Welfare Rights Movement

The welfare rights movement of the 1960s and 1970s called for overhaul of the American welfare system, increased monthly benefits, elimination of strict eligibility requirements, and an end to discrimination against recipients and applicants on the bases of class, race, and gender. Its constituents endeavored to redefine their basic rights as American citizens, blacks, women, consumers, and other identities. Their ultimate goal was the establishment of a guaranteed adequate income for all Americans.

The welfare rights movement began in the mid-1960s with the gathering of small, local welfare rights organizations, many of which were drawn into the umbrella National Welfare Rights Organization (NWRO) after it was founded in 1966. Although the majority of NWRO members were African American mothers, the movement included European Americans, Chicanos, Native Americans, and Puerto Ricans, and about 10% of the membership was male. At the movement's peak in 1969, NWRO claimed approximately 25,000 members.

Many local organizations were established by black welfare mothers who became NWRO leaders. In 1964, Johnnie Tillmon, an African American welfare mother who served as chairman of NWRO from 1967 to 1973 and executive director from 1973 to 1975, formed Aid to Needy Children (ANC) Mothers Anonymous in Los Angeles. Members helped those who were denied aid, were evicted, or faced other problems. New Jersey's Englewood Welfare Rights Organization sought to promote respect from caseworkers and enhance communication between caseworkers and clients. Detroit's Westside Mothers ADC banded together to resolve local problems faced by welfare mothers. They persuaded the postal service to install locks on apartment mailboxes to thwart the theft of welfare checks and also persuaded utility companies not to charge deposits to low-income families.

George A. Wiley, an African American civil rights activist from Rhode Island, played a pivotal role in launching the national welfare rights movement. Wiley had been a successful chemistry professor at Syracuse University. In 1964, he left academia to [Page 1457]work for the Congress of Racial Equality (CORE). Believing that an organization aimed at a more specific social problem would prove more successful than CORE, Wiley resigned from CORE in early 1966. In January, he attended the first meeting of The Poor People's War Council on Poverty in Syracuse, where he networked with other grassroots organizers, civil rights leaders, and professional strategists. Wiley was influenced by Richard A. Cloward, a professor from the Columbia University School of Social Work. Cloward, along with Frances Fox Piven, a political scientist, had developed a theory that the most effective political weapon for poverty-stricken Americans was the development of a grassroots movement run by poor people.

In May 1966, Wiley set up a Washington, D.C.–based Poverty/Rights Action Center (P/RAC). With the help of Cloward, other strategists, and representatives from local welfare rights organizations, he rapidly organized a nationwide, 11-day march for a guaranteed adequate income. Two thousand welfare activists participated in the march, and local welfare organizations in 25 cities held demonstrations. Encouraged by the success of P/RAC, Wiley called a meeting in August 1966 to discuss the movement's next steps. At the meeting, Wiley, along with 100 representatives from 75 local chapters, conceived the National Welfare Rights Organization. Wiley became NWRO's executive director.

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