Poverty, Race and the Proper Role of the State
by
By Ivory A. Toldson

This report is part of a series on Poverty and Race funded by the Annie Casey Foundation and prepared at the Center for Policy Analysis and Research at the Congressional Black Caucus Foundation. Opinions or points of view expressed are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the official position of the CBCF.

HURRICANE KATRINA brought international attention to the sordid and complex nature of race and poverty in the United States. In August - September 2005, America watched the news media’s recasting of New Orleans from a hedonist town of decadent tourists, to a hotbed of poverty with people languishing in the most miserable conditions known to a modern society. The dark unmasked face of poverty and subsequent government missteps, led President Bush to declare that “poverty has roots in a history of racial discrimination, which cut off generations from the opportunity of America. We have a duty to confront this poverty with bold action.[1]” However, today, the economic conditions that made mostly Black poor people carry an undue proportion of Hurricane Katrina’s burden still exist, and issues of race and poverty continue to make the US vulnerable to another disaster.

Throughout history, the US government’s response to poverty and race has been at best elusive and at worst hostile. After the US abolished slavery in 1865, more than 400,000 black people sought opportunities to join the US market, as well as refuge from hostile white southerners. As a humanitarian response, Major General William T. Sherman issued a special order to provide land to former slaves; many who were skilled farmers and carpenters. Recognizing the urgency, the US Army immediately acted upon General Sherman’s request by distributing land in South Carolina, Georgia and Florida to displaced African Americans. To further ease African Americans’ transition to American society, the US congress issued the Freedmen's Bureau Bill to aid distressed refugees of the American Civil War. General Oliver Howard led the charge to empower African Americans in the south with sustainable economic and educational institutions; much like the university he enthroned in Washington, DC – Howard University. However, the Freedmen's Bureau and General Sherman’s special orders only existed for a few months. After President Lincoln was assassinated, his predecessor, President Andrew Johnson, vetoed all humanitarian efforts established by the military and congress [2]; setting the stage for lynch mob violence, Jim Crow laws, and other acts of hostility that contributed to many of the economic disparities existing between black and white people today [3].

The executive government’s negligence and shortsightedness during reconstruction created a climate that was combative and violent toward black people in general, but particularly black business owners. In 1892, three successful grocery store owners in Memphis, TN, were lynched by an angry mob of white men, simply because of envy [4]. The victims’ close friend, Ida B. Wells, lobbied the US government to enact legislation to contest lynching; to no avail. Similarly, in 1921, over 600 successful black businesses were destroyed when an envious white mob bombed, rioted, and looted Oklahoma’s “Black Wall Street. [5]” Over 3,000 African Americans were killed in this completely unjust invasion and carnage of a prosperous black community.

Exemplars of post-slavery African American prosperity debunk widely held notions that Black poverty exists because Black people never fully recovered from slavery. Tulsa, Beale Street, Sweet Auburn Ave. and other Black financial districts demonstrate that African Americans had the capacity to compete successfully in a free market. However, failures of the US government to insure that the market was indeed “free,” fostered many of the abject economic conditions African Americans face today.

By the time the US faced the Great Depression of the 1930’s, African American poverty was compounded by racial discrimination and violence. President Roosevelt launched the New Deal; noted as the first comprehensive executive level response to poverty. Many African Americans were encouraged that President Roosevelt appointed a large number of Black cabinet members, mostly at the behest of this socially conscious wife, Eleanor Roosevelt. However, Roosevelt fell short of addressing issues of poverty that were unique to the Black community. Most notably, Roosevelt refused to sign an anti-lynching act, because he was afraid of losing southern support. The government’s failure to intervene on lynching indirectly deepened black poverty, because many of the lynch mob targets were affluent and ‘progressive’ African American men [6].

Black poverty continued to outpace white poverty throughout the post-world war economic boom of 1940’s and 1950’s. By the 1960’s, socialist revolutions sweeping the world and the domestic ‘Red Scare’ led to polarized views of Black poverty among white people. Many white people viewed unrest in the urban ghettos as capitalism’s Achilles heel. In turn, many white people became more radically socially conscious. Others, such as FBI head J. Edgar Hoover, became unduly suspicious of poor black people; often linking them to subversive movements [7].

By the late 1960’s, the US government seemed to have the resolve necessary to fight poverty and racial discrimination simultaneously; a tactic absent from the New Deal. President Johnson issued the nations first formal, “war on poverty,” and passed programs that addressed education, medical care, urban problems, and transportation. In addition, President Johnson continued President Kennedy’s efforts to end racial discrimination, through affirmative action programs. On an ideological level, President Johnson’s Great Society, was a model social program to address poverty and race. However, Johnson’s short tenure, as well as complications with the Vietnam War, ended many of the efforts prematurely.

Presidents Nixon and Carter continued many of Johnson’s social reform programs, with varying degrees of optimism and ambivalence. However, in the 1980’s President Reagan openly criticized social reform programs; accusing them of draining the government and creating a tax burden to middle-class Americans. Implicit in Reagan’s argument, was that poor people were developing dependencies, and would not be motivated to work if they received “handouts” from the government. The infamous “welfare queen” began to appear in conservative political jargon [8].

In addition, the War on Drugs convoluted debates on race and poverty in the 1980’s. Freebasing, a common method of smoking cocaine, received a new name, “Crack,” and a new center stage, the poor black community. Images of crack-infested, crime-ridden poor black communities diminished mainstream support of social programs, which prevailed in the 1960s. Draconian drug laws, such as mandatory minimums, easily passed through the US Congress. Fifteen years later the black male inmate population increased 400%. Before the War on Drugs, black men in college outnumbered black men in prison 3 to 1. By the late 1990’s there were more black men in prison than in college [9].

Welfare reform and reversing the national recession were Clinton era economic priorities. Economic policies shaped by treasury secretary, Robert Rubin, contributed to greater economic prosperity for many US citizens, including African Americans. However, little evidence suggests that ‘Clintonomics’ reduced economic disparities between races. In addition, President Clinton rejected the Sentencing Commissions recommendations to reverse Reagan era War on Drugs policies [10]. Many scholars and civic leaders who testified before the commission contend that current drug policies contribute to the staggering explosion of the Black prison population over the last two decades, and estimate that millions of Black children of incarcerated parents live in poverty.

Today, efforts to establish an aggressive policy agenda to eliminate poverty in the United States have been stalled in a political quagmire. While Great Britain publicly committed to cutting child poverty in half within 10 years, and eradicating it by 2020 [11], Senator Kennedy’s End Child Poverty Act was rejected by Congress in 2005. Consequently, the child poverty rate in the United States has risen for four consecutive years, while child poverty in the UK has fallen from 30 percent in 1993 to 11 percent today, according to the Center for Law and Social Policy.

Harvard professor Alexander Keyssar aptly stated that poverty is “a deep, structural problem that implicates our values, our economic institutions, and our conception of the proper role of the state. There are fixes, but no quick fixes — and no fixes that will not cost something to at least some other members of our society. [12]” Today we must have the courage to examine past government failures, and the resolve to assert a new agenda that explicitly combats the prevalence and burden of poverty that exist among African Americans in the United States.

1. Trotter, A., The Big Easy Revisited. Education Week, 2006. 26(2): p. 34-34.

2. Johnson, A., Veto of Freedmen's Bureau Bill. Essential Documents in American History, 1492: p. 3596.

3. Douglass, F., `Reconstruction.' Essential Documents in American History, 1492: p. 1.

4. Moreau, S., CRUSADER FOR JUSTICE. American History, 2001. 35(6): p. 18.

5. Burroughs, T.S., 1921 Tulsa Riot Survivors Denied Reparations. Crisis (15591573), 2005. 112(4): p. 11-11.

6. Root, D.W., When Bigots Become Reformers. Reason, 2006. 38(1): p. 60-63.

7. Witt, M.T., NOTES FROM THE MARGIN: RACE, RELEVANCE AND THE MAKING OF PUBLIC ADMINISTRATION. Administrative Theory & Praxis, 2006. 28(1): p. 36-68.

8. Hurwitz, J. and M. Peffley, Public perceptions of race and crime: The role of racial stereotypes. American Journal of Political Science, 1997. 41(2): p. 375.

9. Gottschalk, M., Dismantling the Carceral State: The Future of Penal Policy Reform. Texas Law Review, 2006. 84(7): p. 1693-1749.

10. Batey, R., Mandatory Minimum Sentencing: A Failed Policy. Phi Kappa Phi Forum, 2002. 82(1): p. 24.

11. Platt, L., Discovering child poverty : the creation of a policy agenda from 1800 to the present. Studies in poverty, inequality, and social exclusion. 2005, Bristol, UK: Policy Press. vi, 143 p.

12. Keyssar, A., Reminders of Poverty, Soon Forgotten. Chronicle of Higher Education, 2005. 52(11): p. B6-B8.

Ivory A. Toldson, Ph.D. is Senior Research Analyst for the Congressional Black Caucus Foundation and Assistant Professor in Howard University’s School of Education. Correspondence regarding this report should be addressed to itoldson@cbcfinc.org.