the bay colt. They were all folks. I mean in our community. This was an attempt by the white power structure. That knew that Newark was a majority black city and on the verge of an electoral victory that would virtually guarantee us a mere A Black Man City Hall. This was a move to get rid of some of that vote. To allow the taking of land by eminent domain. The city next move to declare the area blighted. Immediately I went to see the bear. I said you are claiming everything is blighted. My home isn't blighted. I was so proud of it because I had been able to have removed the old one is him put in a new pursuit when this and I was just surreal to my home. So he said well we are coming man whether you lack it or not.

And we're just doing an M&M and I said then you just have to run over me with the bulldozer because I'm not moving. We thought it was rather ridiculous because number one. We knew people who were going to be involved in construction at the time. Secondly there was nothing to talk about. Housing for those interviews are going to be displace. The medical school gave New York officials only nine months to obtain a blight declaration and deliver the first 50 cleared in the spring of 1967. Central Ward residents organize to block these proceedings until the city guaranteed them construction jobs and replacement housing. And we must not permit. This. Without the hearings they could never. Approve the project to get government support for.

So I asked that if you was to filibuster and have thought of a deadline in which they could do this. So we had the hearing room packed and a recess because they could have one of the weeks and weeks and weeks. Throughout May and June the meetings with city officials became increasingly angry confrontations. We learned there were two different skills in the meeting how to stop something and how to keep something going if you don't want it to happen you learn how to stop it. You're not going to be me. The way. To get. People. Back to looking at the thing in a rational way. Can you imagine. We went to two years of battle to bring a medical school St. medical school and a university hospital to the center of the worst. Part of New York. And the community was convinced. That this is some sort of a plot and

should be resisted. Central Ward residents successfully delayed the medical school. But were soon reminded that they have little power at city hall. Mayor add in the Xian named James Callahan to a key financial post on the Board of Education. Callahan was a high school graduate with strong political ties to the administration. Callahan's rival. Wilbur Parker. A college graduate and certified public accountant. Was a strong favorite in the black community. We were always told that up people weren't qualified. Every time we went in try to get them into some key position. And so it was really I think it really angered us especially since we were so organized and about changes. This. There's no comparison. You've got the clubhouse. You've got white. Not qualified versus African-American

super qualified. And here you're telling us that he can't get a job. In late June. After a tense all night school board session. The city delayed making a new appointment for another year but the black community remained bitter. Well if the vacancy ever occurs I have a definite commitment to Mr. Callahan and I intend to keep that commitment. Thank you. This was saying that we would never be qualified we would never have meaningful opportunities we would never share in this economic growth that we would simply be. Always on the reservation always looking in and not sharing in power. And I think at that time we were ready to explode. On a Wednesday evening. In mid July John Smith a black taxi driver was arrested for a traffic violation. Witness reports that the man was beaten escalated into a rumor that he had been killed.

Blewitt a UCC meeting and recreation for the summer and a phone call came in asking us to leave and a come over to the fourth precinct. And so we did and we started talking to the people what was going on what street apples were coming off the roof you know as bottles and stones and so forth. We demanded to see Smith. And Smith were sitting on the floor of a cell. Bloody. With his hands his head between his hands. Sitting on the floor of the cell. They hadn't gotten any medical attention. So we insisted that he begins a medical intervention and get him out of here. To a hospital. The following evening hoping to avert further violence UCC members held a rally outside the 4th precinct. What began as a peaceful demonstration turned on rudely. By 8pm.

Rocks and bottles were thrown. UCC staff struggled to calm the crowd. Just stand. Out of the precision. Shots of cops. In full battle gear. And that started the whole thing cross-eyed turning over police cars and everything else in sight. Just about this time we believe in the darkness of the breaking windows and then breaking windows and then I looked around and suddenly I could see I looked up over these houses and I could see the sky begin to glow. All of a sudden we heard this tremendous explosion right there as though a bomb had been set off and we looked over and there was a liquor store. That. Plate glass the broken. Throughout the night. Police armed with shotguns and machine guns battled rioters and

looters in the city's central war. Three people were killed. Three hundred and fifty injured. I saw people shooting. I saw them strips stores in three minutes and entire store in three minutes from Springfield. And. They were like Beat beat beat beat me you know one thing say my life was the people up in the. Windows start throwing stuff at him. But the guy actually when I when he opened the camper. And I recognized him was a guy went to school. And I went to high school I said I know you and he took the 38 and hit me right square in the head. Wow. Just like you know tomato. On Friday. 4000 state police and National Guard troops poorly prepared for riot duty arrived in uniform. In the confusion and chaos that weekend police and National Guard escalated the

gunfire. We began to go out. We went to the City Hospital and we began to see people there that was bloody. I mean the floor and everything had blood on it it was just a terrible time. Not until Monday. July 17. Five days after the violence began was new work again call. More than 10 million dollars in property had been destroyed. A policeman. A fireman. And 21 residents of the neighborhood were dead. I just felt that there was no justice.

And I became very very bitter. In fact I decided I was going to take my family and just move out of the central ward. Mark that one of the committee was bad. Now one of the committee Americans are bad and I'm not alone. I don't know why I don't feel up about it me to think. That the fact that I wasn't working I didn't have a job I would have been look. It was a young National sitting on porches going to homes in the kids like that. And this guy was Michigan. He was actually shaking at these little guys say they don't hate you. They like you you from. Laughable want to wear uniform like Euros just because. And he just was shaking and I knew that we had him. I knew we could just calm people down. We had it and that was the feeling. The rebellions in 1067 were really a turning point in

both the politics of the city and also in our relationship to the community. This time period which people have been very open to us and which we could they had a very important role was really over. And there was a new era new politics and it was time for us to to shift. Three days later. In an atmosphere of racial tension a previously scheduled national black power conference began in Newark. After that rebellion have done in New York was the greatest thing that could happen. See. Because then it made people understand that what had gone down just a few days ago was not just like they say a riot it which they keep saying you know it is a rebellion. To that but it was an absolute expression. Go to wilt for self-determination and what do black power conference did was give it an articulation. There are three or four objectives. One to improve employment opportunities for Negroes to do something about housing. Three to establish some kind of better

relationship between the negro communities in these various cities and the police authorities. But the major task. For all people. Should be in terms of their self development and it is to this neglected task that we grossly neglected task that we have addressed ourselves. What black people needed most was an organization of black consciousness for black self identity and for blacks a sense. That they. Could create the sufficiency for their meeting of their own needs. Outside the conference residents of the central ward continued to push for jobs and housing in negotiations on the medical school construction. Try for weeks days weeks months again and test for Doc the cantonments who is president of the college of medicine dentistry

at that time. I can never get any further than his secretary. Never would let me speak with him. But. After the. Riots broke out. Then everybody wanted to talk to me. The riots changed the nature of the battle against the medical school because. The power structure was scared. So when we went. In to negotiate. The medical school it was like we had visible nameless faceless brother with a brick. Standing behind us. They knew it and we knew it. In Washington. The president struggled to maintain support for the idea of empowering the poll. Johnson realized then that the country would turn in its emotions and its identification with the black poor that somehow people

he always had in his mind Molly and the and Harry who somehow had saved up money to have a rug and a TV and good things for their children they were willing to contribute taxes as long as they thought it was helping other people. But now they could imagine that somehow they had given their tax money and then everybody's throwing it away in these riots. It should not an angry reaction. I think it is a time. For action starting with legislative action to improve the life. Should the strike the law the surest remedy is for breach. In November Newark officials learned they would receive model city's funding for the medical school construction. In the new scheme of things. City officials would control the money. But the idea of community participation was not entirely gone.

There was a citizen's participation component. The citizens did have the right to review the programs. So they already had people picked. And we said here on no we're not going to allow that. We're not going to sit by and let you just take this money and run with it. So if you want to medical school. And you have to have their medical school on less acres than you want one of the things you have to do is to. Cut us here. We have to be allowed to participate. To get the model city's money. Newark officials had promised jobs and job training for local residents. Community health services and community involvement in planning. People in the central ward were determined to get what they had been promised. Clear one in meetings in the governor's office. Governor Hughes. And he like so many of us over here. And he didn't have enough chairs for anybody sit down so he said. You have to go out in the hall. And other so-called clown.

So he got his dander up talking about this is my office. And we politely tell him this is not his office. It belonged to the people. And we were here representing the people. And he only was supposed to execute the wishes. Of the people. In early 1968 the federal government issued an ultimatum. Get all parties on board or lose the model cities money. But we were able to do is to drive a wedge between. Different levels of government in the power structure which is what you got to do when you want to. Fight city hall so to speak. Yet City Hall isolated and you had the state and the federal government and the community on the same side. And it was because of that schism that we were able to prevail early in March. The breakthrough finally came. I feel euphoric when it was finally said.

I was a young man I think that maybe 23 24 something like that. Everybody couldn't be out on the front line at the negotiating table but everybody had a role to play to get us there. I ran around the room like a butterfly hugging kissing everybody. Everybody was crying with joy. Because now we feel that we're going to get some place. Residents of the central ward one the terms they had sought. No destruction of homes until replacements were found or built. Jobs and job training. A community health program and community participation and all future decision making. Just weeks after the medical school settlement Martin Luther King Jr. visited Newark seeking support for a poor people's campaign. The massive demonstration King planned in Washington sought jobs housing and

political power for all Americans for. Just one week later. King was killed by an assassin in Memphis Tennessee. In cities across the nation. Violence erupted once more. In Newark the following Sunday. Twenty five thousand residents of the city and its surrounding communities joined a march for understanding through the central war. People from all walks of life came together to try to heal the discord of recent years. But the future of the haves and have nots in Newark. And in America. Were fast diverging. The War on Poverty had some mixed and unintended results because the. Par poor poor. That it was designed to help were not basically

helped. But. It created an escape hatch. Out of the ghetto and out of a culture of poverty for loads of blacks who were middle class already ended. And those blacks have literally exploded in their numbers. The anti-poverty program meant to attack the worst in America. And. It did so we love that. Everybody loved it. We wanted it. But it went about it maybe in a flawed way. And. It distorted democracy for a short period in a way it shouldn't just people really believe that they were going to have a voice in changing Newark and making Newark a better place not solely for blacks but for people. And unfortunately it didn't work out that play. The more people became involved in the process more the power structure tried to take it away. And that brought about confrontation in winning in

1968 the UCC began its fourth year fighting poverty a new way. But here and across America. The controversial experiment in community action was ending. New federal laws gave control of war on poverty money to local government officials. In 1970. Again Gibson was elected mayor of Newark. A year later. Gibson presided at the groundbreaking ceremonies of the new State Medical College. Yes.

This series was produced by black side Incorporated which is solely responsible for its content. Oh. Major funding for America's War on Poverty was provided by the Ford Foundation the Charles Stuart Mott foundation the John D and Catherine T MacArthur Foundation the Corporation for Public Broadcasting. And by the annual financial support of viewers like you.

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