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IN PRAISE OF SCIENCE    O'DELL

such formations as the Medical Committee for Human Rights which sent a group of nurses and doctors in 1964 and 1965 to study the health conditions in Mississippi. And the movement influence among lawyers extended its base of support in such organizations as the National Committee of Black Lawyers, concerned with the delivery of legal services to the poor. The Poor People's Campaign in "Resurrection City" in Washington (1968) gave further stimulation to this process. With the rebellions in the ghettos in the summer of 1967, in particular, it was clear to us the basic problems remained unsolved. So the question of research and economic action; research, studying, analyzing, and tying that to the mass-action style that we had developed, became increasingly the style. We arrived at this point of analysis at a period when the United States had entered a stage of "civilizational crisis."

A recent continuing example of serious scholarship in the service of developing a mass movement for democratic rights is "The Economic Bill of Rights" prepared by a group of Afro-American social scientists who were convened for the purpose by Rev. Jesse Jackson, the national President of Operation PUSH.

In the course of the dozen years of intense civil rights activities "from Montgomery to Memphis" other things were developing in the base of the economy which were quite significant for us but which our Movement had not given adequate attention to because of our preoccupation with the responsibility of completing the job of abolishing segregation.

Technological unemployment was growing and therefore, the welfare rolls were growing. The welfare rolls in our country doubled from 1955 to 1960 from three and one half to seven million and then doubled again during the decade of the 60's coming into 1971 (at all times, the white poor being the overwhelming majority of those receiving welfare assistance). There was a serious recession in 1961 and 1962 during the Kennedy Administration and the recovery was based upon the war economy developed in connection with the U.S. military invasion of Vietnam. The school crisis also began to show its characteristics at this time when suddenly we discovered "Johnny can't read." And there was a mass movement in the North where students, parents and teachers united around the issue of quality education in such large urban centers as New York, Chicago, Philadelphia, St. Louis, Seattle and San Francisco.

In the field of struggle against slum housing in the ghettos and Spanish barrios years of dedicated organizational work led by Jesse

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Potentially misformatted header, not sure about the spacing. IT'S FINE AS IS. ---------- Reopened for Editing 2024-02-26 11:47:09 ---------- Reopened for Editing 2024-02-26 15:53:52 ---------- Reopened for Editing 2024-02-26 16:27:16 ---------- Reopened for Editing 2024-02-26 16:36:00 ---------- Reopened for Editing 2024-02-26 16:39:42