"Colored Farmers' National Alliance and Cooperative Union"

 Was formed in in 1886 in Texas. Despite the fact that both African American and white farmers faced 

great difficulties due to the rising price of farming and the decreasing profits which were coming from farming, the protective organization known as the Southern Farmers Alliance did not allow African American farmers to join.A group of African American farmers decided to organize their own alliance,to fill their needs. The organization rapidly spread across the Southern United States, peaking with a membership of 1.2 million in 1891.

The Farmers Alliance was founded in central Texas in 1876,through the efforts of farmers at self-protection from 'land sharks,' merchants, horse thieves,and cattle ranchers.The constitution of the initial  Texas order, drafted in 1882,denied  to African American farmers on the grounds that the alliance was a social organization "where we meet with our wives and daughters." Leaders of the alliance realized that it was impossible to established a profitable agricultural system while a large African American population served as potential competitors and a source of cheap,exploitable labor.

The Colored Farmers National Alliance and Cooperative Union was founded in Houston Texas,on 

December 11,1886,on the farm of  of  R.M. Humphrey,a white alliance member and Baptist missionary.The alliance elected  JJ Shuffer as its first president.Although the orders' barred whites 

from membership,JJ  was elected honorary  superintendent. As increasingly repressive Black Codes were enacted, JJ  served as a "white spokesman who could openly express militancy and have access that would be denied to African Americans.By 1888 the alliance received a charter from the US Federal Government.They quickly after began to spread and found chapters in different states across the south.

In 1890 they merged with a rival alliance,the National Colored Alliance. They also absorbed the Colored Agricultural Wheels in Arkansas,western Tennessee and Alabama.By 1890,the Colored Farmers' Alliance claimed  over 1,2000,000 members.

The order's statement of principles was in the vein of Booker T.Washington,promoting economic 

self-sufficiency and racial 'uplift' through vocational training, at the expense of demands for political equality.They tried to educate the farmers about farming tactics and techniques, set up exchanges in the ports of  Nolfolk,Charleston,Mobile,New Orleans and  Houston,where members could go in order to purchase discounted items required for their farming.They advocated members'

avoiding debt hard work and sacrifice,and suggested goals such as home ownership.They collaborated with the white farmers' Alliance in opposing the Louisiana State Lottery Company and

efforts to tax the production of cottonseed oil,and extremely valuable crop for African American tenant farmers.The two alliances  spilt in 1890 over a Federal Elections Bill introduced in the House of Representatives by Rep.Henry Cabot Lodge,which authorized federal supervision of voter registration and voting.It was designed to end suppression of Southern Republican votes,particulary 

African American votes, which had been under considerable pressure by the Democratic state legislatures.Virtually all white southerns,including the farmers' Alliance denounced the bill as a return to the polices of  Reconstruction, and the Democrats succeeded in in making it in central issue

of the of the 1892 Presidential election in the South.R.H. sought to downplay the issue,insisting that 

African-American suffrage would be protected  through the alliance movement.The majority of African American Populist supported renewed federal intervention to preserve their civil rights, which were being eroded by state changes to voter registration and electoral laws.

In 1891, after the spilt over the elections bill, the Colored Alliance called a general strike of African-American cotton-pickers to demand a wage increase from 50 cents to $1.00 per hundred pounds of cotton.The white Farmers's Alliance whose membership in the South included large numbers of landowners, employing sharecroppers,were the most vehement opponents of the proposed strike.

The Progressive Farmer, paper of farmers Alliance President Leonidas L.Polk,urged "our farmers 

to leave their cotton in the field rather than pay more than 50 cents per hundred to have it picked.

The leadership of the Colored Alliance lacked the resources to mobilized the vast majority of sharecroppers who were illiterate or semi-literate and lacked sources of income.The Georgia chapter 

of the Colored Alliance,with a large contingent of landowners,refused to support the strike,viewing it as deterimental to the interests of African-American farmers who owned or rented their land.

A minor cotton pickers strike of 1891 in the Arkansas Delta in September was crushed by local vigilantes,resulting in the death of fifteen strikers,including several who were lynched.

By the 18 the end of 1891, with the failure of the cotton-pickers strike, the Colored Farmers' Alliance

began to decline in both membership and political influence.The Texas branch continued to be active

by the spring of 1892. Alexander Asberry,an African-American Republican state legislator from 

Robertson County,was elected state president and founded a newspaper,  the Alliance Vindicator.

By the end of 1892 the Texas Colored Farmers' Alliance had largely disappeared.And by extension,

the National Colored Farmers' Alliance dissapeared  after 1896 with the demise of the Populist Party, from where its member were generally recruited.

At the 1892 St. Louis convention of the Southern and Northern Farmers' Alliances, JJ  secured the 

vote of the Colored Farmers' Alliance for the creation of an independent third-party,helping override opposition from the white Southern Alliance delegates.He packed the  Colored Farmers' Alliance 

delegation with pro-third party white men in a series of proxy deals that were contrary to the organization's charter.The African-American delegates from Georgia Colored Farmers' Alliance, 

whose leadership opposed the formation of a third party,walked out of the convention in protest over this action.Only four African-American delegates were in attendance at the founding convention of the People's Party on the 4th of     July in Omaha.

The Populists hoped to bypass African-American politicians, who they viewed as corrupt, by directly 

appealing to African-American farmers via the Colored Alliance.The Colored Alliance was in rapid, decline and the African-American Republican politicians and newspapers were largely critical  of the Southern Populists,whose claims of support for African-American civil rights were largely rhetorical  and disingenuous.

In most Southern states, the stronghold of Populism was in the old yeoman-dominated hill-country 

white belt regions, whose inhabitants played a leading role in the rebellions Reconstruction,only to be only marginalized by the old black belt planters allied with Northern capital and corporate interests,especially  the railroads.The Populists opposed the convict least system and denounced 

Democratic reliance on threats of ' Negro domination.' At the same time,they steadfastly maintained 

that they did not support 'social equality' between the races and often sought allegations that they 

compromised white racial solidarity by insisting that they were the true party of white supremacy.

A number of Southern Populists sought to rid the south of African-Americans by promoting emigration,either to Africa or to the West.Leonidas formulated a plan to create a separate all

African-American state in the West,preferably Texas.Populist Congressman Tom Watson of 

Georgia is often cited as the man example of  the initial racial liberalism of Southern Populism,

acknowledging African-Americans as an integral part of Southern economy and society. 

He had an antagonistic relationship with the leadership of the states' Colored Alliance and, after 

being defeated through Bourbon Democrat manipulation of the African-American vote, gradually became an advocate of  African-American disenfranchisement.

 

"The-Lincoln-Union-Club"{February 16,1870}

The Lincoln Union Club served as an organization body for Virginia City's African American resident during the peak of the  Comstock era. Its mission and activities reflect both the remarkable optimism and confidence of African Americans in Northern Nevada during the 1870s.

For a brief period after the end of the Civil War,a sense of optimism was
noticeable in African American communities across the nation.With the Union victory and the resulting of the Thirteenth,Fourteenth,and Fifteenth Amendments to the U.S. Constitution,a new era of  promise
dawned,and African Americans began to take action to make the gains of this period real.Much of the activity was located in the South,where  the majority of African Americans lived at the time.African Americans in that region formed schools at a remarkable pace,with at least 150,000
students enrolled by 1870 funded by over $1,000,000 in contributions
from African Americans.In Addition, 1,456 African Americans held political office in the South during the Reconstruction years.

This optimism was not confined to the Southern States.Across the nation,African Americans organized groups to advocate for the civil rights legislation and enforcement of existing civil rights protections. In
some cases,this involved state or national conventions of African Americans,such as those held in Syracuse New York,in 1864 and Nashville,Tennessee, in 1870.Smaller groups emerged around the country as well,often openly associated with the Republican Party.
Denver had a black Republican Club in the 1870s.Groups such as the
Union League and Lincoln Brotherhood were founded across the nation
in order to organize and  mobilize African American votes for the Republican Party.

African American in Virginia City formed a similar group,the Lincoln Union Club,on February 16,1870.The Reconstruction-era optimism is
evident in a statement made by one of the members at the time of the group's founding.According to this member,"the object of our club is for
united political action throughout the state,in view of the good time coming." At this first meeting,Dr.W.H.C. was elected president for a six-month term,and five other officers were selected as well.

The Lincoln Union Club played a role in the organization of the celebration of the ratification of the Fifteenth Amendment in April of
1870.The parade was scheduled to begin at the "Hall of  the Lincoln Union Club," demonstration that the club had acquired a permanent meeting place.The club existed until at least 1876.Not surprisingly, the
fortunes of the club faded as,simultaneously the boom period faded on the Comstock,and hope evaporated of civil rights in the post-Reconstruction era.

"Black-Cross-Nurses" (officially the African Black Cross Nurses)

Is an international organization of nurses which was founded in

1920,based upon the model of the Red Cross. The organization was the women's auxiliary of the Universal Negro Improvement Association and African Communities  League and was established to provide health services and education to people of African descent.

In 1920,Hennrietta Vinton Davis established the Black Cross Nurses (BCN) in Philadelphia as an auxiliary of the of Universal Negro Improvement Association and African Communities League (UNIA). The BCN served as the women's auxiliary of the UNIA,placing women in a supportive role,while the men's auxiliary serve in a protective role.Marcus Garvey wanted everyone in the UNIA to feel they belonged within the organization,and the BCN served that purpose for women.

The BCN was based on the World War I nursing model of the Red Cross.

Local chapters were established with a matron,head nurse,secretary,

and treasurer to provide health services and hygiene education to

African-American members of the community.Few programs existed which would admit people of African descent into nursing training at the time and many health facilities provided unequal care to African-American patrons; one of the goals of the organization was addressing these discrepancies.Doctors,nurses and lay practitioners took courses

ranging from six months to a year to make sure that standardized care

was was being given.In addition, upon graduation from the course,each

member was required to purchase and wear their official uniform.

In many ways,the organization functioned as a social reform movement,while developing role models for young women.It promoted

education,good health and hygiene,juvenile rehadiliation,maternal and infant care, and training in proper nutrition.It also provide a professional,organized structure for members,giving them a means to appear in roles of public leadership.In articles which appeared in the Negro World,nurses addressed a wide variety of topics from advice to

expectant mothers to contagious diseases,heart disease,and hygiene,as well descriptions of the conditions,symptoms,and treatment options.

Benevolent community service included distributing clothing and food to those in need.

The requirements of membership were that the women be active members of the UNIA,between and 45 years and "of Negro blood and African descent.Nurses were also required to be able to read and write in order to promote literacy in their communities literacy and serve as example to others. As an overriding goal,the organization used social health concerns to uplift the African-American race from degeneracy,

believing that by creating a sanitary living environment,the community

would proposer. Units quickly formed in cities across the United States,

as well as in The Caribbean and Central America.

In the early 1920s,the United States UNIA organizations spread into thirty-eight states,and membership in the Black Cross Nurses in the tens of thousands.The largest branch in the world was located in Harlem.Within a few years of the formal organization of the Black Cross Nurses,there were chapters in Alabama,Chicago,Louisiana,New Jersey,

New York,and Virginia,with international chapters in Belize,Nova Scotia,

Panama,Trinidad and Tobago. By 1927,membership had declined,but Black Cross Nurses provided education for African-American nurses and

health care access to African-American in their communities through the 1960s.

All white uniforms including dress,shoes,stockings and a cap adorned with a black cross encircled a red background with a green center were worn for dress and official functions.Duty uniforms,consisted of a green dress over which was worn an ivory apron accompanied by black shoes and stockings,set the BCN nurses apart from other nurses and united

them as symbolically as members.Green was chosen as a representation of growth and renewal.Critcism of the dress and cape steemed from a comparison to a nun's habit,while UNIA men's uniform resembled military attire.

Ancillary responsibilities of the BCN included singing in a choir and marching in parades.Choir rehearsals were on Friday.Marching practice was necessary as local chapters participated in parades on holidays such as Memorial Day and the Fourth of July,sometimes carrying the Black Nationalist Flag.

Belize:The Belize Black Cross Nurses Organization was established in British Honduras in 1920 by Vivian Seay,who led the organization until her death in1971.Dr. K.Simon,medical officer for the Cayo District,moved to Belize Town in 1921,and began instructing members of the UNIA in midwifery,to combat the high mortality rates for inflants and mamas.He urged that members take instructions under Belize Town public Hospital matron Lois M.Roberts;an Englishwoman,in general hospital procedures and hygiene.As Lois had been unable to secure sufficient nurses for her training program,she agreed to accept Black Cross Nurses.By 1922,seventeen of the first training class of twenty nurses passed their exams and were awarded their nursing certificates.By 1923,there were twenty-four certified nurses,who were each assigned a territory in Belize Town to administer to the needs of the poor,as unpaid volunteers.In the aftermath of the 1931 Belize hurricane,the nurses helped in the Public Hospital and in relief camps.

An annual event called the Baby Exhibition,was completion to award healthy inflants in various age categories and display proper parenting to the populace.It was a popular event which consolidated the public

perception of the nurses as professionals,since they chose the contestants,and the approval of the government,since the colonial medical authorities determined the winners.They also conducted studies and research on the health of communities,as well as humanitarian projects like the 1934 Palace Unemployed Women's Fund,aimed at providing groceries to unemployed mamas.

Vivian,and thus the organization,were staunchly in opposition to universal suffrage.On the hand,they sought Victorian morality as a means to improve society as a whole and were rigidly opposed to the baser habits of the lower class while on the other,they expanded women's spheres from within the confines of domesticity.For the first time,midde-class black women,who were trained as nurses,were publicly active and held positions of community leadership.The attempts

to control others' morality were not always appreciated and Vivian's political poor and working-class women,while at the same time

strengthening middle-class Creole political worth.

Though the organization never came under government control,by 1952

the Black Cross Nurses had influenced the health policies of seven of the colonial governors of British Honduras.It was the most active and lasting black organization in the country,and though it lost momentum after Vivian's death was revitalized in the 1980s and continues to serve the humanitarian needs of communities in which its members lives.

Caribbean:The Black Cross nursing organizations of Cuba sprang up mostly in the areas which were highly influenced by British West Indians and in company towns like those that existed for the United Fruit Company.The organization in Banes,Cuba,was developed as an avenue to create acceptance and respectability for blacks,promoting pan-Africanism.The organization thrived until 1932 when the combination of economic depression and rising Cuban Nationalism turned toward labor militancy and communism.

Caribbean:

The Black Cross nursing organizations of Cuba sprang up mostly in areas which were highly influenced by British West Indians and in company towns like those that existed for the United Fruit Company.The organization in Banes,Cuba,was developed as an avenue to create acceptance and respectability for African Americans,promoting pan-Africanism.The organization thrived until 1932 when the combination of economic depression and rising Cuban Nationalism turned toward labor militancy and communism.

The Black Cross Nursing organization of  Jamaica was organized in 1922.Sarah Grant,who had trained students at Victoria Jubilee Hospital,

trained 29,nurses,though their training remained rudimentary and the

organization was always a volunteer auxiliary which did not develop

into a strong organization.

Canada

In Canada,the Black Cross Nursing organized as a response to denial of

black women's participation in World War I efforts to assist wounded soldiers.The women organized to provide medical help including child care services,first aid,health care,nutrition education and other services.Approximately 25% of the black population of Canada joined the Universal Negro Improvement Association of Canada

"Detriot-Housewives-League" [1935]

During 1935 African-American women were doing more than just sitting at home sewing ans waiting for their husbands.No,the women of Detriot formed a group called the "Detriot Housewives' League.They were upset because many of the businesses would take African American money they were not willing to hire them.If the businesses wanted the African American money then the "Detriot Housewives" were going to make sure they were willing to hire them as well.The League was founded in 1930 by Fannie Peck.By 1935,they were over9,000 members in the organization.The League help to create over 7,000 jobs for African Americans,both mean & women."

Maryland-Freedom-Union"(February 9,1966)

It began when twenty African Americans working as nurses' aids,housekeepers with whom they had met the previous week and told them that Lincoln was "on strike" they told them that CORE workers had better come down to Lincoln Nursing Home immediately to show the workers how "to run a proper picket line."

The workers who made as little as .25 an hour and worked up to 72 hours per week,became the source of what they called a "new kind of union," the Maryland Freedom Union (MFU).The MFU  was founded due to frustrated CORE staff members' failed efforts in helping African Americans workers for union rights and benefits.They were convinced that the AFL-CIO unions were not interested in organizing African Americans workers and they were elated with the success of the Student Non-violent Coordinating Committee's Missississippi Freedom Union project.CORE selected Baltimore as the site of its own freedom union experiment.Together CORE,MFU,local churches,and school supporters picketed the suburban homes of nursing home owners on city hall.

By March 1966,they created a union study group on African American and labor history;reading a history of  African American struggles,American Civilization on Trial 1963.They also invited its author,political philosopher Raya Dunayevskaya to lecture at the MFU Freedom House.Raya's suggestion that the workers view themselves as " self-developing thinkers" made a huge impact.After victory the union began to organize workers in small retail and service establishments in the city and won a recognition from Silverman's Department Chain.

While it flourished,the MFU's membership,nearly all African American and 90% women with many recent arrivals from the south created a union different from the typical AFL-CIO affiliate.Its allure was not soley  that it was a union willing to accept them as members; it was that this organization called itself  a freedom union and sought to organize low-wage workplaces as an integral part of a movement to change a portion of American society.

"Clyde Ross & the Contract Buyers League"

Was a collective of African American Chicago homeowners originating of North

Lawndale  on Chicago's West Side,who in the late 1960s protested the exploitative sale of homes to African Americans through contract selling.When Clyde,Mattie Lewis,and Ethel Weatherspoon settled in the West-side neighborhood of North Lawndale,they hoped to achieve the American dream of owning a home.At the time,federal policies known as redining prevented African Americans from getting real mortgages,forcing them to buy from real-estates speculators "on contract."The contracts,homeowners soon discovered,turned out to be a scam.Clyde,moved to North Lawndale in 1958,buying a house "on contract" for $27,000 after being denied a legitimate mortgage.The seller,who had bought the house only a few months earlier for $12,000,sold Clyde the house on the conidition that if he missed a single payment,he would lose the house and all the payments made toward it.Clyde was one of hundreds in his neighborhood who were scammed by real-estate speculators at the time.In 1968,he joined the Contract Buyers League to Fight the contract sellers.

"The National Labor Union"

The Colored National Labor Union (CNLU) was a stillborn attempt to create a central body to coordinate the activities of African American unions between 1869 & 1871.
The years immediately following the Civil War were uncertain ones for organized labor and the African American community.A series of labor congresses convened to explore the possibilities of trades union federation and to discuss broader issues of political and social reform.In 1866,seventy-seven white delegates gathered in Baltimore,Maryland,to announce the formation of the National Labor Union (NLU).The NLU styled itself an umbrella organization received one delegate for every five hundred members,and annual congresses were held to determine common goals.An executive board coordinated policy during the remainder of the year. John C.Whalley,a government office proofreader,was the NLU's first president,though the organization was largely the brainchild of William Sylvis,an iron molder.
The NLU's agenda was typical of mid-nineteeth century political reform groups.It combined vague rhetoric with calls for land reform,an end to convict labor,the substitution of mandatory arbitration for strikes,and the establishment of cooperative industries and distribution networks.The NLU advocated a reduction of work hours, as seven of its delegates hailed from the various eight-hour legues that had emerged throughout the country.From the beginning,NLU delegates spilt over two important questions:organizing African American workers and politics.Andrew Cameron,the editor of the Workingman's Advocate,recommended organizing African American workers.Both John & William concurred.Althrough the latter opposed Radical Reconstruction and had little personal sympathy for African Americans,he feared that African American workers would be employed as strikebreakers if the NLU turned its back. Acommitee was appointed to study the issue. In addition,NLU delegates debated politics,with a large faction favoring the creation of a labor party.These disputes had profound effects on African American workers.

"The Colored Merchants Association"(1929)

For two months in the spring of 1929,a group of African American grocery store owners in
Winston-Salem organized public lectures,meetings,exhibits,and foot tasting that attracted large audiences and national attention.The grocers were joinging a new cooperative business group called the Colored Merchants Association (CMA),which had begun in Alabama.On April 17,they announced in a local newspaper and ambitious plan to create " a movement looking towards the salvation of the Negro Independent grocery stores,through cooperative buying and teaching the lesson and value
of advertising."National Negro Business League leaders promoted the grocers' efforts as a national model for African American businessmen working in an increasingly competitive marketplace.African American started successful business communities and created vibrant neighborhoods in the segregated South.Local grocery stores became the most common small business run by African American merchants.That's a big reason why the Winston-Salem grocers made such an an impact.In 1929 the city directory listed 373 grocery stores.African Americans operated more than 30 percent (128 of them),making up by far the largest owned faced new challenges because of important changes in retail trade.

"Negro Victory Committee (1941-1945)

The Los Angeles Negro Victory Committee was organized in 1941 to protest discrimination in industries throughout the city that barred African Americans workers.Reverend Clayton Russell of the people's Independent Church of Christ in South Central Los Angeles  and Charlotta Bass,publisher of the California Eagle,the largest African American newspaper in the state,gathered prominent public officials,professionals,union leaders,and NAACP members,along with his church's congregation,o create the committee in 1941.
The Committee initially sought to gain employment in defense industries that discriminated against African Americans workers prior to and during the early years of World War 2.They were.
One of many organizations throughout the country galvanize around the "Double V" campaign to fight both international and domestic racism.With Rev.Russell using his
weekly radio program and Charlotta using her newspaper,The Negro Committee became the leader in the effort to integrate Southern California's defense industries
The Negro Victory Committee coordinated numerous mass meetings to protest discriminatory practices.They led fights to locate defense industry jobs training centers in Watts,hire African American and locomotive drivers on the Los Angeles Railway (LARY),an challenged exclusion and racism in the armed forces and labor unions.They also organized campaigns to protest housing segregation and quotas for whites in city employment.One of their most successful campaigns was the 1942 protest against the United States Employment Services (USES)  in 1942.The Committee's  protest march ended USE'S policy of placy African American women exclusively in janitorial and service ppositions in defense plants.The activities of the Negro Victory Committee propelled the Committee's leadership into important positions in corporations and city government during and after World War 2.
Rev.Russell's popular appeal waned after his unsuccessful 1945 campaign for Los Angeles County's Board Supervisors.Like many wartime organizations,the Committee faded by the end of the World War 2 in 1945.

"National Afro American League {January25,1890-1893}

The first Afro American League (AAL) was established in 1887 before changing its name,two years later to the National Afro American League (NAAL).The focus of the league was to obtain full citizenship and equality for African-Americans.Timothy Thomas Fortune,editor of the New York Age and Bishop Alexander Walters of the African Methodist Episcopal Zion Church in Washington,D.C. as key figures in the NAAL,sought equal opportunities in voting,civil rights,education,and public accommodations.The organization also sought to end lynching in the South.As one of the key figures of the NAAL, Timothy organized the first national meeting in January 1890,where 36-year-old Joseph Charles Price,then President of Livingston College in North Carolina,was elected President of the League.During this meeting,the league adopted a constitution that would not accepted politicians in order to escape the grasp of the republic party's control.Their goal would be fighting Jim Crow on legal grounds.The NAAL initially had several successful lawsuits including a legal victory involving the bar of a New York City Hotel.Where Timothy himself was refused service.Due to the lack of resources and support from prominent politicians,the organization was unable to continue its effort and disbanded in 1893.Five years later,the NAAL revived again,but became the Afro American Council (AAC) with Timothy again in a leadership role and Alexander Walters as president.During the League's short span,the southern and northern branches created that time focused on different agendas reflecting the local issues in their areas.Southern branches,tried to unite the various local organizations into a single group at least a coalition to challenge Jim Crow.Northern branches,recognizing that African Americans in their region usually had voting and civil rights denied to African Americans in the South,sought to mobilize white public opinion to allow for fuller participation of African Americans in the region's political,economic and cultural life.Neither approach proved particularly effective at that time and the NAAL eventually faded from the scene.The struggle against discrimination in the North and South would eventually be taken up by its successor organizations,The African American Council,the Niagara Movement,and eventually the National Association for Colored People.

"Congressional Black Caucus" {1971}

Originated in 1971.That year,Michigan Congressman Charles Coles Diggs Jr.

organized fourteen African American members of Congress into a loose confederation,known as the Democratic Select Committee.The goal of this group was to communicate the concerns of African Americans in Congress and their constituents to the Democratic leadership in the House of Representatives and thereby "promote the public welfare of ...millions of neglected citizens." Charles became the first chairman of the caucus,and Howard Robinson,an administrator who worked for the U.S. Embassy in Tokyo,served as the group's first executive director.African American had entered Congress in the decades following the Civil War.In 1870, Hiram Rhodes Revels of Mississippi was elected to fill the unexpired term of Jefferson Davis, who had resigned to became president of the Confederate states. Hiram who served in the U.S. Senate for only thirteen months, who succeeded by Blanche Kelso Bruce of Mississippi,who served a full six year term from 1875-1881.Twenty-two African Americans served in Congress between 1870 and 1901, when George Henry White of North Carolina left the House of Representatives.It took more than a quarter century before another African American sat in the Congress of the U.S. In 1929, Oscar Stanton Depriest of Chicago was elected to the House of Representatives and served in that capacity until 1935.Between 1929 and 1970,with the exception of the leadership of a few African American congressmen,notably William Levi Dawson of Chicago and Adam Clayton Powell of New York City,African Americans had no organized congressional presence to represent their many-faceted interests.In 1971,the lack of organization prompted Charles to form the Congressional Black Caucus.The birth of the Caucus was aided by a series of events that sparked a rising tide of militancy among African Americans during the late 1960s and the 1970s.Among these momentous events were the 1969 publication of James Forman's Black Manifesto,charges of military discrimination against African American soldiers,the December 1969 killings of two Black Panther leaders,and the May 1970 riot at Jackson State College in Mississippi that left two  African American students dead and twelve others wounded.These events frustrated and angered many African Americans, galvanized the African American members of Congress,and hastened the formation of the caucus.In the wake of these events, African American congressman approached Republican President Richard M.Nixon.In late 1970, Congressman Diggs formally requested that Nixon meet with the African American congressmen.Two months later,the White House responded,not though the president but though a low-level staff member.For than a year, Nixon refused to meet with the African American congressmen.Incensed over the intransigence of the president,they decided to boycott the session at which Nixon was to give the State of the Union address. The boycott was successful.Senator Edward Brooke of Massachusetts was the lone African American member present when the president gave his speech in January 1971.Amid unfavorable publicity following the boycott,Richard finally agreed to meet with the Congressional Black Caucus on March 25,1971.At this meeting,the caucus presented the president with sixty recommendations dealing with numerous concerns,including federal aid to minority businesses, home rule for the District of Columbia,an end to the Vietnam conflict,prevention of entry of drugs into the United States,grants instead of student loans for African American college students,and justice for African American soldiers.The May 18 response of the president was half-hearted and vague, and the members of the caucus was left dissatisfied.On May 23,Congressmen Charles Diggs & Augustus Hawkins of California appeared on national television to express the concerns of the caucus and to criticize Richard's inadequate response.Over the next years,the relationship between Richard and the Caucus showed little improvement.On January 31,1973,the Congressional Black Caucus presented a "true State of Union" address before the House of Representatives.The address expressed the views of African American congressmen on domestic issues such as poverty,welfare,health,reform,housing,education,civil rights,employment,revenue sharing,and the status of minorities in the military and the criminal justice system,as well as on America's foreign policy in Africa and other Third World countries.Vice President Spiro T.Agnew,responding for the White House,criticized the address.Spiro claimed that the American public was tired of the constant complaining of the caucus and informed the black congressmen that "more constructive action" was expected of them.Nixon was not the only president who was aloof in his dealings with the Black Caucus.President Jimmy Carter often opposed the efforts of caucus members.Most notable was his opposition to the Full Employment and Balanced Growth Act,known as the Humphrey-Hawkins bill.Even though Carter signed the bill on October 27,1978,he was lethargic in his support of it.Carter also opposed the efforts of African American congressmen to designate Martin Luther King Jr.'s birthday as a legal holiday.Representative John Conyers of Michigan had first introduced such a bill in the United States House in 1968,and in 1971 he tried again while Senator Brooke did the same in the Senate.Both attempts failed.Perhaps President Carter was not supportive of African American congressmen because he was angered by events surrounding the Congressional Legislative Dinner of 1978.The turnout for the dinner was so overwhelming that hotels in Washington,D.C., to be booked.The Washington Hilton was to be the main hotel, and the Shoreham was to be the backup site.Carter was scheduled to make his appearance at the Shoreham and was given fifteen minutes to address the audience.At first,he refused to speak at the Shoreham,demanding to address the guests at the main hotel.The caucus changed the arrangements and permitted Carter to speak at the Hilton;the fifteen-minute time limit and spoke for one hour and fifteen minutes, throwing the entire schedule out of the kilter.Relations with President Carter grew progressively worse after the dinner episode and reached their nadir in 1979.That year,Carter fired former caucus member Andrew Young as ambassador to the United Nations.Relations with with other presidents,particularly Republicans,were stressful,perhaps because almost all of the members of the Caucus served in the House of Representatives,which was often dominated by Democrats.Caucus members,for example,were opposed to President Ronald Reagon's concept of New Federalism,which they perceived as the states-rights concept in new garb and one that was inimical to the best interest of African Americans and other minorities.Reaggan did meet with caucus members early in his first term,but eight years passed before the caucus was again invited to the White House by President George Bush.During this meetings on May 23,1989,caucus members told Bush that,if he wanted to be known at the education president he would have to stop the decline of inner cities.One of the most visible activities of the Congressional Black Caucus is the annual dinner held during the Legislative Weekend in Washington,D.C. The first dinner,held in June 1971,attracted more than twenty-five hundred prominent political leaders and politically active citizens to the nation's capital.The popularity of the $100-a-plate dinner gala and the weekend has grown tremendously so that reservations must be made early to guarantee seating.In recent years,criticisms of the dinner have surfaced.Critics charge that the gala has degenerated into a social extravaganza characterized by frivolity.Nevertheless,proceeds from the dinner underwrite the costs od caucus activities.While the caucus does not have a staff,it provides funding for the Congressional Black Caucus Political Action Committee (PAC),which supports the political campaigns of caucus members,and the Congressional Black Caucus Foundations,which administers charitable funds received from individuals,corporations,and organizations.For the development of policy and position papers,caucus leaders have relied on the support and resources of the Joint Center for Political Studies (renamed Joint Center for Political and Economic Studies in 1990),founded in 1970.Aided by a grant from the Ford Foundation,the operation of the Center involved and arrangement with Howard University and the Metropolitan Applied Research Corporation (MARC) of New York City,headed by Dr.Kenneth Clark.This tripartite partnership,which ceased in 1972,allowed Howard University and MARC to receive the funds helped preserve the tax-exempt status of the caucus.The Joint Center because the clearinghouse to receive and disseminate information.It publishes a series of monographs on issues of concern to African Americans and also provides internships for political-science students.


In addition to the publications of the Joint Center for Political studies the caucus holds conferences on current  issues.Between July 1971 & September 1972,the caucus sponsored seven national conferences dealt with such issues as racism in the military,the health of  African Americans,careers for minorities in the communication,racism in the media,education,African American politics,and the legislative  process.The conferences and hearing were conducted in various parts of the country to help caucus members determine a national agenda.Drawing on the conferences and hearings,caucus members opposed budget cuts to programs such as aid to Families with Dependent Children and Small Business Administration funding,and they succeeded in restoring funding for minority educational institutions.

By the end of the first decade of its existence,the caucus had come of age.Not only had its membership increased,from fourteen to nineteen,but so had its influence.The caucus challenged the budget -slashing initiatives of Presidents Gerald Ford,Carter,Regan,and Bush,and it waged constant warfare to save domestic programs from being gutted or eliminated.

Throughout the years,the caucus also has experienced difficulities due to internal dissensions and external attacks.Internal squabbles,for example,arose when the group discussed the purchase of a building as its permanent home.In 1983,the trouplesome issue was finally resolved with the acquisition of a building on Pennsylvania Avenue.Other problems dividing the membership surfaced when U.S. Representative Shirley Chisholm,declared her candidacy for president in 1972.Shirley,a Democrat from New York City and a member of the Black Caucus,expected to receive the support of the caucus but instead was criticized for taking this unprecedented step for an African American woman.During her campaign,Shirley receive hardly any support from the caucus,which she charged was due to male chauvinism.There were other occasions when sharp political differences caused some members to threaten resignation from the group.A particulary strange episode involved Representative Gary Franks of Connecticut,the first African American Republican to serve in the House of Representatives since 1935.In 1993 caucus members denied Gary full membership because of his affiliation with the Republican Party Several caucus members accused Gary of having views that were not in the interest of African Americans,and,at one time the group voted not to transact any Business in his presence. After considerable wrangling,the move to oust Gary was reserved.In 1995,Gary became a member of the caucus,and in the same year,a second African American Republican J.C.Watts of Oklahoma,joined him.

In addition to internal dissensions,the caucus was weakened by external assaults.Some caucus members became targets of criminal  investigations and alleged activities such as wiretapping and office burglaries.In more than one instance,alleged criminal charges proved to be without foundation and were subsequently withdrawn.In addition,the caucus suffered a severe setback when it lost two of its most influential members to death:Congressmen George Collins (Democrat) of Illinois and Mickey Leland (Democratic) of Texas both perished in fatal air tragedies.

Since its founding in 1971,the Congressional Black Caucus had more than sixty members.For more than two decades,in spite of internecine battles,severe financial problems, harsh criticism,and attempts to tarnish its leadership,the caucus has succeeded in becoming a powerful political voice for African Americans.In recent years,female members of the caucus have played a prominent role.During the 105th Congress,twele African American women,most of them representing majority white districts,joined the caucus.In 1997, U.S. Representative Maxine Waters,a Democrat from California,became chairperson of the caucus.

"New Negro Alliance"(1933-1940's)

Was a Washington,D.C. based organization founded by mostly middle class African Americans to use pickets,economic boycotts,and other direct action protests to promote civil rights.It sought to increase African American employment opportunities,especially in white collar positions and to challenge discriminatory practices.The NNA,wasn't the first organization in the city's African American community to use direct action protests to combat discrimination,it was the largest and most successful organization to that date to employ economy boycotts as its main tool for civil rights.The NNA began in August 1933 when John Aubrey Davis,a twenty-one year old Williams College graduated boycotted the Hamburger Grill,a white-owned business in an African American neighborhood which had fired its three African American employees.After the Hamburger Grill Boycott,the NNA was formed.With John Davis,Belford V.Lawson,Jr.,and M.Franklin Thorne as its leaders,the New Negro Alliance launched campaign such "Don't Buy Where You Can't Work,"and "jobs for Negroes."Between December 1933 & 1937 the NNA published a weekly newspaper,New Negro Opinion,to help its campaign for civil rights.Led by attorney and NNA founder Belford Lawson,the NNA won a major legal victory in its lawsuit against the Sanitary Grocery Company which had challenged the organization's right to organize a boycott against it.The Washington,D.C. are grocery chain had 255 retail outlets including many in African American neighborhoods,they refused to hire African Americans in any capacity.The U.S. Supreme Court ruled in New Negro Alliance v.Sanitary Grocery Company,Inc.(1938) that "those having a direct or indirect interest in the matters of employment have the freedom to take action against discrimination and peacefully persuade others."This win strengthened the NNA.The organization could not mount successful boycotts against People's Drug Stores and the Safeway Grocery chain in 1940.Those defeats indicated that the local community was no longer willing to support boycotts as a civil rights tactic which meant the beginning of the NNA'S demise.Also in 1941 President D.Roosevelt issued Executive Order # 8802 which set up the fair Employment Practices Committee to investigate employment discrimination.Coupled with World War II labor demands,many of the most blatant pattern of employment discrimination in Washington ended.

"The National Negro Medical Association"(11-26-89)

Was founded,consisting of three African Americans medical

professions,they were originally called the National Negro Association of Physicians,Dentists,and Pharmacists.Meharry & Howard University faculty and alumni were instrumental in their establishment.The NNMA consisted of skilled organizations and a supportive social network for African American dentists.They were both involved in the initial inclusion of dentist in the National Negro Medical Association,various regional and state dental associations,and the later development of their own professional association,the National Dental Association (not to be confused with the earlier National Dental Association which would become the ADA.At the turn of the century they became the National Medical Association,The NMA'S manifesto was written by C.V.Roman and adopted in 1908.It reads as follow:Conceived in no spirit of racial exclusives,foster no ethnic antagonism,but born of the exigencies of America environment,the National Medical Association has for its object the banding together for mutual cooperation and helpfulness,the men & women of African decent who are legally and honorably engaged in the practice of the congnate professions of medicine,surgery,pharmacy,& dentistry."The NMA I located in Washington, D.C.

"American Missionary Association"[September 3,1846]

Was a Protestant -based abolitionist groups founded on September 3,1846 in Albany New York.The main purpose of this organization was to abolish slavery,to educate African Americans,to promote racial equality,and to promote Christian values.Its members and leaders were of both races and chiefly affiliated with Congregationalist,Methodist, and Presbyterian churches.The American Missionary Association was started by members of the American Home Missionary Society (AHMS) and the American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions (ABCFM),who were disappointed that their first organizations refused to take stands against slavery and accepted contributions from slaveholders.From the begining the leadership was integrated:the first board was made up of 12 men,four of them African American.The organization started the American Missionary magazine,which published from 1846-1934.(Cornell University Library has editions accessible online in its Making of American diginital library.)Among its effort was the founding of anti-slavery churches.For instance,the abolitionist Owen Lovejoy was among the Congregational ministers of the AMA who helped plant 115 anti-slavery churches in illinois before the American Civil War,aided by the strong westward migration of population from the East.Members of the AMA began their support of education for African Americans before the Civil War,and it recruited teachers fir the numerous contraband camps that developed in the South during the war.By war's end,there were 100 contraband camps,and many had AMA teachers.The AMA also served the Roanoke Island Freedmen's Island Colony (1863-1867).Located on an island occupied by Union troops,the colony was intended to be self-sustaining.It was supervised by Horace James,a congregational chaplain appointed by the Army as "Superintendent for Negro Affairs in the North Carolina Distrinct."The first of 27 teachers who volunteered through the AMA was his cousin,Elizabeth James.By 1864 the colony had more than 2200 residents,and both children and adults filled the classrooms in the several one-room schools,as they were eager for learning.The missionary teachers also evangelized and helped provide the limited medical care of the time.The AMA's pace of founding schools and colleges increased during and after war.Freedmen,historically free African Americans,and white sympathizers alike believed that education was a priority for the newly freed slaves.Altogether,"the AMA founded more than five hundred schools and colleges for the freedmen of the South during and after the Civil War,spending more money for that purpose than the Freedmen's Bureau of the federal government.Among the eleven colleges they founded were Berea College and Atlanta University,(1865),Fisk University, (1866);Hampton Institute (1868) and Tougaloo College,(1869);Dillard University,Talladega College, LeMoyne/LeMoyne-Owen College, Tillotson/Huston-Tillotson University,and Avery Normal Institute (1867) (now part of the College of Charleston).Together with the Freedmen's Bureau,the AMA founded Howard University in Washington, D.C. in 1867.In addition,the AMA organized the Freedmen's Aide Society,which recruited northern teachers for the schools and arranged to find housing for them in the south.By the 1870s,the AMA became notable in the United States with its works in opposition to slavery and in support of education for freedmen,it also worked in missions in numerous nations overseas.The 19th-century missionary effort was strong in India,China, and East Asia.Over time,the association became most closely aligned with the Congregational Christian Churches.Most of those congregations have become members of the United Church of Christ (UCC).The AMA maintained its distinct identy until 1999,when a restructuring of the UCC merged it into the Justice and Witness Ministries division.

"National Alliance of Federal &Postal Employees"(1913)

Was formed in 1913 in response to the discrimination faced by early African-Americans postal employees.The organization is comprised of a union of people who served the nation as rank and file employees in the U.S. Federal and U.S. Postal Service.Their motto is unmistaken:Faithful Until Death,(or formally Ad Mortem Fidelis).In the early 1900's,nearly every railway mail clerk was African-American.The Job of a Railway mail clerk was hazardous on the track.By 1913,steel cars were made and the job became more competitive.White railway workers took over and used the Railway Mail Association for protection The Association excluded African-American from their membership.Therefore,the African-American clerks had no labor union or protection.On October 2, 1913.at the Foot of Lookout Mountain in Chattanooga,Tennessee,African-Americans mail clerks from across the country convened and formed the National Alliance of Postal Employees.It was the first industrial union in the United States open to everyone.The group immediately fought for fair practices within the railway mail system.Among their first motions was the elimination of the use of photographs for identification for civil service examinations.The current process left the hiring practices open for discrimination.The practice was finally changed 26 years later.The Alliance also took on women's rights shortly after World War II,insisting that they be given the same career benefits as other postal workers.The organization prides itself in being the creators of a Board of Appeals and Reviews for the U.S. Postal to address.The NAPE organization left a voter registration mark in the historical election in 1964,after the Civil Rights Act legislation.Under the Hatch Act,NAPE surpassed all federal unions is registration that year.In 1965,the National Alliance of Federal and Postal Employees expanded to include federal employees, changing the name to NAPE.With the success of the organization within the postal service industry,the Alliance symbolized strides by lighting and eternal flame at the foot of Lookout Mountain in October 1973,the place where it all began.The flame was to serve as a constant symbol of the alliance's permanency and heritage.The Alliance celebrated its 50th anniversary this year.

"Phyllis Wheatley Women's Clubs and Homes."

Named after the inspirational slave poet Phyllis Wheatley,engaged in a wide range of

Photos shows, seated (left to right): Mrs.Powell,unknown,Mrs.Saunders,Penolia McAden,Standing (left to right):unknown,Bette S.Anderson,Amelia Grace Anderson,Mary B.Talbert,Frances Nash,unknown,unknown,Theresa G.Anderson,Beatrice Chase and Mrs. Chase.
Photo is in front of the Michigan Street Baptist Church in Bufffalo New York.

charitable,social,and political activities on behalf of African-American women.They provided lodging for women,settlement house work,homes for the elderly,and job referral services,and they also sponsored educational and recreational programs for youth.The first clubs were independent organizations that arose spontaneously in several cities in the late nineteenth century,after 1912 many segregated black branches of the Young Women's Christian Association (YWCA) also adopted the name of Phyllis Wheatley.By the turn of the twentieth century African-American had established a plethora of clubs and organizations that engaged in a wide range of self-help,benevolent,social,relgious,literary,and cultural activities.In addition to the specific projects that these clubs supported and the pressing social needs that they attempted to fill,black women's clubs served to defend African-American womanhood in an increasingly hostile social environment.Contemporary racial ideologies portrayed African-American women as devoid of morality,sexually wanton,and incapable of upholding marital and family responsibilities.Through their club activities African-American women sought to appropriate for vthemselves the Victorian image of proper womanhood as bearers of culture, morality, and social uplift.Club women,largely members of the African-American elite,sought the elevation of all black women and worked tirelessly on behalf of those less fortunate.Phyllis Wheatley clubs were a vital part of this much larger club movement. The first Phyllis Wheatley clubs emerged in the late decade of the nineteenth century.Representatives from the Phyllis Wheatley Club of Nashville,Tennessee,attended  the 1895 Atlanta Congress of Colored Women.The following year Phyllis Wheatley clubs from Chicago,New Orleans, and Jacksonville,Florida,were listed in attendance at the first meeting of the National Association of Colored Woman (NACW).In 1897 Detroit clubwomen established the first-known Phyllis Wheatley Home  for Elderly Women.Other clubs also supported homes for the elderly, such as those focused on serving the needs of young African-American women. In Chicago a Phyllis Wheatley Club was formed in 1896.In early activities included the establishment of a nursery school, by 1906 concern had shift to the provision of lodging and employment for the thousands of young African-American women migrating to Chicago who were not served by white-run settlement houses or social services agencies.The club began fund-raising for a home to protect young women "from the human vultures ever ready to destroy young womanhood." Chicago's clubwomen sought to rescue and protect young women from urban vices, foster racial uplift,and provide training in domesticity.Within a year they purchased a building and opened the first Phyllis Wheatley Home for Young Women in the nation.In 1915 a new and larger home was purchased,capable of housing forty-four girls at one time.The success of the home was due,in part, to the support of several of Chicago's leading African-American women's clubs.The motto of the home was "Help our Own,"and members took great pride in the fact that it was financed and managed entirely by African-American women.In 1926 a far larger building building was purchased and the directors claimed that 1,286 young women were helped annually.The Phyllis Wheatley Club in Buffalo,New York,founded by a social worker from Chicago,followed a similar model. Buffalo women were similarly concerned with the negative racial stereotypes that dominated press coverage of the African American community.Between 1899 and 1930 the club engaged in a wide variety of social political,and benevolent reform work.In its early years members donated large quantities of food and clothing to the needy and joined with other wonmen's clubs to provide a monthly "pension"for Underground Railroad leader Harriet Tubman,who was then living in a nursing home.In 1905 the club established a settlement house that sponsored mothers' clubs and offered counseling and job referrals for women.The club later established a home for the elderly.In 1910 the club invited the newly formed NAACP to establish a branch in Buffalo and campaigned for an end to police toleration of vice in the American-American community.In the 1920s the club donated books by leading African-American authors,inclubing Phyllis Wheatley,to the local library.After 1900 Phyllis wheatley Clubs and homes followed two models: some, such as in Chicago and Buffalo, remained independent,local organizations,often affiliated with the NACW.Others,comprised the official "colored branches" of the YWCA.In Philadelphia had founded the first colored Women's Christian Association.Soon black women in other cities established similar groups.The American YWCA,did not recognize these African-American associations until after 1906,when a new national board first encouraged the affiliation of separate "colored"branches.In 1911,the St. Louis Phyllis Wheatley Club became an affiliate of the city's YWCA, which was the world's largest branch and offered a full range of services,but had extended no welcome to the growing African-American population.That year a group of 150 prominent African-American women appealed directly to the YWCA'S national board,which pressured the St. Louis branch to designate the Phyllis Wheatley Club as its black affiliate. The white leadership of the St.Louis YWCA did so reluctantly and only after voting to reserve to themselves the right of supervision.Despite white oversight,the national board Mary Belcher, a dedicated African-American YWCA worker, to direct the new Phyllis Wheatley branch.Soon the branch developed the largest membership of any African-American affiliate and offered a full range of services for women, including a lodging house.In Cleveland African-American women started a fight for  an African-American YWCA in 1906,they were not successful until 1912.Cleveland's African-American elite.raised with hopes of "was wary of establishing segregated institutions.It look a generation of "newcomers" from the South,lead by Jane Edna Hunter,a young nurse,who had experienced personally the plight of young African-American women unable to find decent lodging,to champion a separate institution. As racial tensions mounted with the increased migration of African-Americans to Cleveland,the city's African-American elite gradually came to accepting the pressing need for a segregated institution. Meanwhile,Edna proved adept at winning financial backing in the white community.Whites however,would support a home for  African-American women only if a group of white women was selected to oversee its operations.Edna acquiesced,and a majority white board was elected.In 1912 the Phyllis Wheatley Association of Cleveland was established,and by 1917 it offered the largest  facility for African-American women in the country,composed of an eleven-story building and several separate centers. The association provided lodging job placement,and classes in cooking,sewing, nutrition,hygiene,and scientific home-making while sponsoring a wide range of social and recreational activities for neighborhood residents.Edna successfully resisted formal YWCA branch affiliation for the next thirty-six years of her leadership,thereby preserving a greater degree of autonomy for both herself and the organization.While Whites technically retained control of the African-American associations in St.Louis  and Cleveland,African-American staffed and managed them. African-American women tolerated white supervision and in exchange gained access to white funds and, in the case of the St.Louis association,to the resources of a powerful national organization.World War I expanded and enlarged the work of African-American YWCAs and Phyllis Wheatley home. The war created a large-scale demanded for African-American female domestic workers while fueling African-American migration northward.The national board of the YWCA received $ million from the government for work with women,and one-tenth of the amount was earmarked for African-American women's work.During the war,the number of "colored: YWCA affiliates increased from sixteen to forty-nine, and at least seventeen of these took the name of Phyllis Wheatley. In Washington, D.C., for example,the Colored Women's Christian Association,founded in 1905, had struggled for years to provide services for migrants. After the war, the national YWCA provide $ 20,000 for the establishment of an official Phyllis Wheatley branch. New Phyllis Wheatley clubs and homes continued to emerge during the 1920s and 1930s.These clubs received support and advice from the NACW, they were locally funded and governed by independent boards of directors,thereby avoiding white control. In 1946 the national YWCA adopted and interracial charter and began desegregation effort.Today the legacy of these pioneering Phyllis Wheatley clubs and homes endures.Several branches of the YWCA continue to bear the name of Phyllis Wheatley.The Phyllis Wheatley settlements founded in Cleveland and Minneapolis continue to serve as African-American community centers while over two dozens African-American women's clubs associated with the NACW still bear the name of Phyllis Wheatley.

"National Welfare Rights Organization"(1966-1975)

Was an American activist organization that fought to put more people on welfare, especially women and children.The organization had four goals:adequate income,dignity,justice,democratic participation.The group was active from 1966 to 1975.At its peak in 1969,NWRO membership was estimated at 25,000 members (mostly African American women).Thousands more joined NWRO protests.In early 1966,delegates from poor peoples' organization all over the country met in Syracuse,New York and Chicago,Illinois to discuss the need for unity among grassroots organizations for the poor in the United States.Around this time,Richard Cloward and Frances Fox Piven,both of the Columbia University School of Social Work,were circulating a draft of an article called the "The Weight of the Poor:A strategy to end Poverty"that later appeared in the Nation.The article discussed the idea that the widespread distribution of information about welfare benefits eligibility could dramatically increase welfare rolls,thus creating a bureaucratic and fiscal crisis.In turn,this would lead to the replacement of public assistance programs that currently existed with a guaranteed annual income for all people.Richard and Frances were more concerned with reaching community groups with this work than academia,and the article helped a link between the two.In early 1966,George Wiley, a nationally recognized chemist,the second African American on the faculty of Syracuse University,and former associate director for the Congress of Racial Equality and two of his associates from CORE set up the Poverty Rights Action Center (PRAC) in a two-story row house in Washington,D.C. The PRAC was intended to become a permanent headquarters for coordinating efforts of present poor people's organizations.The PRAC'S first project was planing a series of demonstrations that were to be coordinated with a welfare recipients' march from Cleveland to Columbus,Ohio that had already been planned.This march had been through up by representatives of the United Farm Workers Organizing Committee led by Cesar Chavez.The PRAC'S efforts led to poverty rights demonstrations with thousands of participants in sixteen major cities on June 30,1966,with extensive newspaper coverage in New York City,Washington,Chicago,Los Angeles,Baltimore and Boston.Although there was no formal tie between the participants groups,the NWRO refers to the June, 30 demonstrations with thousands of participants in sixteen major cities on June 30,1966,as "the birth of a movement."Broad coalitions of groups sponsored each city's activists,including,but not limited to,welfare recipient organizations.Over time,there was an increase in coordination and cooperation between these recipient groups and thus a nationwide welfare recipents'organization was needed.In August 1966,the representatives of welfare recipient groups from 24 cities met in Chicago,voting to form the  National Coordinating Committee of Welfare Rights Groups (NCC).The PRAC office was official named the headquarters for a welfare rights movement at a December 1966 meeting of the NCC.PRAC  was authorized by the NCC in February 1967 to come up with a membership card for all groups affiliated with the NCC.Uniform memberships requirements and a common dues structure for its affiliates were adopted by the NCC in April 1967.In August 1967,delegates from 67 local welfare rights organizations met in Washington,D.C. and adopted a constitution that was drafted by the PRAC staff and had been adopted by the NCC,thus forming the National Welfare Rights Organization (NWRO).The NCC made a place for itself within the NWRO as the main decision making body in the national structure of the organization.Despite a nationwide  organization,local welfare rights groups still retained nearly complete autonomy for their local actions.During the first few months of the new movement,NWRO its focus from attempting to create a movement that would encompass all people to concentrating on those individuals who receive public assistance.Welfare recipients were easily organizable and they had the greatest measurable performance within the movement.Also in the early stages of the movement,George rejected Richard and Frances strategy of flooding welfare rolls with new welfare recipients and instead favored a strategy of organizing current welfare recipients into pressure groups.Critics of the Cloward-Piven strategy argued that it was easier to create a welfare crisis than to bring about its resolution.Activists who,were mainly welfare recipients themselves with little political power,would be left amidst this crisis with the ability to do nothing about it.This move was also easier organizationally for the movement because it was strategically more difficult to identify those who were eligible for welfare than those who already received it,it was also more difficult to motivate welfare-eligible individuals to act than those who already received it,and it was easier to organize current recipients of welfare by offering them benefits such as supplementary welfare payments.The NWRO'S first major activity was lobbying against the work incentive provisions of the Social Security Amendments of 1967.The organization held demonstrations that included a sit-in at the United States Senate Committee on Finance hearing room.The activity brought the NWRO a lot of media attention but did not impact the shaping of legislation very heavily.In 1968,the NWRO was acknowledged by Martin Luther King Jr.,giving leaders of the movement and the issues at hand an important part of in his Poor People's Campaign.This nod from Martin helped to promote the NWRO'S first meeting between its leadership and the United States Secretary of Health,Education and Welfare in the summer of 1968.In December 1968,the organizations was granted a large government contract to help monitor the Work Incentive Program.Funding from this and several other large grants foundations helped ti finance a major expansion of the NWRO staff,including the addition of field organizers.The NWRO won much access to government official during the Nixon administration due to membership rolls growing larger and bigger presence in the media.Leaders in the Welfare rights movement were some of the first to be able to meet with Daniel P. Moynihan after he was appointed to the White House staff and leaders also started to meet regularly with Robert Finch,the secretary of the Department of Health,Education and Welfare.During the drafting of the Family Assistance Plan,NWRO leaders were consulted by the Nixon administration and these leaders were also active in lobbying against the plan.Despite demonstrations pointed toward the United States Congress and the Department of Health,Education and Welfare and traditional lobbying and negotiating efforts,welfare rights activities were not mainly centered at the national level.The movement has relied much more on simultaneous demonstrations based on common ideas and themes from local affiliates across the United States.NWRO publications,such as its newspaper The Welfare Fighter,document accounts of the accomplishments and activities that local affiliates participated in.Local groups fueled much of the activity,such as the original June 30 rallies and "birthday in the streets"demonstrations each June 30 after that.Nationwide campaigns revolved around local groups demanding for resources such as supplement welfare checks to pay for back-to school clothing for children of welfare recipients as well as the demand for retail credit at major department stores for NWRO members.By August 1969,an NWRO convention in Detroit estimated roughly 20,000 dues paying members of the organization,and thus roughly 75,000 family members total affected by the movement.Most of the members of the movement were poor,mostly black women.By 1971,NWRO included 540 separate welfare rights organizations.In 1972,Johnnie Tillmon was appointed executive director after George's resignation.Johnnie 1972 essay,"Welfare is a Woman's Issue,"which was published in Ms.Magazine and elsewhere,emphasized women's right to adequate income,regardless of whether they work in a factory or at home raising children.In March 1975,the NWRO ended in bankruptcy.