“There is an urgency about the dignity of man. There is a compulsion to act — to act here and now — to free men from bondage — whether it be the bondage of discrimination or the bondage of poverty.”
Our Quote of the Week underlines the urgency needed in liberating all human beings from the scourges of discrimination and poverty. We share these words on the 61st anniversary of Sargent Shriver being sworn in as the head of the Office of Economic Opportunity (OEO), the office that managed the programs of the War on Poverty.
Sargent Shriver’s 1964 Address at the Community Action Assembly Sponsored by the National Urban League is the earliest record we have of Sargent Shriver addressing a Community Action gathering. Because of the Urban League‘s active involvement in the event, Sargent Shriver’s focus in the speech is to acknowledge the importance of addressing both poverty and racial discrimination in the United States, emphasizing that the same energy that had been put into getting the Civil Rights Act passed six months earlier ought to be put into the abolition of poverty. Shriver’s engagement of civil rights organizers to support Community Action and the other burgeoning programs of the War on Poverty, particularly Job Corps and VISTA, is both shrewd and practical, as Black communities, were, and continue to be, disproportionately affected by poverty.
It is notable that Shriver stresses that everyone ought to be involved in the fight against poverty, that people dealing with poverty need to have ownership of the process—and that dissent will be part of that process:
“We need to involve the grass roots leadership of the poor, to develop more leaders, and organizations capable of representing the poor, of speaking out on their behalf, of participating in the planning and administration of Community Action programs. And—we need those neighborhood leaders to criticize our programs, to make sure our programs are getting at the real needs of the poor.”
Shriver’s openness to criticism is part of what makes his approach to leadership so distinct. At the same time, it posed challenges in the management of local programs at times, as some community members clashed with local politicians in their quest to maintain autonomy over the programs. Nevertheless, Shriver’s openness provides a valuable example for us today. The willingness to listen, to learn, and to adopt viable solutions for those experiencing poverty is an essential part of his approach to leadership, and it is part of what has made programs like Community Action so resilient over the decades.
Sargent Shriver’s accomplishments and challenges related to, as President Johnson put it, “waging an unconditional war on poverty in America,” are recounted in detail in his posthumous memoir, We Called it a War: Lessons Learned from the Fight to End Poverty. Look for it at your favorite online book seller.
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