“Can we, the richest and most powerful people on earth, can we who have been so blessed, bring out the best within us to do what we know we ought to do? We have the means to end poverty at home, to establish opportunity for all, to join hands and help those in the world seeking to develop their opportunities for a decent life.”
Our Quote of the Week reminds us of Sargent Shriver’s belief that poverty can be abolished in the US, the world’s wealthiest nation. We reiterate this belief as we prepare to mark the 61st anniversary of the legislation that launched the Office of Economic Opportunity on August 20.
Sargent Shriver’s belief that poverty could be overcome was as staunch as it was clear-eyed. In this week’s speech, the 1964 Address at the Texas Tech Convocation, he said:
“The question is whether we act with all of our power and all of our skill and all of our will. Having the means to end poverty and to create the conditions of peace in the world, it follows, as day follows night, that we have the duty to do it. Peace and the ending of poverty are the political Mount Everests challenging us. Will we have the vision and the courage and the endurance to take them on?”
Today, the belief in our potential to overcome poverty can feel remote. Our governments are growing increasingly hostile towards those living in poverty. Social programs are being cut while our tax structure favors the ultra-wealthy. We cannot grow complacent or cynical in the face of this wrong direction. May we challenge the idea that “the poor will always be with us” and may we stand up to those who persist in creating policies that further entrench poverty in too many of our communities. We have the wealth, the resources and the ingenuity to end poverty in the United States. Sargent Shriver’s approach to the War on Poverty proved as much. According to the Center for American Progress, the US poverty rate fell 42 percent during the War on Poverty, between 1964 and 1973—the most significant drop in US history at the time. And our resources have only multiplied since then. As Sargent Shriver would say, we have everything we need to abolish poverty. What we need now is the will to follow through on the promise that President Johnson made 61 years ago.
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