What Inspired Robert F. Kennedy’s Fight Against Hunger

June 22, 2012

In 1967, Senator Robert F. Kennedy traveled to Mississippi to check on the progress of the Economic Opportunity Act of 1964, better known as the War on Poverty. What he found, writes Peter Edelman in his book So Rich, So Poor, was “children, thousands of them, hungry to a point very near starvation.” Kennedy was “deeply moved and outraged,” Edelman writes, and made relieving hunger a top priority. These photos illustrate the lives of poor African Americans in rural Mississippi around the time of Kennedy’s visit — images likely similar to the ones that inspired him.

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TOPICS: Culture, Equality, Social Change

TAGS: hunger, mississippi, photos, poverty, RFK, Robert F. Kennedy, robert kennedy, slideshow, war on poverty, widget

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http://twitter.com/Liberalinsc1 Liberalinsc
These images are like those from my childhood. Not really that long ago.
Jbsbuck
Yes..Bill, we all know conservatives hate children..Is that what you’re trying to convince people of?
Better yet..there has never been the number of poor, hungry and homeless as under the present president..Barack Obama..
With all of the money he’s wasted..he has accomplished nothing more than dividing this nation and putting us more deeply in debt than any other president in this nation’s history..and in less time..
PW
Ok, let’s bring this discussion back within the scope of what this post is about and leave the rest. Please comment on the Huffington Post or MSNBC’s website if you want to try to bait liberals.
Billthebrown
You ideology rules your common sense, your charity, and compassion.
Ballm95
These kids don’t look hungry to me, they actually well feed, maybe we need to see some pictures Africa and compare.
Ballm95
I’ve looked through all the pictures and don’t see one starving child, the children look like any fast growing kid, if they were fat, then we complain that they obese and eating too much at McDonald’s. Now if you want to talk about their living conditions and their education, that’s a whole different story, everyone in their right mind knows these kids had no hope of a decent education that help them help themselves get out of this miserable poverty and suffering. The lack of a decent education in demographically poor areas is the same today as it was then, irregardless of Democratic or Republican run regions. Poor stay Poor because of their education, let me say that again, Poor stay Poor because of their education…..
Cathy
Yes, and today the poor are those who used to have jobs and were considered “middle class.” And we are not just people of color, although the core of the extreme impoverished are people of color. But the changes in the economy are affecting greater numbers of workers who had jobs, homes, cars, education, etc. The labor-replacing technology is transforming every aspect of our society. We are entering an epoch of social revolution and all institutions are being redesigned, along with the economy, to benefit the global rich. We are no longer needed by the ruling class so they no longer have an obligation to keep a social contract with us.
Anonymous
And, what will they do (the rich) when they no longer have our pensions, 401k’s and social security payments to raid? That is where we are headed. No income means none of those will be paid into.
http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=1001771420 Nancy Morton
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Bush’s Parting Gift: Poverty Rate Rose in 2008
by Charles Lemos, Thu Sep 10, 2009 at 07:57:17 PM EDT
The US Census Bureau released its annual report for 2008 which found that the nation’s poverty rate climbed to 13.2 percent last year, up from 12.5 percent in 2007 and matching an eleven year high. Given the economy, next year’s report should find an even higher rate.According the US Census Bureau, 39.8 million US residents last year lived below the poverty line which is defined as an income of $22,025 for a family of four. Two and half million more people fell into poverty in the final year of Bush. Furthermore it is beyond disconcerting that the number of the severely poor has increased faster than any other segment of the population. Since 2000, this segment has expanded by close to 30%.Overall, median family incomes in 2008 fell to $50,300, compared with $52,200 the year before wiping the gains of the three previous years. Adjusted for inflation, median family incomes were lower in 2008 than a decade earlier. As Lawrence Katz, an economist at Harvard University, noted the Bush years were a “lost decade for the typical American family.”
If there was good news in the report, it is that Gini Coefficient, a measure of income inequality (0 represents perfect income equality and 1 perfect inequality), remained effectively unchanged after climbing throughout the Bush years. Income inequality was statistically unchanged between 2007 and 2008, as measured by shares of aggregate household income by quintiles and the Gini index. The Gini index was 0.466 in 2008. The Gini index stood at 0.462 in 2000. The Gini Coefficient for the United States has risen steadily since 1967 though it has risen most acutely since 1981. That’s not by coincidence. It is the result of Republican neo-liberal policies that have dismantled the safety net and ushered in a tax policy that favors the wealthiest 1 percent of Americans.It is important to note that the erosion of the American middle class can be traced to the Friedmanistic economic policies pursued by every Republican Administration since Ronald Reagan. And yet this remains largely a disconnect among the American people. The share of national income going to corporate profits has far outstripped the share going to wages and salaries. Manufacturing jobs with benefits and union protection have vanished since 1980 and have been supplanted by low-wage, low-security service-sector work. The richest fifth of US households enjoys more than 50 percent of the national income, while the poorest fifth gets by on an estimated 3.5 percent share of the national income. Even more striking is that the poorest region in the country remains the South where 14.3 percent of the population lives below the poverty level. And yet the South remains a GOP stronghold.As of 2006, the average after-tax income of the top 1 percent is 63 times larger than the average for the bottom 20 percent – both because the rich have grown richer and also because the poor have grown poorer; about 19 percent poorer since the late 1970s. The middle class, too, has been squeezed ever tighter. Every income group except for the top 20 percent has lost ground in the past 30 years, regardless of whether the economy has boomed or tanked. And this is by design, courtesy of the GOP.
Tags: Poverty, Social Inequality, US Census Bureau (all tags)
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Re: Bush’s Parting Gift: Poverty Rate Rose in 2008
I’m beginning to have a hard time feeling sorry or even concerned for the middle class, considering its adoration for Ronnie Hollywood and the Bushes.I rode with a high school baseball team to the Indiana State finals at West Lafayete in 2005 and roomed with the bus driver that night. He was concerned about the credit card cruchn and how it was efffecting his family, but he was also bragging about John Hagee said regarding W’s toughness and Clinton’s supposed inability to stare down our enenmies.In 1984, there 35,000 people at an airport rally for Ronald Reagan in Decatur, IL (lots of chickens for Col Sanders there)and you have all kinds of blue collar and middle class types willing to say “Mega-Dittoes” to anything Tubby Taliban says.I even have reservations about health care reform and the possibility that my tax dollars wiill help buy oxygen tanks for some smoker’s rights goon.Please forgive my heartlessness, I just have days when I feel like saying to the middle class right “you chose your fears and hatreds over your best interests and nwo see what you’ve done.”They should have thought of that when they went wild fro Mr. Hollywood and the Bushes, so it’s tough to feel very sympathetic.Thanks to Ronnie and the Bushes, I’ve been an ex-Republican for almost 30 years.by spirowasright 2009-09-10 08:15PM | 0 recs
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Re: Bush’s Parting Gift: Poverty Rate Rose in 2008
And let’s not forget the little toy soldier who was a key player in the Iran-Contra Affair, either.Bob Dole wondered where the outrage was over the so-called Clinton scandals in 1996. Well, the economy was in good shape and Us Stupid Americans forfeited any right to outrage when we let Bush I and Reagan skate in the Contra-versy.by spirowasright 2009-09-10 08:18PM | 0 recs
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Re: Bush’s Parting Gift: Poverty Rate Rose in 2008
Well maybe the middle class-and the farmers, and the working class-would have voted against Reagan and the Bushes had the Democratic party come up with a decent alternative, not the centrist, neoliberal, DLC junk of the past decades. Were things really that much better under Clinton?by demjim 2009-09-11 06:40AM | 0 recs
permalinkRe: Bush’s Parting Gift: Poverty Rate Rose in 2008We had peace and prosperity under Clinton, but you’re right about the candiates who ran against Grandpa Movieland and Bush I.I think the Chicago Black Sox put more effort into winning the 1919 World Series than the Democrats did in taking back the WH in 1984.
by spirowasright 2009-09-11 08:51AM | 0 recs
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Lindahsmall
And the U.S,. Congress has now cut food stamps and supplemental food programs in the farm bill. Congratulations getting your priorities straight folks.
I hope you sleep at night with these pictures in your heads. Heartfelt appreciation to Marian Wright Edelman who continues to steer by a moral compass that has not wavered in all these years. she gives us hope and urges us all on to live up to the great deeds of those who have gone before.
Attyburton
A whole lot of people on food stamps work. Many military families are on food stamps/
Anonymous
I know, and I can bet that they also have nothing left over to put into any savings, an endeavor that is of value to the financial system moguls (think of all the 401k’s that lost half their value in the crash). Cathy was speaking of the social contract. It’s really nonexistent, the attitude is that if you’re not producing you are a waste of space. Doesn’t matter that if through no fault of your own, you can no longer support yourself. The only reason some of the social safety net is still is available is that if enough hunger exists, there will be mass unrest in the general population. So, what will our leaders need of us, or do for us, if we are not able to produce any value that is of use to them?
Musing on this line of thought after viewing,
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vywi8q2rLYw
Kozferg
I was extremely disturbed by the interview today regarding Big Banks and Wall Street.
It was a frightening indictment of JP Morgan Chase, Jamie Dimon, and a Wall Street now literally compared to the Mafia.
I recall watching Jamie Dimon being interviewed on Capitol Hill —
my immediate impression was that he was trying his best not to laugh in the faces of the congressional committee.
And the latest Supreme Court ruling that allows unlimited corporate and private monies into the election system only adds
to the imminent dangers this country faces from dominant special interests within its own bureaucracy.
Distrust in the moral fiber of our institutions is rapidly building and can only lead to a breakdown of out democratic
and capitalist system. I hope it’s not too late to change course.
4 whirledpeas
Just wanted to draw attention to the NUN (as it is anecdotal evidence of Sister Simone’s comments –that nuns have a long tradition of both serving and providing guidance to those in need).
http://twitter.com/moment_um moment_um
There’s a film clip of this on the Peter Edelman part of the 6/22/show-they said they found kids with swollen bellies like in Africa-empty refrigerators & that they were appalled!-I personally remember this when it happened-
http://twitter.com/moment_um moment_um
Boy, have U drank the kool-aid-Look it up -not on fox news propaganda shows-PBO has not spent more than other presidents-the recession is Bushs & the present Republican Congress who are trying to make Obama look like he’s failing. The wars were Bushs which he even admitted later that the WMD were not there in Iraq-If U can’t understand your Bible correctly-find someone that REALLY can interpret it for U ,apparently outside of your present circle, or U will pay the price of your coldstone heart.Apparently U have the Internet-use it wisely. By the way,I personally remember this when it happened, Watch the Film clip from the Peter Edelman part of the June 22 show;As for dividing the nation-the responsibility for that lies squarely on the shoulders of Republicans &Tea Party-U suffer from what is commonly known as ‘backwards’. U think there are homeless now-if the republicans get in the white house-we will become a third world country for all the homeless there will be-even the soup kitchens depend on some gov assistance.Geez-Get a grip!
http://www.facebook.com/people/Susan-Craik/1684882687 Susan Craik
of course conservatives don’t hate children, at least not their own.