A people's war on poverty : urban politics and grassroots actitivists in Houston / Wesley G. Phelps.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Phelps, Wesley G.

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Community Action Program (U.S.)--History.

Community Action Program (U.S.).

Community development--Texas--Houston--History--20th century.

Community development.

Poor--Services for--Texas--Houston--History--20th century.

Poor.

Poor--Political activity--Texas--Houston--History--20th century.

Poverty--Government policy--Texas--Houston--History--20th century.

Poverty.

Social action--Texas--Houston--History--20th century.

Social action.

History.

Poverty--Government policy.

Poor--Political activity.

Poor--Services for.

Texas--Houston.

Physical Description:

xiii, 239 pages ; 23 cm

Other Title:

Urban politics and grassroots actitivists in Houston

Place of Publication:

Athens : The University of Georgia Press, [2014]

Summary:

In A People's War on Poverty, Wesley G. Phelps investigates the on-the-ground implementation of President Lyndon Johnson's War on Poverty during the 1960s and 1970s. He argues that the fluid interaction between federal policies, urban polities, and grassroots activists created a significant site of conflict over the meaning of American democracy and the rights of citizenship that historians have largely overlooked. In Houston in particular, the War on Poverty spawned fierce political battles that revealed fundamental disagreements over what democracy meant, how fax it should extend, and who should benefit from it. Many of the program's implementers took seriously the federal mandate to empower the poor as they pushed for a more participatory form of democracy that would include more citizens in the political, cultural, and economic life of the city. At the center of this book are the vitally important but virtually forgotten grassroots activists who administered federal War on Poverty programs, including church ministers, federal program volunteers, students, local administrators, civil rights activists, and the poor themselves. The moderate Great Society liberalism that motivated the architects of the federal programs certainly galvanized local antipoverty activists in Houston. However, their anti-poverty philosophy was driven further by prophetic religious traditions and visions of participatory democracy and community organizing championed by the New Left and iconoclastic figures like Saul Alinsky. By focusing on these local actors, Phelps shows that grassroots activists in Houston were influenced by a much more diverse set of intellectual and political traditions, fueling their efforts to expand the meaning of democracy. Ultimately, this episode in Houston's history reveals both the possibilities and the hmits of urban democracy in the twentieth century. Book jacket.

Contents:

The war on poverty and the expansion of democracy

Declaring a war on poverty in the midst of "pervasive conservatism": the tumultuous road to establishing a community action agency, 1964-1965

Creating an alternative antipoverty philosophy for Houston: grassroots religious activists and VISTA workers outside the city's community action agency, 1964-1966

An aggressive vision for the community action program: confrontational politics and the expansion of democracy, 1966-1967

A closing window of opportunity for expanding democracy: Houston's public officials and the taming of the community action program, 1967

A triumph for the limited vision of democracy: new leadership and the expulsion of the organizers, 1967-1969

National changes with local results: de-escalation of the war on poverty, 1969-1976

The war on democracy.

Notes:

Includes bibliographical references (pages 229-234) and index.

ISBN:

9780820346700

0820346705

9780820346717

0820346713

OCLC:

854980367