One day in the first 60 days of the War Against Poverty, I asked the people who were in charge of “Program Development” what we could do for persons six to seven years of age who when tested proved to be incompetent to enter the first grade in school. I asked for the information because I had previously requested an Agency of the Government whose business it was to make presentations about problems, to make a drawing which was a round circle and identify, in that circle who the people were who were poor. Starting the “War Against Poverty” we didn’t know specifically who were the people who were poor. Where were they? My feeling was that if you are going to plan an invasion of Western Europe you have to get information about who and where the enemy was, how many there were, where their weaknesses were, what do they need, how can we find them, and address their needs. So I asked the Federal Government to give me a pie chart of where the poor people were in the United States, where they were, how old they were, what were the numbers. I wanted to know the enemy, who was the enemy and where was the enemy.
That information was essential. If we were challenged to create and manage a “War Against Poverty”. I was motivated in this request because my wife and I had worked with Dr. Susan Gray who was at Vanderbilt University. This scholar created and had been running for four or five years a study. This study dealt with children who were mentally handicapped and were six, seven, eight years of age. Dr. Gray said she was determined to find out what could be done to change their capacities for education.
She sent a report to the Kennedy Foundation which indicated that a large proportion of the persons who were mentally retarded were young, and if you intervened with them when they were very young, and stayed with them for three, four or five years, you could improve their IQ, I couldn’t believe that news! I grew up in a time when if you had an IQ of 60 you were stuck with it for your lifetime, just as if you had blue eyes, you had blue eyes for a lifetime. This woman, Susan Gray, had done a study in which she showed that with appropriate attention and supervision the IQ of people with mental retardation could be changed and improved! That was totally new! So, I thought if we could raise the IQ’s of children with mental retardation why we couldn’t raise the IQ’s of children not naturally intelligent by interviewing early in their lives, even before they entered first grade. But how many such children are there? So I asked Alice Rivlin to prepare a pie chart showing us who these poor were.
The next day my wife and I had lunch at the Hay-Adams Hotel with Joe Alsop. He was a curmudgeon type, but a smart guy who did not tolerate anything that did not make sense. About 2/3 of the way through our lunch I suddenly remembered what I had learned the night before.
I was inspired to ask Joe Alsop what he thought would be the public response to an effort we would originate to help children who constituted 50% of the poor when those children were only five to eight years of age. Joe Alsop replied what’s that again and I said to him that it turns out 50% of the poor people are under ten, and I said to Joe, “if we were to run a War Against Poverty how can we call it a proper attack against poverty if we don’t do something to help those children!” He thought about it for a little while and then he said that may, just be a good idea, Sarge”. I thanked him for his opinion and told him that I valued his opinion.
I went back to the office and said to someone (I don’t remember who), “We have to start some programs which will help the 50% of the poor people who are under six. If we don’t have a program to reach them we will be fighting a War Against Poverty. We have got to do something, now, right now because all these kids are not in school now. They are free. We have got to do something that will reach a large number of these children who are poor and low in intelligence. We need to prepare them for the first grade.
We have got to do it right away in order to give them a head start for the first grade. We have June, July and August to prepare these kids who have never had any preparation whatsoever. We need, I said “to prepare them intellectually, to prepare their families, so let’s get together with them, we have got to do it right away”. “It’s essential to fight their poverty right away! That is the true story, my friends, of the origin of “Head Start”.
Sure, I asked my friends, Dr. Bob Cooke, to help us to establish “Head Start” in a highly professional way. Bob was chairman of the Department of Pediatrics at John Hopkins University Medical School. He was then and is now a genuine genius in medical matters involving the very young. He assembled a group of experienced medical experts, and in less than three weeks they came to me with a detailed plan to reach thousands of youngsters in a summer, 90-day program to prepare impoverished children for first grade. Everyone liked our name Head Start. It epitomized accurately what we were trying to do: helping the poor to get a head start on first grade! But we were astounded to what happened:
- Thousands and thousands applied to join “Head Start”
- Hundreds of teachers eagerly volunteered to by-pass their summer vacations and returns to teaching the least of the first graders!
- Not only were some public schools opened to house the new summer students. Makeshift “institutions” were created. All kinds of housing were established to meet the onslaught of students.
- Before the summer was over we had more than 450,000 students in “Head Start”.
- The budget, which I originally established at $15,000,000, surged upward! By the summer’s end we had spent about $75,000,000. But
- We had created a huge success, astonished the academic world, and laid the foundation for a new way to reach the poor, reduce poverty, and energize the parents and relatives of poor children. Our title, “The War Against Poverty” was truly living up to its name.
That’s the end of my story this morning! I could talk on and on about “The War Against Poverty”.
All started in 1964, 1965, 190, and 1967
All are operating successfully today!
“Job Corps”
“Community Action”
“Legal Services for the Poor”
“Medical Services for the Poor”
“VISTA”
“Special Programs for American Indians”
