Day 3: The Health, Economics and Welfare of the Black Community

From the schedule:
"This session will explore how social changes in the late sixties and seventies - the rise of social welfare programs, shifting economic mobility, crime, community disruption, and drug abuse - affected America's poorest citizens generally, and black children and the black family in particular."

Tape 10, Side A (CAS.2127)

Henry Hampton plays a segment from Bill Moyers' 1986 CBS Reports documentary "The Vanishing Family: Crisis in Black America." While calling it "fine film," he states that it sends "subset messages that can be equally destructive." Hampton asks the producers to remember "that balanced set of messages about what really is."

Economist Richard Freeman looks at the economic condition of African-Americans before and after the civil rights movement with special emphasis on the decision making of black youth who turn to crime.

Tape 10, Side B (CAS.2127)

Richard Freeman takes questions from the audience.

Sociologist and educator Herman Blake discusses his experiences and findings as the founder of Oakes College, a residential college at the University of California, Santa Cruz. He stresses the importance of an "asset model" in dealing with the problems of the black community, charging the producers to question their assumptions and "listen eloquently" to their subjects.

Tape 11, Side A  (CAS.2128) 

Q&A with Herman Blake

---Video Tape #9 (VHS.2849).  Video begins here.---

Sociologist David Smith examines the shift toward "economic adequacy," and community development that marked the late civil rights movement. He also looks at the impact of industrial decline on economic progress.

Activist and advocate Audrey Rowe looks at the disintegration of families caused by welfare laws. Once a recipient of public assistance herself, Rowe recounts her own efforts in the struggle to organize the poor, improve access to benefits and make the process more dignified.

Tape 11, Side B (CAS.2128)

Audrey Rowe concludes her remarks.

Public policy administrator Thomas Glynn reflects on the legacy of George Wiley, founder of the National Welfare Rights Organization. He remembers Wiley, who died in 1973, as a maverick frustrated in his endeavors to create a national movement for economic justice but whose experiments give rise to a number of more successful organizations.

Tape 12, Side A (CAS.2129)

Dr. Woodrow Myers, Indiana state public health commissioner, surveys a wide range of health statistics from 1965 to 1975, highlighting the inequality between black and white Americans.

Tape 12, Side B (CAS.2129)
Video Tape #10 (VHS.2850)

Dr. Woodrow Myers Q&A

Former Newark police director and Police Foundation president Hubert Williams examines the changed attitude of law enforcement in the wake of the race riots of the late 1960's.  He sees the election of black officials as crucial to the change in police behavior.

Tape 13, Side A (CAS.2130)

Hubert Williams Q&A

Sociologist and author Terry Williams explores the urban drug culture, the crack cocaine phenomenon and the decision of minority teens to play a part in it.

Tape 13, Side B (CAS.2130)

Terry Williams Q&A.