How Poor People Themselves Fought

The War on Poverty

"This is the most sophisticated study of welfare rights organizing to date. It engages
with grassroots and high politics, social history and social thought, and, in the process,
illuminates how law and social work shaped the movement to secure the 'rightly needs'
of poor solo mothers. . . . Kornbluh does it all with insight and verve."—Eileen Boris,
University of California, Santa Barbara

The Battle for Welfare Rights tells the fascinating story of the National Welfare Rights
Organization, the largest membership organization of low-income people in U.S. history. Setting
that story in the context of its turbulent times, the 1960s and early 1970s, historian Felicia
Kornbluh shows how closely that story was tied to changes in mainstream politics, both
nationally and locally in New York City.

Welfare was one of the most hotly contested issues in postwar America. Bolstered by the
accomplishments of the civil rights movement, NWRO members succeeded in focusing national
attention on the needs of welfare recipients, especially single mothers. At its height, the NWRO
had more than 20,000 members, most of whom were African American women and Latinas,
organized into more than 500 local chapters. These women transformed the agenda of the civil
rights movement and forged new coalitions with middle-class and white allies. To press their
case for reform, they used tactics that ranged from demonstrations, sit-ins, and other forms of
civil disobedience to legislative lobbying and lawsuits against government officials.

One of the primary goals of the NWRO was a guaranteed income for all adult Americans. In part
because of their advocacy, this idea had a surprising range of supporters, from conservative
economist Milton Friedman and President Nixon to liberal presidential candidate George
McGovern. However, by the middle 1970s, as Kornbluh shows, Republicans and conservative
Democrats had turned the proposal and its proponents into laughingstocks.

Kornbluh offers new insight into women's activism, poverty policy, civil rights, urban politics,
law, consumerism, social work, and the rise of modern conservatism.

Felicia Kornbluh teaches history at Duke University. She has written for many publications,
including the Nation, Feminist Studies, Los Angeles Times, Women's Review of Books, Journal
of American History, and In These Times. She is the cofounder of Historians for Social Justice
and a long-standing member of the advocacy organization the Women's Committee of 100.

The Battle for Welfare Rights

Politics and Poverty in Modern America
Felicia Kornbluh
288 pages | 6 x 9 | 20 illus.
Cloth May 2007 | ISBN 978-0-8122-4005-4