War on Poverty: Office of Civil Rights, 1965-1968
The Great Society was a set of domestic programs proposed or enacted on the initiative of President Lyndon B. Johnson. Two main goals of the Great Society social reforms were the elimination of poverty and racial injustice. Johnson launched an "unconditional war on poverty" in the first months of his presidency with the goal of eliminating hunger and deprivation from American life. The centerpiece of the War on Poverty was the Economic Opportunity Act of 1964, which created an Office of Economic Opportunity (OEO) to oversee a variety of community-based antipoverty programs. The OEO reflected a fragile consensus among policymakers that the best way to deal with poverty was not simply to raise the incomes of the poor but to help them better themselves through education, job training, and community development. Historians have suggested that the most important domestic achievement of the Great Society may have been its success in translating some of the demands of the civil rights movement into law.
The collection contains correspondence, memoranda, reports, minutes of meetings, convention programs, and other records concerning the activities of Maurice Dawkins, Assistant Director for Civil Rights in the Office of Economic Opportunity. Reports, assessments, and background documents also include: Justice Department Task Force on Civil Rights, 1968; U.S. Commission on Civil Rights Report on Ghettoes, 1967; Poor People’s Campaign and OEO, 1968; civil rights and the anti-poverty war; application of Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964; Equal Employment Opportunities and the U.S. Civil Service Commission; OEO reports on Job Corps centers; U.S. Commission on Civil Rights hearings in Montgomery, Ala., for 1968; and 1967 Booz-Allen & Hamilton report on statewide education study in Mississippi.
Files contain information regarding civil rights leaders such as Martin Luther King, Jr; Roy Wilkins; Whitney Young; and Andrew Young.
This publication consists of documents comprising RG 381, Records of the Community Services Administration, Records of the Office of Civil Rights, Program Records of the Assistant Director for Civil Rights, November 1965-December 1968, MLR Entry 1005.
All documents were originally filmed in their entirety.