relieve our already overburdened cities and even serve as magnets to attract many disillusioned sons back home. Now Mr. Chaiman, I come to the crucial part of this statement. There is no question but that the continuation of OIC is directly related to the support it receives from the Office of Economic Opportunity. Without Community Action Program support OIC in Philadelphia could never have developed into its present form. Community Action Program support is responsible for making OIC what it is today. Mr. Sargent Shriver has informed me that the Office of Economic Opportunity wishes to continue to support the work of OIC as it expands and develops in cities around the country. This assistance, however, will not be possible without the availability of Community Action Program funds beyond those now already designated to special program functions or categories. These funds are necessary to promote the efforts of this vital kind of self-help program. It is my earnest request, therefore, that the Sub-Committee on Employment, Manpower and Poverty would recommend the inclusion of sufficient funds in the Economic Opportunity Amendments, providing OEO with sufficient resources to perform in this most necessary area. Cities where OIC are in operation and where support from OEO Community Action Program funds are immediately required to foster their development are: East Palto, California, Seattle, Washington, Little Rock, Arkansas, Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, Washington, D.C., Roanoke, Virginia, Erie, Pennsylvania and Oklahoma City, Oklahoma. Cities that are in the process of developing OIC type training programs where assistance will be required within the fiscal year 1967, are: New Brunswick, New Jersey Oakland, California Gary, Indiana Portland, Oregon Milwaukee, Wisconsin Dayton, Ohio Boston, Massachusetts Charleston, West Virginia Camden, New Jersey McKeesport, Pennsylvania Denver, Colorado Bucks County, Pennsylvania Richmond, Virginia Portsmouth, Virginia Mansfield, Ohio Cleveland, Ohio Minneapolis, Minnesota York, Pennsylvania Asbury Park, New Jersey Reading, Pennsylvania Providence, Rhode Island Notably too, an OIC program has been initiated and is now in operation in the Watts section of Los Angeles, California. It was the one program recommended by the McCone Commission as necessary for the Watts Section, which suggested that a program must be developed: (Text follows next page) 66 * * organized by the Negroes themselves. It must be their program. An organization created by Negro leadership can best encourage the unemployed, most particularly the young men and women who may lack both education and motivation, to come forward and train for the opportunities that will be opened up to them. The initiation of the program by the Negroes should insure that it is well received. "Private employers and unions should support such a move by supplying the necessary equipment, counseling service and in some instances, instructors. Courses should be directed toward job availability and the employers should take upon their shoulders the responsibility of providing jobs to the graduates. Funds will be needed for physical facilities and for operations, and these can be provided under existing legislation such as the Economic Opportunity Act and Manpower Development and Training Act. A good example of such a program is the Opportunities Industrialization Center (OIC), which has been in successful operation for some time."1 There are now more than 500 persons enrolled in the Watts OIC program. This number can be expected to increase by several thousand within the next 12 months. The Watts program is presently being supported by contributions from the community and the Ford Foundation, but if the program is to continue, the 1 Violence in the City-An End or a Beginning? (The McCone Report on the Los Angeles Riots), pp. 45-56. need for generous support for the Watts OIC project from public funds can be anticipated within the fiscal year 1967. OIC is one of the new programs actually operational and led by the Negro leadership itself in the Watts area. Indeed, to the Negro particularly, OIC has become a movement of opportunity and a movement of hope. May I please emphasize, therefore, the importance of this Committee making available, if at all possible, sufficient funds for the support of the multiplicity of OIC type programs developing around the country, and also that leeway be given OEO for the encouraging, the developing, and the funding of other kinds of creative self-help programs, within the context of its Community Action Program. As a result of my experience in the development of OIC, and my relationship with OEO, and considering whatever knowledge I might have of the needs of the real poverty cores of our inner cities, I can see great need for the expansion of the work of the Community Action Program section of the Economic Opportunity Act. The development of self-help type programs, utilizing sound indigenous leadership, is an imperative need in the poverty stricken sectors of our large cities today. These self-help creative innovations can take many forms, all of which could add to the development and rehabilitation of poverty areas. Through the expansion of the Community Action Program, support can be made available to sound indigenous efforts which need assistance to help these projects succeed. We have in our hands an egg. Either we can hatch the egg and bring new hope to our distressed, poverty communities, or we can crack the egg and find ourselves no better off than we were before. [From the Congressional Record, June 2, 1966] JOBS FOR THE POOR The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under previous offer of the House, the gentleman from Minnesota [Mr. Quie] is recognized for 30 minutes. (Mr. Quie asked and was given permission to revise and extend his remarks.) Mr. QUIE. Mr. Speaker, last evening I was reading an article in the Washington Evening Star by Betty James entitled "District Eyes Plan That Provided 1,500 Jobs for the Poor." Above that it says, "A Philadelphia Success." I spend a lot of time criticizing poverty programs, and when I run across one that is working well, I like to bring it to the attention of my colleagues as well. I hope you all notice the newspaper account of operation of this program and some of the significant things that were stated in the article. On the chance that it might be lost by the newspaper being laid aside, I want to talk on it today so we can keep a record of it in the Congressional Record. The article talks of a Rev. Leon H. Sullivan, whom I have noted before. He is working in Philadelphia on a pioneer job program which has transformed the lives of poor Negro men and women in Philadelphia, as it says in the article. It says in the article, about Mr. Sullivan: "In two short years, he has created a training program operating from eight branches that has placed more than 1500 persons in jobs in sheet metal work. electronics assembly, teletype, brick masonry, electricity, plumbing and heating, refrigeration and air conditioning and power sewing, among others. There are 1700 in training and 6000 on the waiting list. "Students are either unemployed or have been scratching out a living as unskilled workers. A third are on public assistance.' These are the kinds of people he is helping. The article further reads"Contrary to the traditional pattern in training programs, the center doesn't pay students while they learn, although some attend for as long as a year." I think this is extremely significant, that their program is so important and so well recognized by the poor in this minority group that they attend sometimes as long as a year without being paid to learn. The question is, how has he done it? It says in this article: "He has thoroughly involved leaders of business and industry. Some of the top businessmen in Philadelphia are on his advisory committee." It says later on in the article that they were not very happy with him at first, but this shows the way he has worked with the leaders and business leaders in the community. The article continues: "Businessmen also act as advisers in each training area, so students are prepared for jobs that exist, and their training is realistic, based on advice from companies where they will be employed." The second point is: "He has thoroughly involved the Negro community in the creation and support of the effort. The program is theirs." Let me repeat that: "The program is theirs." This to me is one of the most significant statements in this entire article, that "the program is theirs." The classes and boards are integrated, but the ideas and the early financial backing came from Negroes. Negro ministers gave the program its impetus. By passing the hat among middle class and poor Negroes, $100,000 was raised. Although the OEO gave the center a grant of $1.7 million last year, a fund campaign for $250,000 is in progress now. "Mr. Sullivan says he won't take money from the government 'unless we can raise money from our own.'' Here I quote from Thatcher Longstreth, Executive Vice President, Greater Philadelphia Chamber of Commerce. He says that the most important thing about the program is that "it came out of the Negro community." There it is. As we go on in the article, he talks of the concepts, and let me cite a few: "OIC" Which is the Opportunities Industrialization Center, as they call themselves"is an exciting, historic thing because it was generated within the people themselves. If this can be produced in other places, we're starting to lick our Negro problem." I might myself say that we can then lick the problem of poverty, whether it involves Negroes, Mexican Americans, Puerto Ricans, or whites. Later on the article says that there is no paternalism. "This might be the program that will bring us together without paternalism, because no one can run the program but the people themselves." This is what the Reverend Leon Sullivan says: "Just as important as a job is the attitude that the center fosters. The motto of the center is 'We Help Ourselves.' The symbol is a skeleton key 'that opens any door.'" The program, it says, is based on need. Why is the program a success? Because it is based on the need of the people who want help and of the business community that needs workers, and they have a formula that says, "You should succeed." Mr. Sullivan knows all manpower programs do not succeed. He believes they fail because they are handed down from the top-"The people never identify with the mechanism of the program. OIC came from the people." Let me repeat: Mr. Sullivan says that all manpower programs do not succeed, and he believes they have failed because they are, as he stated, "handed from the top down. The people never identify with the mechanism of the program. OIC came from the people." This to me is a tremendously significant article, because before long we shall have the so-called war on poverty bill before us, in which the Federal Government has expended more than $2 billion already and will be asking for an authorization for another $1,750 million for the so-called war on poverty. In too many instances this has failed to reach the poor people themselves. It has failed because the people have not identified with the mechanism of the program. Out in the Watts area, where I was privileged to talk with many people, they have not identified themselves sufficiently. They need a Reverend Sullivan. One of the big reasons why there is frustration in city after city in this country is that the people have not identified themselves, because they have not been involved. The gentleman from New York [Mr. Goodell] and I have been working for an amendment to this program. In fact, there are many amendments which we have put in our bill, the Opportunity Crusade Act, to correct a great deal which we have criticized, but on this one part we have offered an amendment. It failed in the committee, and again this year. It would make certain that the poor are involved in the community action programs. The community action agencies work right in the community with the people themselves, supposedly, but when the poor have been denied a voice or an effective voice then they do not feel that it is their program. As we can see, in the OIC, the Opportunities Industrialization Center in Philadelphia, the program is theirs. But we cannot say that of the programs in city aftor city of this country. We cannot say that the programs belong to the poor people. The Federal Government in making fantastic expenditures of money in the No called war on poverty, which has done much less good than most people expected it should do. The only way we can use the money effectively is to have the poor people themselves directly involved. There was a requirement in the original act that there would be maximum fensible participation on the part of the poor on community action boards. This has not been the case in too many communities. What I have tried to do in the amendments I have offered is to require at least one third of the people in the Community Action Agency, on the board, to be representatives of the poor, selected by the poor-not just from ADC, or some Negro which the power structure appoints in order to fulfill this requirement, but that they be truly representatives of the poor, to be selected by them, by neighborhood meetings or election in areas of concentrations of poverty, like cepsus tracts in the city. It is interesting that in Philadelphia, a city where they attempted an areawide election even though a small percentage of the people participated, we see a program where the people themselves feel that the program is theirs. The poor people themselves run it. This proves to me that the poor people can run programs and can devise programs and can develop policy for programs. When the bill comes before us. I hope that my colleagues will listen again to what I and some other Members will be offering as the reasons why the poor must be proved if we are going to have any success in the antipoverty proThe program must be "their" in any community of the country if it is Mr. Speaker. I mariners censent that the entire article may be placed be Racerd in order that we may be able to read it all in context. Pe Shorter so tempore. Is there objection to the request of the gentleman TAM TAM PRIA SUCCESS: DISTRICT EYES PLAN THAT PROVIDED 1,500 Vany bebeves it, ma'am.' "(By Betty James) The Ney Loon H. Sullivan was talking about the way his pioneer job program 4602med the lives of poor Negro men and women in Philadelphia. My Solivan really means is that nobody believes it—at first. he, word has gotten around. Poverty fighters who have flocked to Philahelp + 4 to do the Opportunities Industralization Center for themselves have gone A sure to launch efforts in their own communities. Vong thần 40 are in various stages of development, including the Washington for Employment Training, ready to go if the $1.1 million grant it co, crom the Office of Economic Opportunity comes through. The organization will be renamed OIC in Washington. And a grant of $336,930 to be funded jointly by the OEO and the Labor Pictment has cleared OEO and is being reviewed by Labor. OEO is the local antipoverty agency. The grant would provide a staff for Mr. Sullivan's group to help others throughout the country launch similar programs. "What has Mr. Sullivan done? "In two short years, he has created a training program operating from eight branches that has placed more than 1,500 persons in jobs in sheet metal work, electronics assembly, teletype, brick masonry, electricity, plumbing and heating, refrigeration and air conditioning and power sewing, among others. There are 1,700 in training and 6,000 on the waiting list. "Students are either unemployed or have been scratching out a living as unskilled workers. A third are on public assistance. The age range is 18 to 60. "Classes are free and conducted day and night. Contrary to the traditional pattern in training programs, the center doesn't pay students while they learn, although some attend for as long as a year. "Mr. Sullivan believes this eliminates anyone who's simply looking for a handout. However, he feels stipends are justified in cities like Washington that don't give public assistance to the able-bodied who are out of work. "Nobody is turned away. 'We screen everybody in-whosoever will, let him come,' Mr. Sullivan says. "Prison records and even arrest records that generally are high hurdles for poor people looking for jobs are no problem in placing OIC trainees, Mr. Sullivan said, although no bonding is offered to cover backsliders. "'Employers assume OIC makes new people,' he declared. "How has he done it? "1. He has thoroughly involved leaders of business and industry. Some of the top businessmen in Philadelphia are on his advisory committee. A few weeks ago, Univac gave the center a computer valued at $339,049. It will store records of all the programs patterned after OIC and also will be used to train students in computer maintenance and programming. "Businessmen also act as advisers in each training area, so students are prepared for jobs that exist, and their training is realistic, based on advice from companies where they will be employed. "More than 250 firms are hiring OIC trainees. Business and industry also are helping with financial support. "The Greater Philadelphia Chamber of Commerce acted as a fund raiser and by the end of June more than $200,000 will have been contributed by firms which have already donated $200,000 worth of equipment. "2. He has thoroughly involved the Negro community in the creation and support of the effort. The program is theirs. The classes and board are integrated, but the ideas and the early financial backing came from Negroes. Negro ministers gave the program its impetus. By passing the hat among middle class and poor Negroes, $100,000 was raised. Although the OEO gave the center a grant of $1.7 million last year, a fund campaign for $250,000 is in progress now. Mr. Sullivan says he won't take money from the government 'unless we can raise money from our own.' "SOME HAVE RESISTED "Thacher Longstreth, executive vice president of the Greater Philadelphia Chamber of Commerce, considers this the most important thing about the program. 'It came out of the Negro community. It's theirs' Longstreth said. Negro youth have been known to resist training programs developed by white men, he observed "Their attitude was "try and train me. To Hell with Whitey," Longstreth said. "3. Sullivan has pioneered in what he calls a 'feeder program' where everybody in training starts out. Designed as a prevocational operation, it offers remedial reading and arithmetic, courses in grooming and sessions in job attitudes. Aptitudes are uncovered and counseling given. "One of the most important classes at the feeder unit is a course in minority history. "MEN GIVEN ROOTS "Here we unwash brains,' Mr. Sullivan said. 'Negroes are taught self-respect. We try to give a man roots. This program is like a man being thirsty who's given a cup of water.' "The feeder was developed with a $330,000 grant from the Department of Labor. "4. Mr. Sullivan has provided superb leadership. He has a reputation for absolute integrity in the business community. "When the 6-foot, 52-inch, 240-pound Mr. Sullivan enters a classroom, exuding warmth and respect for himself and every student there, and tells them, 'Every one who stays with the program will get a job,' it's impossible not to believe him. "One problem in exporting the OIC concept is that Leon Sullivan can't go along. "How many Leon Sullivans are there? Longstreth of the Chamber of Commerce asks. 'He is as great as he appears to be. The facade is simply an accurate reflection of what's inside.' "HIT ON TWO CONCEPTS "But the other ingredients are exportable. Many feel Mr. Sullivan has shown genius in hitting on two concepts that very well may dominate the next stage of the drive for equal rights and against poverty-integration can help industry |