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The Japanese Journal of American Studies, No. 15 (2004)

Race, Class, and Gender in America’s“War on Poverty”: The Case of Opal C. Jonesin Los Angeles, 1964–1968
Kazuyo TSUCHIYA*I INTRODUCTION
The “War on Poverty” was ofﬁcially launched in August 1964 withthe signing of the Economic Opportunity Act and the establishment of
the Ofﬁce of Economic Opportunity (OEO). The “War on Poverty”
created and administered many kinds of novel programs, but the Community Action Program (CAP), designed to “help urban and rural communities to coordinate and mobilize their resources to combat poverty,”
was its most important and unique feature. CAP established more than
one thousand Community Action Agencies and required the involvement not only of representatives of public and private agencies involvedin anti-poverty programs, but also representatives of the “poor” themselves in policy planning and execution.1 In many cities, Community Action Agencies became the main institutions to administer various kindsof “War on Poverty” programs.2
The purpose of this paper is to examine the ways in which a local welfare activist forcefully challenged the ofﬁcial federal/local anti-poverty
institutions and created oppositional discourses that could work against
them. It investigates both the institutional discourses and their grassroots challenges. First, I argue that the Ofﬁce of Economic Opportunity
Copyright © 2004 Kazuyo Tsuchiya. All rights reserved. This work may be used, withthis notice included, for noncommercial purposes. No copies of this work may be distributed, electronically or otherwise, in whole or in part, without permission from the author.
*Graduate Student, University of California, San Diego, and University of Tokyo

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ignored racial/class differences among women involved in the antipoverty programs, and enforced women’s subordination by locating
women as supporters, not as main agents of the “War on Poverty.” Then,I focus on a particular welfare activist in Los Angeles, Opal C. Jones,
and bring her voice forward as a representative voice of local welfare
activists. I analyze how Jones was actively engaged in recasting the Los
Angeles “War on Poverty” programs by both stressing the role racialinequality played in creating poverty and providing an incisive critiqueof assumed “professional” anti-poverty workers. In this way, I examine
the ways in which race, class, and gender intersected in the career ofJones, one of a few African American female directors in the Los Angeles “War on Poverty.”
Interpretations of the “War on Poverty” programs initiated through
CAP have varied from those that criticize CAP bitterly to those that appreciate its unique and innovative aspects. Daniel P. Moynihan argued
that the participation of the “poor” through CAP was not intended byany drafter, sponsor, or enactor, and that CAP actually caused turmoil
and further deterioration in urban ghettos.3 David J. Greenstone and Paul
E. Peterson and James A. Morone supported CAP because the participation of the “poor” through CAP helped African Americans and otherpeople of color participate in local politics and develop community organizations.4 Jill Quadagno agreed with Greenstone, Peterson, and Moronethat CAP succeeded in bringing basic resources to “poor” communities
and producing opportunities for blacks to enter politics, but she also considered the question of whether CAP also encouraged the concentrationof the black poor in inner cities.5
These studies examined the impact of CAP on “poor” communities
by focusing on the roles of policy makers or African American malecommunity leaders, and therefore have not paid enough attention to theroles of the women of color who worked in CAP, mostly African
American women. Whereas Moynihan criticized CAP from the viewpoint of the policy makers, Greenstone and Peterson, as well as Morone,
supported CAP by citing the increasing numbers of black mayors andcommunity organizations in urban settings. They did not analyze how
women in “target” areas were actively involved in planning, operating,and even trying to reform CAP and “War on Poverty” programs in general.
While these studies focused on the roles of policy makers and theAfrican American and Latino male community organizers, some recentKazuyo TSUCHIYA(p213)6/11 04.7.18 0:10 PM ページ 215

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studies have begun to explore the role of gender and women’s involvement during the operation of the poverty programs. Jill Quadagno published another study, co-authored with Catherine Fobes, about women
who were served by Job Corps, another important program in the “Waron Poverty,” which demonstrated how Job Corps centers reproduced agender division of labor by providing to women training primarily focusing on low-paying service and domestic jobs.6 Nancy A. Naples, on theother hand, examined how women working in CAP developed their careers and fought inequality and discrimination. She also demonstrated
how race, class, and gender were intertwined in CAP workers’ politicalbiographies.7
Though the study of women’s participation in the anti-poverty programs is a relatively new topic in the historiography of the “War on
Poverty,” there have been a signiﬁcant number of studies exploring theissues of race and gender in U.S. welfare policies in general. One of theimportant topics among these studies was demystifying the notion of“welfare dependency.” These studies analyzed the gender and racial
subtexts of the “dependency” discourse. According to Nancy Fraser and
Linda Gordon, “dependency” was used to refer to the condition of poor
women with children who made a livelihood with neither a male breadwinner nor an adequate wage and who received economic support from
Aid to Families with Dependent Children (AFDC). The expression “welfare dependency” evoked the image of “the welfare mother,” often ﬁgured as a young, unmarried woman of color. These studies of “welfare
dependency” discourse illuminated how the images of women on welfare, especially those of poor women of color, have been seriously distorted in the discussions of U.S. welfare policies.8
Whereas these studies of the discourse of welfare dependency certainly revealed the racialized and gendered nature of U.S. welfare policy, nevertheless many of them remained focused on policy makers andpolicy making, and challenges to the dominant discourse were usually
not examined in any detail. In this way, they cast welfare activists merely
as passive victims rather than active agents. Deborah Gray White argued
that even though there were negative images of “the welfare mother,”
welfare rights activists “refused to internalize” these negative perceptions. Fraser and Gordon also pointed out that welfare rights activists
changed the perception of welfare as “a matter of claiming rights rather
than receiving charity.” Gordon, especially, emphasized the idea thatwelfare history should not only investigate the racial and gender relations

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of power but also reveal the agency of welfare activists in the making of
the programs. It is important to analyze how these welfare activists
attempted to recast welfare programs and transform anti-poverty efforts
into vehicles for social change.9
Following two pioneering works that considered gender in the “Waron Poverty” and race/gender issues in welfare programs in general, thispaper investigates two related issues. First, before discussing the case of
Opal C. Jones, it brieﬂy analyzes how the OEO, which was the main federal agency for the “War on Poverty” programs, represented women,
who participated in the programs, in their documents. I argue that the
OEO looked upon women as a coherent group disregarding racial/classdifferences. The OEO also assigned women the roles of volunteers andsupporters. Then I focus on an African American woman, Opal C. Jones,
who worked in a particular program called the Neighborhood Adult
Participation Project in the Los Angeles “War on Poverty,” in order toinvestigate the ways in which she struggled to recast the anti-poverty
programs at the local level. When local welfare activists like Jones started engaging in the “War on Poverty,” they transformed the programs
into something sharply different from the one OEO originally set up, into
weapons in a battle over the right to determine the meaning of welfare.
I contend that Jones’ efforts not as a volunteer but as one of a few female
directors resulted in expanding the roles available to women in the Los
Angeles “War on Poverty,” providing a signiﬁcant critique of the local
welfare system that ignored racial/class differences, and restoring to welfare activists the status of historical agents. The example of Opal C. Jones
provides a window which can throw light upon the interaction of race,class, and gender relations in the “War on Poverty” programs.
Since the early 1950s, Opal C. Jones had been a social worker at the
Avalon-Carver Community Center, established in 1940 to provide multiservice resources to low-income residents in south central L.A. Jones
worked with distinguished social workers such as Mary Henry, who later
established the nation’s ﬁrst urban pediatric telemedicine center.10 Jones
had been the executive director of the Neighborhood Adult Participation
Project (NAPP) since its inception in April, 1965. NAPP was one of themain programs administered by the main agency of the Los Angeles“War on Poverty,” the Economic and Youth Opportunities Agency ofGreater Los Angeles (EYOA). The primary purpose of NAPP was toprovide training and employment opportunities for adults in ten “poverty” areas in Los Angeles county. As I will discuss later, Jones was

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actively involved in bringing the “War on Poverty” to the grassroots level
through the NAPP.
There are two reasons why I focus on Los Angeles. The ﬁrst reason is
the impact of the 1965 Watts Revolts on the “War on Poverty” programs.
The Watts Revolts, one of the most signiﬁcant urban uprisings in 20thcentury America, shocked the Administration of President Lyndon B.
Johnson and led to the organization of the Los Angeles “War on Poverty”
task force as well as to an increase in federal anti-poverty funds coming
into Los Angeles. Los Angeles was a city of special concern for theJohnson Administration. Therefore, Los Angeles provides the setting for
an important case study to analyze how one African American woman
in Los Angeles developed her career and confronted local welfare agencies after the Watts Revolts by using funds available from OEO. This
leads to the second reason: Los Angeles was at the forefront of antipoverty and racial liberation struggles, and a “local study” offers the beneﬁt of observing how these programs operated at the grassroots level.11
This study draws mainly on the papers of the Neighborhood Adult
Participation Project and Economic and Youth Opportunities Agency ofGreater Los Angeles, local newspapers, publications of the EYOA andthe OEO, microﬁlms of The White House Central Files, and interviews
with local activists.
II “WOMEN OF ALL AGES AND FROM ALL WALKS OF LIFE
VOLUNTEERED”: THE OEO’S REPRESENTATION OF WOMEN IN THE“WAR ON POVERTY”
OEO attempted to incorporate women (mainly white middle-class women) into the “War on Poverty” through various techniques. When feminist theorists like Quadagno and Fobes analyzed how the welfare stateinﬂuenced gender relations, they explained that there were three waysof reproducing male dominance. Welfare policies could reinforce gender inequality by recreating market inequality through eligibility rulesthat closely connected beneﬁts to wages. They might also reproduce
inequality by providing greater rewards for beneﬁts earned through paid
work than for those granted on the basis of family membership. Finally,
they could recreate the subordination of women by failing to intervene—
by excluding women from welfare programs, because women were lesscompetitive in the labor market if they could not ﬁnd child care or takepaid leave when they had children. Quadagno and Fobes emphasized that

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the welfare state reinforced the gendered division of labor in the household as well as in the market through these mechanisms.12
OEO’s strategy for deﬁning women’s roles in the “War on Poverty”
was not based on the exclusion of women but rather on their mobilization. While their work provided useful insights, Quadagno and Fobes did
not fully discuss the fact that techniques of “mobilization,” as well as
those of “exclusion,” played an important role in recreating the subordination of women. OEO held two conferences in Washington D.C. in
May 1967 and 1968 in order to clarify the roles of women in the antipoverty programs. At the 1967 conference, Sargent Shriver, the directorof OEO, emphasized how indispensable women were to that “war.”
Shriver pointed out that ﬁfty thousand women served on local community boards and advisory councils in the “War on Poverty” and that morethan 10,000 women volunteers from all religious and racial groups hadjoined an organization called Women in Community Service. But hequickly added that despite this record of participation and involvement
among women the OEO had only begun to “scratch the surface.” Put differently, with Head Start, OEO was reaching only 30 percent of the“poor” children who needed that program; with the Neighborhood YouthCorps and Job Corps combined, only 32% of the teenagers who needed
job training were covered by the “War on Poverty.” Therefore, Shrivercontended that women’s involvement in the anti-poverty programs wasabsolutely necessary. Shriver said, “these statistics show you how large
the need actually is and from that you can easily see why we have called
you to Washington.” Bill Crook, the director of the Volunteers in Service
to America (VISTA), also emphasized the important roles of women in
the “War on Poverty.” At the conference, Crook noted, “I believe thatthe feminine inﬂuence upon the national character of this country has
been a dominant factor in the conception of the War on Poverty and it
should be, I think, a driving force behind its application.” Both Shriverand Crook repeatedly referred to the importance of the roles of womenin the “War on Poverty.”13
OEO aimed at mobilizing women into the anti-poverty efforts throughthese conferences because OEO needed strong support from women inorder to pass the “War on Poverty” legislation. In a memo to President
Johnson, Shriver clearly noted in 1967 that one of the purposes of thisday-long conference was “mobilizing the various women’s organizations for legislative backing.” At the conference Theodore Berry, thedirector of Community Action Program, called women to “tell your con-

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gressman back home that you are interested . . . and you support OEO.”14
These conferences were clearly designed by OEO to mobilize womenfor the anti-poverty programs.
In 1969, OEO published a report entitled “Women in the War on
Poverty.” In this report too, OEO emphasized that American women had
long been active in efforts to help the “poor,” as individuals and throughvarious organizations. The report declared that many kinds of anti-poverty programs, such as CAP, Head Start, and the Job Corps, offered thechance for women to use “their ingenuity and creative talents, to reinspire and reshape lives, and to participate in an urgent challenge to wipeout poverty.”15
There are two signiﬁcant themes in this report. First, the report stressedthat women of all ages and from all walks of life volunteered for the antipoverty programs. It did not specify the differences among “women” inthe anti-poverty efforts. At the conference too, OEO ofﬁcials had emphasized that women of all kinds were vigorously involved in the “War on
Poverty.” Yet some women who participated in the conference objected to this notion of women as a coherent group. For example, Frances
Flores, a delegate from the League of Mexican-American Women, suggested that most of the women who were at the conference were members of established organizations dominated by white females. She
pointed out that Mexican American women were not part of some of theestablished general groups and, consequently, they usually did not receive the opportunity to attend the conferences on the “War on Poverty.”
Dorothy Height, a delegate from the National Council of Negro Women,also stressed the particular conditions for women of color, mostly
African American women. She suggested that for the African American
woman poverty was “a condition that has plagued her all her life.” Height
added that although she spoke primarily of African American women,
what she said had bearing for “all women of minority groups.” These
women on the ﬂoor questioned whether all women were suffering poverty problems on the same level, and whether they were equally involvedin anti-poverty programs.16
Second, although OEO endeavored to mobilize women into the “Waron Poverty,” it tried to incorporate women into the anti-poverty efforts
not as paid workers but as volunteers. Nancy A. Naples also suggested
that OEO continued to deﬁne women’s roles in the “War on Poverty” involunteer terms, stressing their important support roles, not their leadership roles. In the report, OEO emphasized that more than twenty million

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women volunteers, either individually or as part of an organization, hadparticipated in programs related to the “War on Poverty.” Of the morethan 500,000 individuals who had volunteered for Head Start, for example, the majority had been women. Why did OEO stress the roles ofwomen as volunteers? Naples pointed out that by constructing the pathway to prevention of poverty through expanding employment opportunities for poor men, women’s employment needs and their actual
contributions needed to be ignored or marginalized.17 In other words, it
was important for OEO to keep women as volunteers in order to secure
the paid-jobs for poor men.
In order to reinforce the roles of women as volunteers, OEO also
invented “a homemaker program” where women were trained in homemaking skills. The goal of this program was to train about 10,000 local
women as “sub-professional homemaker aides.” These women would
go to the homes of the “poorest of the poor” to instruct them in nutrition,
sewing, home management, and the like.18 The creation of the “homemaker program” shows that OEO not only attempted to limit women’sroles to domestic matters but also tried to reformulate women’s subordination by assigning women the roles of aides.
OEO endeavored to mobilize women into the “War on Poverty,” emphasizing that women of all kinds were vigorously involved in the programs, but it located women as dependents, not as main agents of the
programs. Before examining in detail the ways in which Jones would
perform a role different from the one OEO expected women to play andpioneer new understandings of welfare, in the next section I brieﬂy discuss how the Los Angeles “War on Poverty” came into existence.
III

1.

LOS ANGELES “WAR ON POVERTY”: THE ESTABLISHMENTOF EYOA AND THE CREATION OF NAPP

The Establishment of the EYOA
The Los Angeles “War on Poverty” formally started soon after theWatts Revolts in 1965. The central task force of the Los Angeles “Waron Poverty,” the Economic and Youth Opportunities Agency of Greater
Los Angeles (EYOA), was established in September 1965. It was the
successor to the Youth Opportunities Board of Greater Los Angeles,
which had been set up to receive grants from President John F.
Kennedy’s Committee on Juvenile Delinquency and Youth Crime(PCJD). It took more than a year to establish the formal Community

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Action Agency, EYOA, and this caused signiﬁcant frustrations amongthe “poor” in Los Angeles. The Watts Revolts in August 1965, however, changed the situation greatly. The uprising continued for seven days,
leaving thirty-four dead, over 1,032 injured, 3,592 arrested, and at aprobable loss of $40 million in 1965 dollars. The Watts Revolts put “thestamp of urgency” on President Johnson’s desire to mount a concentrated attack on slum conditions.19
On 18 August, President Johnson sent former Florida Governor Leroy
Collins to solve the dispute over the Community Action Agency in Los
Angeles, and then appointed a special task force to report on the causesof the revolts. One week later, based on the recommendation of the task
force, the President authorized more than 45 employment, health, education, and housing programs for Los Angeles at a cost of $29 million.
As a result, the OEO funds per “poor” family for the city of Los Angeles
increased more than sixfold in the year following the Watts Revolts. The
EYOA was established on 13 September 1965 under the coordination ofCollins, and the Los Angeles “War on Poverty” ﬁnally began.20
The EYOA was made up of three parts: a board of directors which
decided EYOA policies, the director, and the employees who actually
managed the programs. As a Community Action Agency, a componentof the “War on Poverty” designed to promote the “maximum feasible
participation” of the “poor” in the planning, policy-making, and operation of the anti-poverty program, EYOA required the participation of the“poor” on the board of directors. The board of directors originally consisted of three representatives from each of four public government bodies (the City of Los Angeles, the County of Los Angeles, the Los Angeles
Uniﬁed School District, and the Los Angeles County Schools); one representative from each of six local organizations (United Way, AFL-CIO,
The Welfare Planning Council, The Los Angeles County Federation of
Coordinating Council, The Chamber of Commerce, and The League of
California Cities); and seven representatives elected by the residents of
the “poor” areas. Joe Maldonado, a Mexican American with a background in social work, who had been the executive director of the Youth
Opportunities Board, became the ﬁrst executive director of EYOA. The
number of employees was 245 on 31 October, 1966. EYOA continued
to function as a comprehensive planning and coordinating body andretained certain administrative responsibilities for the programs.21
Although EYOA required the participation of representatives of the“poor” in its decision making process, these representatives’ actual

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power on the board of directors was limited. Dale Rogers Marshall participated on the board in 1968 and conducted interviews with the thirtytwo board members. Marshall pointed out that while the participation of
the “poor” had a signiﬁcant inﬂuence on their careers, these representatives of the “poor” could not gain power over the decisions made by theboard. In other words, whereas the increase in conﬁdence, efﬁcacy, participation, interest in community work, self-esteem, and leadership aspirations among the representatives of the “poor” certainly showed thatthey were activated by their experiences on the board, they were unable
to match the public agencies’ predominant inﬂuence on the board.22 Thus
the EYOA board was ultimately dominated by public ofﬁcials. Opal C.
Jones and other local leaders would criticize this point later.
There were three signiﬁcant aspects concerning the funding of the
EYOA. First, almost half of the funds went to educational programs,
including Head Start, which was a child development program for preschool children in “poverty” areas. Second, the funding for job training
and other employment programs was only 22% of the overall grant, andmost of this money was aimed at youth, except in the Neighborhood
Adult Participation Project (NAPP). This was because the “War on
Poverty” originally emphasized youth as its major focus in the attack on“poverty”: “to prevent entry into poverty.” Although EYOA created
48,797 temporary and permanent jobs for “poor” people and this provided the skills and experiences for “poor” adults, NAPP was the only
program for adults who had already entered into “poverty.” Third, in
addition to the educational and employment programs, Teen Post, which
consisted of 150 recreational and cultural programs for teenagers in“poverty” areas, was one of the most popular programs in the Los Angeles “War on Poverty.”23 Overall, about 9% of funds were aimed at
adults. While most of the anti-poverty funds were channeled into programs for teenagers, Opal Jones would provide signiﬁcant critiques of
the EYOA through the only program aimed at adults, the NAPP.
How did EYOA decide on the eligibility of persons for its programs?
Based on the eligibility criteria issued by OEO in its CAP program guide,
EYOA established their own standards for each program, but as for thedeﬁnition of “poverty” in the election, the “poor” were deﬁned as thosewith a family income of less than $4,000 regardless of the number of
dependents. In 1960 whites comprised 73% of those below the poverty
line in Los Angeles County. But a strikingly different picture emerges
when the statistics are analyzed by racial/ethnic group. Only 17% ofKazuyo TSUCHIYA(p213)6/11 04.7.18 0:10 PM ページ 223

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223“white families (excluding Spanish speakers)” were below the poverty
line, while 34.7% of “non-white families” and 25.7% of “families with
Spanish surnames” earned less than $4,000 annually.24
The main focus of the EYOA programs was not the white “poor,” whocomposed more than 70% of the “poor,” but African American and
Latino “poor.”25 One of the major reasons why most of the anti-poverty
funds ﬂowed towards people of color was that it was the Watts Revolts
that had led to the organization of the Los Angeles “War on Poverty”
task force as well as to the provisioning of federal funds. Mexican
American leaders demanded equal opportunities for Mexican Americans,and as a result anti-poverty money went into Latino areas, too. The otherreason was that EYOA didn’t administer anti-poverty programs directly to each “poor” family, but instead identiﬁed “major poverty areas.”
And these “major poverty areas” were mostly places where African
Americans and Latinos lived.26 The fact that the main focus of EYOA
programs was on African American and Latino areas meant that the “Waron Poverty” had to attack not only poverty problems in general, but also
the relationship between racial inequality and poverty.27 Yet, EYOA did
not make clear how poverty issues and racial issues were intertwined,
but rather left local residents to tackle the racial issues by themselves.
This would be another signiﬁcant issue Opal C. Jones would critiquelater.
Next, I analyze the Neighborhood Adult Participation Project (NAPP),
the only program for adults, where Jones would play a signiﬁcant role
as a director.
2. Bringing the “War on Poverty” to the Grass-roots Level: The Neighborhood Adult Participation Project (NAPP)
The Neighborhood Adult Participation Project, funded by the OEO
through the EYOA, was unique not only because it was one of a few programs operated by an African American woman, but also because it was
targeted at adults rather than children or young people. The executive
director, Opal C. Jones, clearly intended to bring the anti-poverty
programs closer to the people and to mobilize “poor” adults in theirneighborhoods. NAPP started its operation on 1 April, 1965, with ten
neighborhood “outposts” located in Los Angeles County and 400 aides
trained there. Soon the number of “outposts” had grown to 15: Avalon,
Boyle Heights, Canoga Park, Compton-Willowbrook, El Monte,
Exposition, Florence-Graham, Lincoln Heights, Long Beach, Los

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KAZUYO TSUCHIYAAngeles Central, Pacoima, San Pedro, Venice-Mar Vista, Watts, andWilmington-Harbor City. According to a NAPP pamphlet titled This is
the Neighborhood Adult Participation Project Story in A Capsule, NAPP
had two purposes. First, it was established to bring anti-poverty programs
closer to the people. Secondly, it would provide “pebble in the pond”
change in the ways in which these agencies, services and programs areoperated. In other words, its chief purpose was to link the anti-poverty
programs with the people who were served by the programs, and to bringthese anti-poverty programs to the grass-roots level, so that people in“poor” communities could have a louder voice in the operation of the“War on Poverty.”28
The program of NAPP was threefold: Career Development, Neighborhood Development, and Information and Referral. Career Development
was established for providing job opportunities for neighborhood adults
in “poor” areas as aides at NAPP “outposts.” Through the Career Development program, these neighborhood adults were able to seek a new
career and demonstrate their abilities as staff colleagues who could help
improve the agencies’ services. Neighborhood Development was fororganizing neighborhoods and their people to work on their own behalf“toward self-help, self-determination and total improvement.” Finally,
Information and Referral was formed to link neighbors with the services
for which they were entitled. The NAPP outposts helped neighborhood
people ﬁnd jobs and served as a liaison between the neighborhood adults
and the anti-poverty agencies. NAPP also helped people improve theirneighborhoods through various kinds of activities: offering residents
English speaking classes, adult education classes, civil service instructions, and hot lunch for school children; helping neighborhood people
install street/trafﬁc lights and obtain crossing guards, boulevard stop
signs, and pedestrian cross-walks; establishing a Saturday Clinic andexpanding services in Public Health Centers. For adults in “poor” communities, NAPP acted as an important link to the EYOA in order to getthese various services enacted. NAPP became one of the most popular
programs for “poor” communities among the Los Angeles “War on Poverty” activities.29

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IV
1.

225

RECASTING THE LOS ANGELES “WAR ON POVERTY”“It’s the Same Old Soup Warmed Over Unless We Become Agentsof Change”: Opal C. Jones
Opal C. Jones started recasting anti-poverty programs through the
NAPP. Jones wrote various kinds of pamphlets to explain the characterof NAPP.30 This paper focuses on three sites in which Jones sought toaddress poverty: the connection between poverty and racial discrimination; the importance of the role of the people who were served by the
programs; and the critique of professional anti-poverty workers. Jones
did not explicitly discuss women’s rights or women’s roles in the antipoverty programs. What Jones achieved as one of few female directorsof color, however, resulted in the expanding of women’s roles in the Los
Angeles “War on Poverty” programs. By raising the three critical issues
noted above, Jones forcefully challenged EYOA’s perceptions of what
women should and should not do.
Jones paid particular attention to the connection between poverty andracial discrimination. She was invited to the hearing on the Examinationof the War on Poverty held in Los Angeles in May 1967. In her statement, she criticized some people involved in the “War on Poverty” forignoring the link existing between “poverty and discrimination,” and“housing [discrimination] and other forms of segregation.” In a pamphlet
titled Strategy and Strategists, Jones wrote that anti-poverty workers had
to tackle “all of the forces at work in the neighborhood,” including
racism. Jones was fully aware that the EYOA and public ofﬁcials involved in the “War on Poverty” failed to confront issues of racial discrimination seriously, especially those regarding residential segregation.
Even though many anti-poverty programs targeted the districts inhabited by people of color, only poverty issues were discussed, and issues ofrace were usually left unexamined. Jones repeatedly emphasized, therefore, that the issue of racial discrimination could not be separated fromthe causes of poverty.31
Jones also vigorously encouraged the participation of the “poor” andbelieved their involvement and their perspectives were indispensable tothe effective functioning of the program. In a report titled A New Lookin Community Service, she pointed out that there were plenty of non-professional and neighborhood staff—“ready, anxious, willing and able toKazuyo TSUCHIYA(p213)6/11 04.7.18 0:10 PM ページ 226

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work, to serve and become members” of the staffs of local social
agencies, or to serve as neighborhood workers in the schools. Jones
wrote, “I have discovered that for a long time they [neighborhood residents] have wanted to work with us—side by side in our social institutions.” Jones also conducted research on what neighborhood mothers
wished their children’s teachers would do and introduced these mothers’
opinions into discussions of the “War on Poverty.” For example, one
mother wanted her child’s teacher to educate him in “the role of the
Negro in world history, especially the history of the United States.”
Another mother hoped that teachers would become more involved incommunity activities. Jones regarded the people NAPP served not only
as recipients of the anti-poverty programs but also as coworkers who
would have innovative ideas and suggestions.32
Finally, Jones was critical of the “experts” involved in anti-poverty
programs or the “professional” anti-poverty workers who lacked “sincerity,” as evidenced by her picture book titled Guess Who’s Coming to
the Ghettos?. In the ﬁrst segment, Jones provided a critique of the “experts” in “poverty problems,” who were mostly middle-class well-educated whites. Jones wrote:
They saw us as problems—as clients, as the poor . . .
They all became experts—with advice given free! . . .
They soon made studies; They researched us to death . . .
They kept up the old “maximum feasible line.” . . .
They sat back and waited for it all to take place . . .
With its new leadership, new voices, new plans, they cried—oh, the neighborhood is out of our hands! . . .
And so, they got busy and made new plans to determine the target—back intheir hands [See Figure 1].33

Jones also critiqued the “professional” anti-poverty workers, who had
seldom paid attention to the ghettoes in the past but suddenly became“professional” workers in the “War on Poverty”:
Passed us each day with her head in the air. Lived near us and never seemed
to care . . .
So, ﬁnally the war on poverty came here . . .
The neighbor became an expert in health and disease, the ghetto’s problems
and the ghetto’s needs . . .
To be an authority in health, law, and crime, but tell us, dear lady, where haveyou been all this time?34

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Jones was concerned about the absence of dedication on the part ofanti-poverty workers. Jones was surely intent on critiquing “white middle-class experts” here, yet Jones also directed her critique at her own
professional practices as well. Having worked as a professional settlement worker, Jones had always been interested in the relationshipbetween the “experts” and people served by the programs. Jones emphasized that in order to ensure the participation of the “poor” in the antipoverty programs, the “experts” or “professional” anti-poverty workers,
including herself, had to change. She wrote in another pamphlet that “wemust listen more and talk less, we must ask more and tell less, we must
learn more and teach less, we must release control of some of the ideasthat we have held as the “only way to ﬂy.”” Jones stressed that if NAPP
workers were only content with the status-quo and would not be “agentsof change” then all of the programs and every project would be “the sameold soup warmed over.”Figure 1.

Jones’ Critique of the “Professional” Anti-Poverty Workers

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2. “How Much Do You Really Care?”: the Dismissal of Jones and the
Reorganization of EYOA
Los Angeles Mayor Samuel Yorty and the EYOA executive director
Joe Maldonado saw Opal C. Jones and NAPP as a political threat. As
early as the summer of 1965, Maldonado ordered Jones to stay awayfrom the community and civil rights meeting, as Jones and other NAPP
workers struggled to have a part in the formation of an Anti-Poverty
group in Los Angeles.35
In February 1966, there was a rumor ﬂoating around that EYOA wouldﬁre Opal C. Jones. African American leaders in Los Angeles, such asCouncilman Tom Bradley and Congressman Augustus Hawkins, hadalready complained that Yorty was trying to take over NAPP and EYOA
by placing obstacles to prevent NAPP from mobilizing the “poor.” Oneof the core newspapers for African American residents in Los Angeles,
The Los Angeles Sentinel, reported that Maldonado had allegedly said at
the meeting that someone was causing confusion in the city’s poverty
program and Robert Goe, Mayor Yorty’s representative on the EYOA
board, had advised Maldonado to ﬁre Jones. The Sentinel stated that thiswas because Jones and the successful operation of NAPP had become a“threat to the power structure of EYOA.”36
The conﬂict reached its climax in April 1966. Jones expressed her
opinion that NAPP should be separated from the EYOA, and be operated
for the beneﬁt of the community. Maldonado contended that NAPP
should work through the EYOA to help produce jobs. When Jones
proceeded with a public meeting in March intended to clarify the role of
NAPP in the Los Angeles “War on Poverty” and improve the relationship between Mexican workers and African American workers, EYOA
ordered Jones to cancel it. The 400 NAPP workers staged a protest march
to the EYOA headquarters in support of Jones’ leadership on the 28th ofMarch. Jones refused to cancel the meeting. Subsequently, on the 4th ofApril, Maldonado ﬁred Jones.37
There were two grounds for the dismissal of Jones, according to
EYOA. First, Jones was ﬁred for “insubordination” after she refused tocancel the meeting. Maldonado explained that the decision to ﬁre Jones
was the result of the “unanimous agreement of the EYOA board members in attendance.” However, The Sentinel reported that this was notquite true. Rather, the seven representatives of the “poor” expressed asmuch surprise and shock at the dismissal of Jones as the rest of the community. Samuel Anderson, one representative of the “poor,” said that all

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of the representatives were “disturbed and concerned about the dismissalof Opal C. Jones.” Secondly, Maldonado also accused Jones of having
solicited funds from her aides for an unauthorized trip to Washington,
D.C in September, 1965. Yet, Ursula Gutierrez, another poverty representative, explained that the EYOA board had no evidence of any wrongdoing by Jones. Gutierrez questioned Maldonado’s claim that he did notlearn about the trip until February and had not brought the matter to theattention of the board “because of vacations and the time required togather evidence.” Jones told The Sentinel that she had gone to Washington
D.C. during her own vacation time in October and at her own expense
to plead with the OEO to make NAPP a separate agency from EYOA.
The Sentinel concluded that the real and recurring issue between Jonesand the EYOA was the “philosophy behind the operation of her NAPP
program.”38 The Sentinel suggested that the EYOA dismissed Jones
because she tried to recast the anti-poverty programs to incorporate thevoices of the “poor.”
Jones did not hold her tongue. Jones was fully aware that she was easily dismissed because she was one of the very few female directors. She
said in The Sentinel, “ I will ﬁght for my own right and reputation as asocial worker and for NAPP to become an independent, vital, community action program.” Then she continued by saying that Maldonado
should treat her “not only as a woman, but as a staff member.”39 Jones
thus demanded that Maldonado and EYOA change their perceptions of“appropriate women’s roles.”Jones then wrote a pamphlet titled I Wonder Why Some People Don’t
Like Me?, and sent it to Maldonado on the day she was ﬁred. She wrote:
You will remember that our neighbors began to read the Community Action
Guidelines and they discovered all about that “feasible participation.” But,
although you always talked about your belief in the idea, I never really felt
or thought you really meant it. Why? Because from time to time you expressed your lack of high expectation of neighborhood people; you expressed
your doubts and you always seemed to shy away from conﬂict, criticism and“unsanded down” or real opinions.
You always seemed to be on the side of the powerful, and you always seemed
to protect the “powerful” more than you seemed to “look out” for the “powerless.”40

Jones asked Maldonado, who was once a social worker like Jones, avery fundamental question: “how much do you really care?” Jones knewthat she was dismissed because she challenged the “powerful” and had

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done her best to bring the anti-poverty programs closer to the “poor” people.41
The story did not end there. Jones actually succeeded in recovering
her position as the director of NAPP. She even achieved her goal ofwresting control of NAPP from EYOA. As more and more of the media
in Los Angeles covered the controversy over the Jones dismissal, OEO,
afraid of the negative impact on the “War on Poverty” programs, took
action in order to settle the dispute. Sargent Shriver, the director of OEO,
got Mayor Yorty and Maldonado to agree to rehire Jones as long as
NAPP was divested from EYOA. On the 7th of April, Daniel Luevano,regional director of the Ofﬁce of Economic Opportunity, issued a directive divesting EYOA from direct control over NAPP. On the 25th ofApril, Jones was rehired as interim director of NAPP in a temporary truce
until EYOA could turn over control of NAPP to the Los Angeles Federation of Settlement and Neighborhood Centers Inc. in July 1966.42
The controversy over the dismissal of Jones had a strong impact on
the organization of EYOA itself as well as its control over NAPP.
Luevano also issued a directive stripping EYOA of its sole control overCommunity Action Program, although he declined to link his directive
to the uproar over the battle for control of NAPP. EYOA was directed
to reorganize and decentralize its operation. Four new agencies werecreated in late 1966 and early 1967 in Los Angeles County.43 Jones’ critique of EYOA led to the reorganization of EYOA in the end.
Furthermore, in spite of all these difﬁculties, Jones succeeded in keeping NAPP moving forward. In 1971, Jones received recognition for her
achievements in NAPP, and was elected President of the Los Angeles
Federation of Settlements and Neighborhood Centers. The Los Angeles
Federation of Settlements and Neighborhood Centers was one of themost important delegate agencies of the Los Angeles “War on Poverty,”which operating Teen Post, Head Start, and NAPP as noted. Jones regarded this promotion as “an honor and a privilege” and made efforts tomake the organization a vital instrument for attacking poverty. By 1976,
NAPP had become the largest and oldest poverty program in L.A.44
V

CONCLUSION

In this article, I have discussed how Opal C. Jones, a female welfare
activist of color in Los Angeles, carried on the struggle against the ofﬁcial anti-poverty agency, the EYOA. Jones hoped that NAPP workers

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would be the active agents of change. Like the female CAP workers in
Philadelphia and New York depicted by Nancy A. Naples, Jones did not
passively accept the subordinate role in the anti-poverty programs whichOEO originally expected women to play. Jones was neither the tool of
the OEO nor the EYOA. Rather, Jones vigorously encouraged the participation of the “poor,” and succeeded in bringing the anti-poverty programs closer to the residents in the neighborhoods. In so doing, Jones
constituted a challenge to the OEO’s ofﬁcial representation of women.
Moreover, she also challenged the EYOA’s vision of the programs as
being dominated by the local anti-poverty agency rather than local people.
Whereas OEO did not specify racial/class differences among “women” in the “War on Poverty,” Jones saw the workers who participated in
the “War on Poverty” as a diverse group comprised of people of variedsocial/economic status and race. Jones repeatedly referred to the relationship between racial discrimination, especially residential segregation, and poverty. She also paid close attention to the class differences
between people who were served by the programs and the “experts”
involved in poverty programs. By criticizing “professional” anti-poverty workers whom she believed lacked dedication, Jones provided a signiﬁcant critique of the local welfare system that prevented the people
served by the programs from playing an active role. Attacking racial discrimination, critiquing middle-class “experts” for ignoring the voices of
the “poor,” and contesting EYOA’s notions of “appropriate women’sroles” were inseparable commitments in Jones’ political career.
Finally, Jones was not passive in her response to the dominant discourse constructed by the local anti-poverty agency, EYOA. As the historian Deborah G. White argued, local welfare activists involved in theLos Angeles “War on Poverty” like Opal C. Jones certainly refused to“internalize” the ofﬁcial discourse. What was equally signiﬁcant was that
Jones vigorously challenged and recast the ofﬁcial discourse by writing
various kinds of pamphlets and documents herself. The historiographyof the “War on Poverty” should shed light not only on the efforts of policy makers and male community organizers of color, but also on thoseof female welfare activists like Jones. In addition, studies of “welfare
dependency” discourse need to pay closer attention to these local welfare activists so that they will be able to discuss how these activists waged(and continue to wage) struggles against the racialized and gendered
nature of U.S. welfare policies. Opal C. Jones was not a powerless victim

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but a historical actor who provided an alternative way of understanding
the meaning of welfare through the eyes of the people who were servedby the programs.
NOTES
1

I am using quotation marks (the “poor”) here to indicate the OEO and the Community Action Agency in Los Angeles (the EYOA) determined the eligibility of persons to be served by the CAP using special ways and that their eligibility criteria were
not always clear. The OEO considered the following factors in determining which families and individuals were to be assisted: the number and proportion of low-income
families, particularly those with children; the extent of persistent unemployment andunderemployment; the number and proportion of persons receiving cash or other assistance on a needs basis from public agencies or private organizations; the number of
migrant or transient low-income families; school dropout rates; military service rejection rates; other evidence of low educational attainment; the incidence of disease, disability, and infant mortality; housing conditions; adequacy of community facilities andservices; the incidence of crime and juvenile delinquency. For certain programs such as
Head Start, OEO used an income table as an indicator. For example, in 1968, “poverty”
income for nonfarm households was deﬁned as $1,600 for one person, and $2,000 for
two, with increments averaging about $500 for each additional family member. While
the EYOA generally followed OEO’s eligibility criteria, EYOA occasionally established
its own standards. For example, as I discuss later, with regard to the deﬁnition of “poverty” in the election, the EYOA created its own original criteria and regarded the “poor”
as those with a family income of less than $4,000 regardless of the number of dependents. U.S. Ofﬁce of Economic Opportunity, Community Action Program, Community
Action Program Guide: Instructions for Developing, Conducting, and Administering a
Community Action Program (Washington, D.C.: GPO, 1965), 21; U.S. General Accounting Ofﬁce, Review of the Community Action Program in the Los Angeles Area
under the Economic Opportunity Act: Report to the Congress on the Ofﬁce of Economic
Opportunity (Washington, D.C.: GPO, 1968), 24–25.
2
The Economic Opportunity Act consisted of six titles: Youth Programs (Title I),
Urban and Rural Community Action Programs (Title II), Special Programs to Combat
Poverty in Rural Areas (Title III), Employment and Investment Incentives (Title IV),
Work Experience Programs (Title V), Administration and Coordination (Title VI). 78
Stat. 508. As for the Economic Opportunity Act, see Richard Blumenthal, “The Bureaucracy: Antipoverty and the Community Action Program,” in American Political Institutions and Public Policy, ed. Allam P. Sindler (Boston: Little, Brown, 1969), 169–72;
James L. Sundquist, “Origins of the War on Poverty,” in On Fighting Poverty: Perspectives from Experience, ed. James L. Sundquist (New York: Basic Books, Inc.,
Publishers, 1969), 6–33; Frances Fox Piven and Richard A. Cloward, Regulating the
Poor: the Functions of Public Welfare (New York: Pantheon Books, 1971), 248–84;
Michael B. Katz, The Undeserving Poor: From the War on Poverty to the War on
Welfare (New York: Pantheon Books, 1989), 79–123; James T. Patterson, America’s
Struggle Against Poverty 1900–1994 (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1994),
99–115; Jill Quadagno, The Color of Welfare: How Racism Undermined the War on
Poverty (New York: Oxford University Press, 1995); Michael L. Gillette, Launching the
War on Poverty: An Oral History (New York: Twayne Publishers, 1996); Ofﬁce of
Economic Opportunity, Catalog of Federal Programs for Individual and Community

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Improvement (Washington, D.C.: GPO, 1965); OEO, Community Action Program
Guide, 7.
3
Daniel P. Moynihan, Maximum Feasible Misunderstanding: Community Action in
the War on Poverty (New York: The Free Press, 1969), 134–35, 137.
4
J. David Greenstone and Paul E. Peterson, Race and Authority in Urban Politics:
Community Participation and the War on Poverty (Chicago: University of Chicago
Press, 1973); Peterson and Greenstone, “Racial Change and Citizen Participation: The
Mobilization of Low-Income Communities through Community Action,” in A Decadeof Federal Antipoverty Programs: Achievements, Failures, and Lessons, ed. Robert H.
Haveman (New York: Academic Press, 1977), 254–55; James A. Morone, The Democratic Wish: Popular Participation and the Limits of American Government (New York:
Basic Books, 1990), 244–48.
5
Quadagno, 4, 33, 57–59, 196–97.
6
Jill Quadagno and Catherine Fobes, “The Welfare State and the Cultural Reproduction of Gender: Making Good Girls and Boys in the Job Corps,” Social Problems
42, no.2 (May, 1995), 171–90.
7
Nancy A. Naples, Grassroots Warriors: Activist Mothering, Community Work, and
the War on Poverty (New York: Routledge, 1998).
8
Nancy Fraser and Linda Gordon. “A Genealogy of Dependency: Tracing a Keywordof the U.S. Welfare State,” Signs: Journal of Women in Culture and Society 19, no. 2(1994), 309–11; Barbara Cruikshank, The Will to Empower: Democratic Citizens andOther Subjects (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1999), 110–21; Kenneth J. Neubeck
and Noel A. Cazenave, Welfare Racism: Playing the Race Card Against America’s Poor
(New York: Routledge, 2001).
9
George Lipsitz, A Life in the Struggle: Ivory Perry and the Culture of Opposition(Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 1988), 135–40; Linda Gordon, “The New
Feminist Scholarship on the Welfare State,” in Women, the State, and Welfare, ed. Linda
Gordon (Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 1990), 28; Deborah Gray White, Too
Heavy a Load: Black Women in Defense of Themselves, 1894–1994 (New York: W.W.
Norton, 1999), 212–42.
10
Mary Henry, Sharron A. Eason, and Thyra Chushenberry, Interview by author, 30
September 2002, tape recording, The Avalon-Carver Community Center, Los Angeles,CA.
11
Studies of the Los Angeles “War on Poverty” through CAP have produced two interpretations. First, Dale Rogers Marshall participated in the board of the Economic andYouth Opportunities Agency of Greater Los Angeles (EYOA) in 1968, and conductedinterviews with the thirty-two board members. Marshall’s work is valuable since there
are not many sources available today that focus on the EYOA board members. But her
work concentrated on the impact of the participation of the “poor” on the EYOA board.
Therefore, she did not examine how activists outside EYOA challenged the local andfederal welfare agencies. Second, Robert Alan Bauman examined the history of theimplementation of the “War on Poverty” in Los Angeles. He focused not only on the
EYOA but also on the Watts Labor Community Action Committee, which was founded by labor unionists in the Watts area. He mentioned the activities of Opal C. Jones
only brieﬂy, and concluded that the “War on Poverty” in Los Angeles failed in many
ways. Dale Rogers Marshall, “The Politics of Participation in Poverty: A Case Study of
the Board of the Economic and Youth Opportunities Agency of Greater Los Angeles”(Ph.D. diss., University of California, Los Angeles, 1969); Marshall, The Politics ofParticipation in Poverty: A Case Study of the Board of the Economic and Youth Opportunities Agency of Greater Los Angeles (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1971);

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Robert Alan Bauman, “Race, Class, and Political Power: The Implementation of the War
on Poverty in Los Angeles” (Ph.D. diss., University of California, Santa Barbara, 1998),
12, 257–60.
12
Quadagno and Fobes, 172.
13
Ofﬁce of Economic Opportunity, Conference Proceedings: Women in the War on
Poverty (Washington, D.C.: GPO, 1967), 4–6, 52.
14
Memo from Sargent Shriver to President Johnson, 20 April 1967, Conﬁdential File,Box129 (Reel 13) in The Presidential Documents Series, The War on Poverty, 1964–
1968: Part1: The White House Central Files. Selections from the holdings of the Lyndon
B. Johnson Library, ed. Mark I. Gelfand (Frederick, M.D.: University Publications ofAmerica, 1986), Microﬁlm.; OEO, Conference Proceedings, 57.
15
Ofﬁce of Economic Opportunity, Women in the War on Poverty (Washington, D.C.:
GPO, 1969), 1–2.
16
OEO, Conference Proceedings, 1–2, 20–21, 40–41.
17
OEO, Women in the War on Poverty, 3; Naples, 5–6.
18
Memo to President Johnson, 23 August, 1968, Subject File, Box 32 (Reel 6) in The
Presidential Documents Series, The War on Poverty.
19
The delay was caused by a political war between the Los Angeles city mayor, SamuelW. Yorty, who tried to make YOB the Community Action Agency in Los Angeles, andthose who believed that YOB was controlled by Mayor Yorty and formed another alternative organization, called the Economic Opportunity Federation. For the establishingof the EYOA, see Congress, Senate, Committee on Labor and Public Welfare, Subcommittee on Employment, Manpower, and Poverty, Examination of the War on Poverty, 90th Cong., 1st sess., May 12, 1967, 3846; Marshall, The Politics of Participationin Poverty; Publication, OEO, 25 November 1964, Subject File, FG11-15, Box 124 in
The Presidential Documents Series, The War on Poverty.
20
California, Governor’s Commission on the Los Angeles Riots [McCone Commission], Violence in the City: An End or Beginning? (Los Angeles: College BookStore,1965); Gerald Horne, Fire This Time: The Watts Uprising and the 1960s (1995;
reprint, New York: Da Capo Press, 1997), 281–85; James W. Button, Black Violence:
Political Impact of the 1960s Riots (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1978),30–31; Los Angeles Times, 29 August 1965.
21
At ﬁrst, the EYOA was the only Community Action Agency in Los Angeles County.
Four new agencies were created in late 1966 and early 1967 in Los Angeles County.
U.S. General Accounting Ofﬁce, Review of the Community Action Program in the Los
Angeles Area under the Economic Opportunity Act, 5–6; Mary Kaye, Distribution ofPoor Youths in Los Angeles County (Los Angeles: EYOA, 1967), v; Senate, Examinationof the War on Poverty, 3844.
22
Dale Rogers Marshall, The Politics of Participation in Poverty: A Case Study of theBoard of the Economic and Youth Opportunities Agency of Greater Los Angeles(Berkeley: University of California Press, 1971), 135–36.
23
U.S. General Accounting Ofﬁce, 1–23; Patterson, 136.
24
U.S. General Accounting Ofﬁce, 8–10; Memo, Robert L. Goe to Irvin Walder, 10
January 1966, Folder126307, Box A-1938, Records Management Division, Ofﬁce of
the City Clerk, City of Los Angeles, California; Senate, Examination of the War on
Poverty, 3845.
25
Some people questioned this point during the hearing on Examination of the War
on Poverty in Los Angeles in May 1967. For example, George Knox Roth, a research
director at the General Research Consultants in Pasadena, stated that “the Negro and
Mexican-American poor have been favored both with jobs and assistance with an almostKazuyo TSUCHIYA(p213)6/11 04.7.18 0:10 PM ページ 235

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total disregard for the other segments of the poor equally in need of assistance.” Senate,
Examination of the War on Poverty, 3986.
26
Ibid., 3895–98.
27
Senate, Examination of the War on Poverty, 3979–80, 3986.
28
Neighborhood Adult Participation Project, This is N.A.P.P.!: A Little Reader about
the Neighborhood Adult Participation Project, in Box 1, Neighborhood Adult Participation Project, Inc., California Social Welfare Archives, Special Collections, University of Southern California (USC) , Los Angeles, California; N.A.P.P., NAPP Now:
An Explanation of the Neighborhood Adult Participation Project Incorporated, in Box
1, N.A.P.P., Inc, California Social Welfare Archives, Special Collections, USC; N.A.P.P.,
This is the Neighborhood Adult Participation Project Story in A Capsule, in Box 2,
N.A.P.P., Inc, California Social Welfare Archives, Special Collections, USC.
29
NAPP, This is the Neighborhood Adult Participation Project Story in A Capsule.
30
Although the pamphlets written by Jones were valuable sources, readers should notethat there is a methodological problem concerning the use of her pamphlets. These pamphlets are important since they would help readers understand the character of the NAPP
and Jones’ viewpoints toward the anti-poverty programs. Also, these pamphlets are signiﬁcant because there are not many resources available today about a speciﬁc program
funded by OEO through EYOA. Many of the pamphlets, however, do not have specific dates, so it is difﬁcult to put them in chronological order and examine how her views
changed after 1965.
31
Senate, Examination of the War on Poverty, 3949–53; Opal C. Jones, Strategy andStrategists, 28 May, 1968, in Box 3, N.A.P.P., Inc, California Social Welfare Archives,
Special Collections, USC; Opal C. Jones, How to Work With People of All Ethnic
Groups, in Box 4, N.A.P.P., Inc, California Social Welfare Archives, Special Collections, USC.
32
Opal C. Jones, A New Look in Community Service, in Box 4, N.A.P.P., Inc,
California Social Welfare Archives, Special Collections, USC; Opal C. Jones, I Wish
My Child’s Teacher Would. . . , in Box 4, N.A.P.P., Inc, California Social Welfare
Archives, Special Collections, USC.
33
Opal C. Jones, Guess Who’s Coming to the Ghettos?, in Box 2, N.A.P.P., Inc,
California Social Welfare Archives, Special Collections, USC, 2–11.
34
Ibid., 14–21.
35
Opal C. Jones, I Wonder Why Some People Don’t Like Me?, 1 April, 1966, in Box
2, N.A.P.P., Inc, California Social Welfare Archives, Special Collections, USC;
Bauman, 195. Jones reacted to Maldonado’s orders by writing a picture book titled New
Committee in the Zoo. Jones compared the power politics in Los Angeles “War on Poverty” to a zoo containing big mean animals (the “powerful” who tried to dominate antipoverty programs for themselves), big kind animals (the “powerful” who tried to bring
the programs closer to the people), small mean animals (the “powerless” who collaborated with big mean animals), and small kind animals ( the “powerless” who tried torecast the anti-poverty programs based on the experiences of the poor people). Opal C.
Jones, The New Committee in the Zoo, in Box 2, N.A.P.P., Inc, California Social Welfare
Archives, Special Collections, USC.
36
Bauman, 195–96; “Opal Jones Remains in Poverty Position, but Job Still in Doubt,”
Los Angeles Sentinel, 17 February, 1966, front page.
37
Ibid.; “Poverty War Flares Over Bill Nicholas,” Los Angeles Sentinel, 31 March,
1966, front page.
38“Hearing on Dismissal Set Wednesday,” Los Angeles Sentinel, 7 April, 1966, front
page and D2.

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39

Ibid.
Opal C. Jones, I Wonder Why Some People Don’t Like Me?, 1 April, 1966, in Box
2, N.A.P.P., Inc, California Social Welfare Archives, Special Collections, USC, 2.
41
Ibid.
42
“Rights Ofﬁcial Hails Poverty War Shake-up,” Los Angeles Times, 9 April, 1966,
part 2–10; “Ousted Poverty Aide Rehired in Stormy Session,” Los Angeles Times, 26
April, 1966, part 1–1; “EYOA Reinstates Mrs. Opal Jones,” Los Angeles Sentinel, 28
April, 1966, front page; Bauman, 197–98. The EYOA was abolished in 1973, and theGreater Los Angeles Community Action Agency, which began life as the replacement
agency for EYOA in 1973, was abolished in 1978.
43“Legal Fight Seen in Poverty War,” Los Angeles Sentinel, 14 April, 1966, front page;“Clariﬁed Rules Sought in Poverty War Here,” Los Angeles Times, 3 May, 1966, part
1–18.
44
Mary Henry, Sharron A. Eason, and Thyra Chushenberry, Interview by author, 30
September 2002, tape recording, The Avalon-Carver Community Center, Los Angeles,
CA; Opal C. Jones, “President’s Report, 1971–1972,” 24 January, 1973, in Minutes(70s), The Los Angeles Federation of Settlements and Neighborhood Centers, Inc.,
California Social Welfare Archives, Special Collections, USC.
40

Sources: Opal C. Jones, Guess Who’s Coming to the Ghettos?, in Box 2, N.A.P.P., Inc,
California Social Welfare Archives, Special Collections, USC.