Expanding the Boundaries of the Women's Movement: Black Feminism and the Struggle for Welfare Rights Author(s):

Premilla Nadasen Source: Feminist Studies, Vol. 28, No. 2, Second Wave Feminism in the United States (Summer, 2002), pp. 270-301 Published by: Feminist Studies, Inc. Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/3178742 . Accessed: 01/05/2011 12:23
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Expanding the Boundaries of the Women's Movement: Black Feminism and the

Strugglefor Welfare Rights

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The recentdismantling of Aid to Familieswith DependentChildren the federal has taken (AFDC), safetynet for poorwomenandchildren,
place with relativelyminimal protest and outrage.Localwelfare rights organizationsplanned demonstrations,the National Organizationfor Women (NOW)launcheda day of protest,and a networkof mostly academic women known as the Committee of loo lobbied Congress and think tanks and puborganizeda picketat the White House. Progressive lic policy institutes expressed concern about the turn of events. But compared with the response from women nationwide when the legal right to abortion was threatened in the late 198os or when Anita Hill chargedSupremeCourtnominee ClarenceThomaswith sexual harassment, the end of welfareas we knewit became realitywith a disheartening measureof publicapathy. The lack of protest suggests that welfare,althoughit is the main economic supportfor women in need in the United States, is still not consideredby most feminists a women'sissue. At the same time, civil rights organizations, seeking to challenge white Americans' conflation of povertyand race,have been reluctantto makeAfricanAmericanwelfare mothers symbolic of the Black plight. And working-class movements have historically focused on workplace issues, distancing themselves from the non-wage-earning poor. These strategicchoices and the deeply embedded negative stereotypes of women on welfare that permeate American culture have made welfare a difficult and unlikely issue aroundwhich progressivescan organize.Yet, despite the difficultiesof recruiting allies to their cause, poor Black women, along with other women of color, have fought for decades to demonstrate the connections among race, class, and genderinjusticeand to use the demand for Feminist Inc. Studies28, no. 2 (summer 2002). @ 2002 by Feminist Studies,
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welfare rights as a vehicle for developing feminist theory and action.

The welfare rights movement of the 196os and 1970s provides one

exampleof this phenomenon. The feminist politics of the welfare rights movement were perhaps best summedup by Johnnie Tillmon,AFDCrecipientand welfarerights Is a organizersince the early196os. Tillmon's1972Ms. article,"Welfare Women'sIssue,"reflectedthe long struggleto define the welfarerights movementas a partof the largerwomen'smovement.Tillmonwrote: is likea super-sexist Youtradein a manfor Thetruthis thatAFDC marriage. himif he treatsyoubad.He candivorce theman.Butyoucan'tdivorce you,of man In he wants. The runs cut off course, you anytime everything. ordinary to be foryourhusband. OnAFDC notsupposed sexis supposed marriage you're of yourownbody.It'sa condition of to haveanysex at all.Yougiveup control aid.Youmayevenhaveto agreeto get yourtubestied so you can neverhave Theman,the welfare morechildren system, justto avoidbeingcutoffwelfare. what notto buy,where to buyit, He tells what to controls yourmoney. you buy, forinstance-really costmorethanhe andhowmuchthingscost.Ifthings-rent, is budgeted right. Everything saystheydo, it'sjusttoobadforyou.He'salways Themancan andyou've stretch. downto thelastpenny yourmoney go to make hewantsto andpokeintoyourthings. You've intoyourhouseanytime break got I no to when on welfare. Like to protest. You've no right got right privacy yougo a super-sexist said.Welfare's marriage.' For Tillmon,"theman"was a metaphorfor the welfaresystem and was her attempt to link the sexism that women experiencedin the household directlyby men with the sexism women on welfareencounteredin institutionalized settings.In her analysis,welfarecombinedracial,class, and gender oppressions,layingthe basis for an argumentthat it should be definedas a feministissue. Black welfare activists like Tillmon formulated a distinctive and broadlybased analysisof women'sliberationthat spoke to the needs of considereda part of the femimany women who were not traditionally nist movement.They put forth an insightfulcritiqueof the welfaresystem and the ways in which it controlledand regulatedthe sexualityand lives of women. The movementwas comprisedprimarilyof poor Black women on AFDCwho organizedprotestsand plannedcampaignsto demand higherwelfarebenefits, protectionof their civil rights,and better treatmentfrom their caseworkers.But it also drew supportfrom other poor women of color and white women who came to see gender as cenidentifiedas feminists. tralto the politicsof welfareandwho increasingly Even welfare rights activistswho were more reluctantto identify as feminists neverthelessarticulatedeconomic demands that increasingly and proscribedsexuality. asserteda critiqueof gender roles, patriarchy,
For example, these activists sought to bring dignity to their work as mothers and defy a culture that for the most part denied them the right to be mothers. They also challenged the belief that paid work was auto-

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maticallyliberatingand exploredthe exploitativeconditionsin the labor market under which most women, especially poor women of color, worked.Ratherthan prescribingthat women either enter the workforce or stay home with children,choose to marryor rejectmarriage,welfare activistsdemandedthat women have the powerto definetheir own lives. In developingtheir analysis,local welfare rights activistsquestioned not only the assumptionsof white feministsbut also those of Blackmen. They critiqued,for instance, Blacknationalisteffortsto strengthenmale leadership in the family and community and their suggestions that AfricanAmericanwomen could contributemost to the race by having children.At a time whenjobs for Blackmen came to be seen as the most effective solution to both Black poverty and the so-called crisis of the female-headed household, these Black welfare mothers asserted their right to an independent source of income and control over their own reproduction. Most welfare recipients,even those who became activists,cannot be called intellectuals,in the traditionalsense of the word.2 Their analysis was forged not from a theoreticalunderstandingof women's place but from a worldview constructedout of their day-to-daylives. The material reality of their circumstancesand the culturethat surroundedthem shaped a distinctivenotion of gender politics and identity.These women thus became organic intellectuals, theorizing the interconnections among race, class, and gender on the basis of their daily experience.In the context of other social movementsof the 1960s and 1970s, they produced a counterhegemonic discoursethat challengedthe social position to which they, as poor women on welfare,were relegated.3 Welfare mothers are part of a long tradition of organizing among poor AfricanAmericanwomen.4But, in many cases, these women did not put forth a coherentcritiqueof patriarchy; indeed, they sometimes distanced themselves from an agenda that pushed explicitlyfor women's autonomy. Nevertheless, many experiencedthe multiple oppressions of race, class, and gender. Fannie Lou Hamer offers one compelling example. Hamer's political involvement was rooted in the racism, poverty, and sexism she experienced in the Jim Crow South. Throughher activism,she addressedthe dual and interconnected problems of race and class. Hamerclearlysaw herself involvedin a struggle for racial liberation but believed it could only be won if Blacks also gained economic rights. Even though Hamer workedfor the empowerment of poor AfricanAmericanwomen and men and frequentlyplaced herself in positions of political leadership, she consciously distanced herself from feminists and a feminist agenda." In anothercase, African American women meatpackers involved in the United Packinghouse
Workers of America between 1940 and 1960 challenged both racial and gender discrimination in the industry and the union. They developed a critique of sexist labor practices but did not identify as feminists.6 The

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welfarerightsmovementadded an explicitlyfeminist twist to this tradition of organizing,with poor Blackwomen in local communitiesacross the countrybecomingboth theorists of and advocatesfor a new understandingof the relationsamongrace,class, and gender. The analysesof work,motherhood,family,and sexualityespousedby women welfare rights activists did not form a well-definedideology at the movement'sinception.It emergedhaltinglyand unevenlyas welfare in publicassistance.It activistsengagedin the strugglefor improvements was a productof women's day-to-dayexperienceswith the welfaresystem, experiencesreplicatedaroundthe country.Welfareactivistscontinuallyappealedto otherwomen andwomen'sgroupsand identifiedthemselves simultaneously as mothers, welfare recipients, workers, sexual partners,politicalactivists,and women. The Washington,D.C.,Welfare in Alliance,for example,wrote in 1968 to all the women'sorganizations the area,includingfeminist organizations, invitingthem to a meetingto discuss President Johnson's welfare proposals.' In New York City, CorettaScott Kingorganizeda similargatheringon behalfof the welfare rightsmovement,to discusswaysthat women'sgroupscouldsupportthe One of the most interestingattemptsof welfarerightsactivists struggle.8 to appeal to women outside their ranks occurredin Michigan.There, they asked Lenore Romney,the governor'swife, "to intercede on their behalf and as a concernedmother"to oppose proposedcuts in AFDC.9
From the early 196os to 1971, the threads of feminist consciousness that

were evident among welfare rights activists at the local level spread across the country, affecting the development and dynamics of the NationalWelfareRightsOrganization (NWRO)and the prioritiesof the movement. women's larger After 1972, the politics of welfarerights activistsbecame more explicitly feminist; for instance, they advocatednot just mothers'rights but women's rights and not just personal choice but reproductiverights. Moreover,rather than simply allying with women's organizations,by This transforma1972,NWROwas callingitself a women'sorganization. a productof the was feminist tion from an implicitto an explicit agenda tension the internal day-to-daystruggleswaged by women on welfare, the in and between women and men the movement, largerpoliticalclia in was which feminism mate of the period becoming morevisibledominantforce. The conflict between women and men leaders within NWROprothe foundlyshapedthe feminism of welfarerights activists.Throughout late 196os and early1970s,leadersstruggledoverwho had controlof the and the degreeto which women'sissues ought to take preorganization
cedence. These conflicts led women to take over formal leadership of the organization by the end of 1972 and to put forth a more explicitly woman-centered agenda. Their struggle for economic security, then, was increasingly tied to their desire for autonomy as women. Overall, their struggle represented a unique brand of feminism, one that contributed to

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and expanded the boundaries of the women's movement. This article traces the developmentof a feminist welfare rights movement and the role of poor Blackwomen in its creation.'0 The Emergence of Welfare Rights The welfare rights movement began in the early and mid-196os when hundreds of recipients of AFDCbegan to express dissatisfactionwith the system of welfare. Disgruntledrecipientsinitiallycame together in small neighborhood and community groups across the country. Although stirredpartlyby the politicalprotestsof the time, they organized primarilyin response to local problemswith welfaredepartments,such as a recipient unjustly removed from the welfare rolls, unable to buy basic necessities, or treatedunfairlyby caseworkers. Althoughstringent eligibilitycriteriaand unfairpracticeswere long associatedwith AFDC, and more repressive.In response,using avenues opened up by the relatively liberal political climate, mothers receiving AFDCjoined with friends and neighborsto share grievances,show one another support, and influencethe policiesand practicesof the welfaredepartment. Many of the local groups founded in the early- and mid-196os were headed by women. In Detroit,for example,a group of recipientscalling themselves Westside MothersADC got involved in practical,problemoriented campaigns. During its first year, the group met with postal authoritiesto get locks put on mailboxesin apartmentbuildingsto prevent the theft of welfarechecks, negotiatedwith the welfaredepartment to pay for baby-sittersfor mothersinvolvedin the workexperienceprogram, requested special clothing allowances from the welfare department, and persuaded utility companies to eliminate deposits for lowincome families."The EnglewoodWelfareRights Organization in New Jersey started when "manywelfare recipients, through meeting and talking generallywith one another, found that they were experiencing some of the [same] difficultieswith the BergenCountyWelfareBoard." This includeddisrespectfrom caseworkers and a lack of communication between client and caseworker. When their complaintswent unheeded, they beganto recruitother recipientsto join their newlyformedgroup." Some individualsdrawnto welfarerightsactivityhad a long historyof Tillmon,a motherof six in LosAngeleswho formed politicalorganizing. Aid to Needy ChildrenMothersAnonymous(ANC),workedin a laundry and was also a union shop steward.Tillmonjoined the welfare rolls in 1963 because of illness but found the system so degrading that she decidedto form a welfarerightsgroup.She visited morethan 500 recipiA tireents living in her housing projectto get them involvedin ANC.'"
less advocate of poor women, Tillmon was instrumental in founding NWRO and served on its executive board until 1972, when she became the first welfare recipient to be elected executive director of the organizain the late 1950osand early 196os these policies became even harsher

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JeanetteWashingtonhad workedfor manyyears as a community tion."4 organizeron issues such as urbanrenewaland tenants rights,as well as in the Parent-Teacher Association, and the StryckersBay Community before she becamea prominentmemberof the (NewYork) Organization Citywide CoordinatingCommittee of Welfare Rights Groups.15Other welfarerecipientstracedtheir politicalactivityto the civil rights movement. Mothers for AdequateWelfare (MAW)in Boston, a multiracial with the nationalorganization, was formedaftersevgroupnot affiliated eral mothersin the area attendedthe 1963 Marchon Washington.They formed MAWin 1965 with the help of members of the Students for a DemocraticSociety(SDS). MildredCalvert,chairof the NorthsideWelin Milwaukee, fare RightsOrganization explainedthat she began "seeing things in a different light" and became involved in the welfare rights movement after a local priest, Father James Groppi, led civil rights Sometimesthese grassrootsactivistscame together marchesin the city.16 on their own; sometimes they got assistance from local churches,stuActionAgencies, or Community dents groups,civil rights organizations, which were funded as part of the War on Povertyto encouragepolitical participation by the poor. Theselocal groupseventuallycoalescedin 1967,with the help of middle-class organizers,to form the NWRO,the first nationalbody to represent AFDCrecipients.NWROchaptersand other unaffiliatedwelfare rightsgroupsaroundthe countrywere highlysuccessfulat winningconcessions for poor women from state and local welfare departments. Recipients were granted additional allowances for household items, forcedthe creationof client advisorygroups,and overturnedsome welfare regulations that were considered especially oppressive. On the national level, they won legal victories guaranteeingthem the right to due process. The movement, funded largely by churches and foundations, reachedits peakin 1968 with 30,000 members. The welfare rights movement as a whole, including members, paid organizers,and staff, was diverse and includedwomen and men, African Americans,other people of color, and whites. These diversegroups brought competing notions of liberation and empowerment into the movement.The electedleadersof NWROwere drawnfrom the ranksof the membership, which was limited to welfare recipients and later Combroadenedto includeany poor person.The NationalCoordinating each state. from a included mittee, which met four times year, delegates a times met which The nine-memberExecutiveCommittee, year, eight was elected at the annual conventions and chargedwith carryingout policies set by the membership.Althoughthis structurewas designedto ensure recipientparticipation,in realitymost of the political power in
NWRO rested with the paid field organizers and staff in the national office, most of whom were middle-class men, often white.17The first executive director of NWRO was George Wiley, an African American

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who grew up in a predominantly white, relativelyprivilegedcommunity in Rhode Island. A chemistry professorby training, Wiley was deeply committedto antiracistand antipovertyactivismand in 1964 gave up a professorship at Syracuse University to work full-time with the ConIn 1967 he was instrumentalin the forgress of RacialEquality(CORE). mation of NWRO. By 1970, questions of leadership and political didiminrectionof the movementwould come to plaguethe organization, ishing its politicalclout, but opening up opportunitiesfor a more vocal internaltensions, severe Blackfeminist politics. Then in the mid-1970os financialdifficulties,and a more hostile politicalclimate,led the NWRO, like most welfarerightsorganizations, to fold. The best estimates suggest that the membership of the movement was roughly 85 percent AfricanAmerican,to percent white, 5 percent Latina,with a small number of Native Americanparticipantsas well. Although a handful of men became members, the organization was In addicomprisedalmost exclusivelyof women-perhaps 98 percent.'8 tion to the differences of race/class/gender backgroundsof those involved in the welfare rights movement, political controversies were common between differentchaptersand even within local groups that were relativelyhomogeneousin terms of race and gender.19 Despite the difficulties of speaking of a single movement, certain generalizations aboutthe interestsof grassrootsmemberscan be made. In its early years, welfare rights advocatesarticulatedwhat in practice was a feminist agenda. Although local groups followed different chronological trajectories-some were founded in 1961 and others in 1968-many of the organizationsand individuals were grapplingwith women's issues. Tillmonwas perhapsthe best-knownNWROfeminist, but others, some of whom did not join NWRO,embracedsimilar politics. MAWmembers, for instance, firmlybelieved from the outset that women on welfare should control the welfare rights movement. The organizationfought to maintainits autonomyas NWROexpandedand sent middle-classorganizersto Massachusetts; in this case, MAW'songoing struggleswith the predominantlymale NWROstaff bolstered its feminist analysis.These women and countless other grassrootsactivists developeda list of demandsand grievancesthat laid the basis for a gendered critiqueof the welfare system as well as the formationof a Black feminist consciousness. Welfarerights activists demandedthe right to choose to be mothers or to enter the world of work outside the home; to date and have intimate relationshipsor to remain single; to have a child or not. They optheir social lives and told posed welfare regulationsthat circumscribed
them who they could or could not see. They opposed work requirements forcing women to accept employment when they preferred to stay at home. They opposed the arbitrary power of caseworkers and demanded the right to a fair hearing when caseworkers made decisions

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they believed were unfair. They demanded higher welfare benefits or "special" grants for items they needed so they could properlytake care of themselves and their children.They demanded the right to control their own reproduction,choosing for themselveswhen and how to take birth control,have an abortion,or be sterilized.And they demandedthe rightto controltheir own organizations. Contesting Motherhood One of the most importantelements of the feminismadvocatedby early welfare rights advocates was support for women's role as mothers. Manywhite and Blackfeminists in the 196os viewed motherhoodas a sourceof oppression.One of the centralgoals advancedby radicalwhite feminists such as ShulamithFirestone,was "thefreeing of women from the tyrannyof reproduction."2'FrancesBeale, an importantearlyvoice of Blackfeminism and a founderand leader of the StudentNon-Violent CoordinatingCommittee(SNCC)BlackWomen's LiberationCommittee, initiatedin 1966, had a similarview. She arguedin her pathbreakwomen sitting at home readthat "black Jeopardy," ing article,"Double are not going to make it." She their children stories to bedtime just ing believed that full-time mothers lead an "extremelysterile existence."" Beale was responding in part to calls from Black nationalists who claimedBlackwomen could best aid the strugglefor racialliberationby havingbabies. She hoped to broadenthe politicaland economicroles of Black women and Black mothers by making motherhood compatible with employmentand/or politicalactivity.LikeFirestone,she wantedto for women. In the process,howopen up ratherthan limit opportunities the work that mothers did was to that their views ever, implied many not by itself rewardingand ought to be replacedor supplementedwith work outside the home. In the 1970s, some white feministsbegan to revalue women's reproductivecapacities, arguingfor its link to genderspecific qualities of nurturing and caregivingand, in some cases, for Unlikewelfarerights activists,howevwomen'sbiologicalsuperiority." er, these culturalfeminists generallysaw men as the enemy. Nonetheless, they believedthat the common experienceof motheringcould help build bridgesbetween Blackand white feminists.23 In contrastto many other feminists in the 196os, women in the welfare rights movementvaluedthe workthat mothersdid. Theirconcerns for their childrenoften spurredtheir involvementin the welfare rights struggle and their status as mothers was inseparable from their activism."'From the inception of the struggle,welfare rights activists reand sought to or "mother-recipients" ferredto themselves as "mothers"
bring dignity and respect to their work as family caregivers.25In June 1966, 700 mothers in Pennsylvania formed a "crusade for children" and descended on Harrisburg to ask legislators for an immediate increase in the basic AFDC grant.26 In 1968, reporter Gordon Brumm wrote that

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"MAW's leaders hold that motherhood-whetherthe mother is married or not-is a role which should be fully supported,as fully rewarded,as Vera Walker,a welfare rights activist in fully honored, as any other.""7 Kansasand a thirty-year-old mother of five who grewup in a ruralMississippi shack, explainedher involvementin welfare rights: "Thewhite man told us what school to go to and when. If he said go to the fields, that is where we went. We workedbehind the mule, plowed the white
man's land, and made the white man rich. ... Now I want to see to it

that my childrenget better schoolingand betterclothes-everythingthat I didn'thave a chance to get.""8 For Walker,the movementwas fundamentallyabout creatinga betterlife for her children. Morethan simply exaltingmotherhoodas meaningfuland important the centralityof their childrenin their lives, welwork or acknowledging fare recipientsalso demandedthat their labor as mothersbe recognized and compensatedfinancially.Cassie B. Downer,chair of the Milwaukee CountyWelfareRightsOrganization, explained,"Aguaranteedadequate income will recognizework that is not now paid for by society. I think that the greatestthing that a woman can do is to raiseher own children, and our society should recognizeit as a job. A person should be paid an A welfarerights groupin Ohio arguedin adequateincome to do that."29 that five kids is a full time job"and that they shouldhave a 1968 "raising choice of whetherto workinside or outsidethe home.30The movement's is a right"challengedthe long-standingbelief that AFDC slogan "welfare should be given only to mothers who welfareofficialsdeterminedwere worthy.Instead,welfarerights activistssuggestedthat all poor mothers deservedassistance.In the context of waning public supportfor AFDC, increasingpoliticalattackson Blacksingle mothers,and effortsto force women on welfareto enter the labor market,welfare activists asserted their rightto publiceconomicsupport. This would best be achieved,they believed,with the implementation of a guaranteed annual income. For the women in the welfare rights movement, this guaranteewas necessary as both an avenue to achieve women'seconomicindependenceand as compensationfor their work as mothers. Unlikethe call for self-determination put forthby some women'sliberationists, the autonomywelfarerecipientssoughtwas morethan an abstractdemand.Forpoorwomen to have real autonomy,they had to have the financialsupportthat allowedthem to make the same choices that middle-classwomen were able to make. Welfarerightsactivistsdid not just look at the social pressuresand norms governingwomen'slives but also at the financialconstraintsrestricting women'schoices.Endorsannualincome servedseveralpurposesat ing the conceptof a guaranteed
once. It forced the state to recognize housework and childcare as legitimate work, freed women from dependence on men, debunked the racial characterizations of Black women as lazy by acknowledging the work they did as mothers, and gave women a viable option to degrading labor market conditions.

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Welfarerecipients'insistencethat motherhoodwas meaningfulwork resonated in important ways with the maternalist movement of the early twentieth centuryand with the "wagesfor housework" campaign of the 196os and 1970s. Maternalists, who sought mothers'pensions for widows, had justified such assistance on groundsvery similar to those of women in the welfare rights movement.31But the earliermaternalist movementwas qualitativelydifferentfrom the later struggleof welfare recipients.Most maternalistswere prosperouswhite women, moved by class and cultural bias to compel poor women to adopt middle-class Theirgoal was to reinforcethe sociallydestandardsof respectability.32 fined role for women. Welfarerights activists, on the other hand, ultimatelysoughtto give women autonomyto make choicesfor themselves. In addition,they recognizedthat as AfricanAmericanwomen they were not accordedthe same social status or primaryidentityas mothersthat white women had. To place value on their workas motherswas to challenge social norms,not conformto dominantexpectations. The wages for houseworkcampaign,which involved both workingclass and middle-class white women, more closely paralleledwelfare recipients'demands for economic supportfor motherhood.In 1975, a London-based group claimed: "Ourhousework goes on behind the scenes, unnoticed,uncounted,unchartedas long as it is unpaid. But if we demandto be paid for it, if we demandWagesfor Houseworkfrom the State, we are sayingfirst of all that houseworkis work."33 Muchlike the welfare rights movement, wages for housework advocateswanted the work that women did in the home to be recognizedand rewarded. This movement,however,failedto grappleeffectivelywith the often disof white women and women of color. tinct domesticresponsibilities The value welfarerights activistsplaced on motherhoodwas a counterpoint to the experiences most African American women had with of being fullwork and motherhood.Few Blackwomen had the "luxury" outside the home out of most worked time mothers,and necessity.The with rates following rising employment majorityof white women, even World War II, were able to avoid wage work during their peak childbearing and childraisingyears. Wage work for poor women and most Blackwomen often meant long hours, drudgery,and meager rewards, not a fulfillingcareer.As late as 1950, 60 percentof gainfullyemployed Blackwomen workedin privatehouseholds or as cleaningwomen and in hotels, restaurants,and offices."Giventhe opportunity,many "help" African Americanwomen preferredto stay home. Thus, for Black poor the women, struggleto preservetheir right to be mothers was viewed of AfricanAmericans.3" as historically a challengeto the subordination Alternative Family Models Welfarerights activistswere also criticalof the ways in which domestic relationshipswith men could be oppressiveto women and especiallyto

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mothers. In their exaltation of motherhood, they were not proposing that women on welfaresimply marryand accepta subordinatestatus as mother and homemaker.They condemnedthe subordinationof women in traditional family formations and suggested alternative models. Moreover,they defended their status as single mothers and disputed stereotypesvilifyingthem. Ultimately,they believedthat women should have control over their sexuality and reproduction and autonomy in choosingtheir partners. Women in the welfare rights movement responded to widespread attacks on Black single motherhood, views popularized by Daniel PatrickMoynihan'sfamous 1965 report,TheNegro Family. In it, Moynihan claimedBlackwomen were domineering,Blackmen failedto provide for their families,and that the increasein single motherhoodin the AfricanAmericancommunity created a social crisis.36 Reaction to the MoynihanReportwas immediate.Some civil rightsactivistsbelievedhis emphasis on Black family patterns detracted from more important structuralissues such as job discrimination.Other Blackactivistschallenged the characterizationof the Black family as matriarchal.They argued that in most cases Blackfamilies conformedto the two-parent norm and that given a chance, Black men did provide adequatelyfor their wives and children. Black feminists criticizedMoynihan'suse of the term "matriarch" for Black women who lacked both political and economic power. Moreover,they argued,Blackfemale strength should be considered a virtue that fostered more egalitarianrelations within the Blackcommunity.37 Like other Blackfeminists, women in the welfare rights movement challengedthe idea that strong Blackwomen were dsyfunctional.But they went one step further,questioningthe primacyof the two-parent family model that Moynihan and most of his critics embraced. They attempted to debunk the notion that single motherhoodwas a sign of cultural deficiency and challenged the assumption that poor single mothers needed a male breadwinner. As single mothers who were essentially punished for not conforming to conventional norms, they were acutelyawareof the social expectationsto marryand establishtraditional family relationshipsbut believed that such relationshipsoften served to subordinatewomen. Tillmonarguedthat if a woman was not married,people assumed she had "failedas a woman because [she has] failed to attractand keep a man. There'ssomethingwrong with [her]." The meagerbenefits and stigmaattachedto welfareservedas an "example" to let any woman know what would happen "if she tries to go it alone without a man."38Brummreportedthat MAWbelieved that marwas a "meansfor domination riagewith its "fixedrules and obligations" more than a means for expressing love."39' These women argued that social pressures,the welfare system, and the institution of marriageall worked to discourage autonomy by forcing women into subordinate

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relationswith men. Forthem, liberationmeant preservingtheir rightto be women and mothersindependentof men. Welfareactivistsdid not, however,rejectmen. Instead,they proposed alternativemodels for female-malerelationships-wherewomen maintained autonomyin their personallives but strovefor fulfillingrelationBrummexplainedthat memships. "Instead[of institutionalmarriage],"
bers of MAW "favor love, .
. .

responsibility toward other persons, and

An important freedom to whateverextent that responsibilityallows."40 componentof the eligibilitycriteriafor AFDCwas that motherswere not to date or be intimately involved with men. Welfare caseworkersbelieved such relationshipswould compromisethe mother'smoral standing or indicate that she no longer needed assistance because the man with whom she was involvedcould supporther. Welfarerights activists asserted their right to date or develop relationshipswith men without fromthe welfaredepartment. negativerepercussions Since the AFDCprogram'sinception, caseworkershad conducted investigationsto determinerecipients'worthiness,sometimes showing up unexpectedlyin infamous "midnightraids"to determine if clients were engagedin what they believedwas unethicalbehavior.To counter this pattern of harassment, welfare recipients in Morgantown,West Virginia,wrote a handbook instructing others that "anAFDCmother can have male visitors as often as she wants and go out on dates if she leaves her children in the care of a responsible person." Later, they wrote that althoughthe welfare departmentwill not pay for a divorce, divorce," suggestingwomen could separatefrom you can get a "pauper's their husbands and plead ignorance about their whereabouts.'4When women did marrysomeone who was not the fatherof their childrenand thereforenot obligatedto providesupport,they ideally wanted to continue to receive welfare and maintain their economic independence. Westside ADC Mothers of Detroit sought to overturn a policy which made the new husband financiallyliable for the childrenof the recipient.42 Through such strategies, welfare rights activists attempted to legitimatetheir status as single parentsand assert their rightto enter or rejectthe institutionof marriageon their own terms. As BarbaraOmolade argues, the survivalof single mothers representeda challenge to Welfarerights activists,by refutingthe claimthat the patriarchal ideal.43 motherhood was pathological,similarlyattemptedto transform single dominantnotions of who and what compriseda functionalfamily. Reproductiverights were also an importantconcern for women on welfare,as they were for many women in this period.The introduction of the birth control pill, advancesin other forms of contraception,and more liberalattitudesabout sexualityled to greatersexualfreedomduring the 1960s. Yet within the Black Power movement, some people repeatedly called for Black women to refrain from using birth control and to do their "revolutionary duty," which was to have babies to perpetuate

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the race. Birth control, in whatever form, these Black nationalists arAlthoughthis may be construedas an gued, was counterrevolutionary. appreciation or valorization of Black mothers, it gave women little choice or autonomy.In responseto their call to have babies, Blackfeminists assertedthe benefits of reproductivechoice, claimedtheir right to use birth control,and were adamantthat their role in the revolutionnot be confinedto procreation." Howeverantifeministthe position of some Blacknationalistsseemed, it was in part a responseto the fact that poor women of color had struggled historicallyfor the rightto raise their own children.Underslavery, Black childrenwere often unwillinglyseparatedfrom their parents.At the turn of the century,campaignswere launchedto limit the fertilityof and for many in the Blackcommunity,birth control the "lower-races," For Blackwomen on remainedidentifiedwith the eugenicsmovement.45 welfarethe problemwas compoundedby a public outcryabout welfare with effortsto preventpoor women from "abuse" that coupled "reform" In more children. some cases, acceptance of welfare benefits bearing was tied directly to sterilization,for instance. This made it necessary and logical for women on welfare to frame reproductiveissues not in terms of access to abortion and birth control but choice, a term that would only come into vogue among middle-classwhite feminists in the mid-197os.Welfarerecipientswantedto choose for themselveswhether Tillmon or not they should have a child and under what circumstances. wrote: "Nobodyrealizesmore than poor women that all women should have the right to control their own reproduction."46 In 1969, when United Movement for Progress (UMP), a predominantly Black antipoverty coalition in Pittsburgh,refused federal funds for six Planned Parenthood clinics that served the poor community, women in the NWRO mobilized against community leaders. Speaking of William Haden,head of the UMP,mother GeorgianaHendersoncharged,"Who
appointed him our leader anyhow? ... He is only one person-and a man at that. He can't speak for the women of Homewood. . . . Why should I let one loudmouth tell me about having children?"47 Through

their organizing,the mothers had Haden removed as a representative on the antipoverty boardand the funds restoredto the clinics. The struggle around the Planned Parenthood clinics in Pittsburgh indicates one way in which women on welfare struggledto keep birth control options open so they could assert their sexual and familial autonomy.Some manuals createdby local welfare rights organizations to educate recipients informed them about birth control but stressed
that "this is your choice."48In 1971 the NWRO national convention included a panel on abortion, but, as Tillmon explained, "We know how easily the lobby for birth control can be perverted into a weapon against poor women. The word is choice. Birth control is a right, not an obligation. A personal decision, not a condition of a welfare check."'49 The

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politicalpositions the welfarerights movementtook aroundfamily and sexuality were an important departurefrom previous Black women's activism. As Deborah GrayWhite argues, prior to the 196os, national of Black leaders attemptedto counterracistand sexist characterizations them as asexualbeings."5 Womenwelfarerightsacwomenby portraying tivists,on the otherhand,vocallyassertedtheirrightto sexualfreedom. Work and Liberation Women in the welfarerights movementalso questionedfeminist assertions that employmentled to liberation.In the 196os many middle-class white feministsfoughtfor the rightto workoutsidethe home-not simply as a means of economicindependencebut also as a path to personalfulfillment.Welfarerightsactivists,many of whom workedout of necessity, believedthat wagelaboroughtto be a matterof choice.Theycameto this conclusionbecause for them, as for most poor women, work was more Poorwomoften a sourceof oppressionthan a means of empowerment. or fulfillingin jobs that were physically en foundlittle that was rewarding them no autonomyor flexibility. taxing,unpleasant,and afforded The differentsocial expectationsfor Blackand white, poor and middle-class women regardingemploymentwere institutionalizedwhen in 1967 welfare "reforms" requiredrecipientsto seek work. The Work Incentive Program(WIN) departed from the original premise of AFDC which insisted that mothers stay home and care for their children; it penalizedwelfarerecipientswho did not registerforjobs orjob training. Welfare rights activists challenged the artificial dichotomy between work and welfare and realizedthat welfare policies forcing mothers to workcontradicted popularnotions abouttheir properrole as caretakers. the work ethic created a double standard;it applied that They argued on welfare. In a local Ohio newsletter,one women and to to men only welfarerecipientcleverlycontrastedher situationwith the era'sreigning symbol of womanhood: "JackieKennedygets a government check. Is Tillmon wrote, "Ifyou're a society anyone making her go to work?"'' and from Scarsdale you spend all your time sitting on your proslady perity paring your nails, well, that's okay. Women aren't supposed to Women in the welfare rights movement thus analyzed and work.""' scrutinizedthe differentexpectationssociety had of white middle-class women and poorwomen of color.Theirdemandsto be viewed more like their white counterpartsillustrates the very different perceptions and realitiesof gender,domesticity,and motherhoodacrossraciallines. Welfarerights activists opposed forcingwomen into a labor market where they were unable to earn enough to supporttheir families. Gender, they argued, was a powerful determinant in pay scales, and women's lower wages created an impossible predicament for single working mothers trying to raise a family. Tillmon pointed out that "ajob doesn't necessarily mean an adequate income" and that "a woman with three

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kids ... earningthe full Federalminimumwage of $1.60 an hour, is still in the welfarerights movementanalyzedthe stuckin poverty."53Women in ways which the family wage system provided for married middleclass women but undercut the wages of their working-class counterparts.Membersof MAW,for instance, accordingto Brumm,arguedthat working mothers "need nearly the same income as a family man, yet they are expected to take jobs ordinarilyoccupiedby young unmarried women."Althoughthere was a great deal of public disdain for women out of public funds,"they arguedthat on welfarewho were "supported women benefiting from the higher wages paid to men were also supported by public funds. They pointed out that the wives of highly paid men working for the state or in the private sector were supported through taxes or higher prices. MAW'sposition, as summarized by Brumm,was that "Ifour affluentsociety can supportactivitiesof no real value [such as building nuclearweapons], then it can equallywell support the upbringingof childrenin a properway.54 Yet welfarerights activists also sought to ease the problemsof women who, out of choice or necessity, entered wage work. In particular, they supportedthe creationof childcarecenters. This was, in fact, "one of Tillmon'swelfarerights organizationin Califorof the first priorities" nia." The NWROoffice produceda guide for local welfarerightsgroups on how to organize a comprehensivecommunity-controlledchildcare program,giving them advice on raising money, hiring staff, and planIn 1972, the ClarkCountyWelfareRights Organization in ning meals."6 Nevada successfullylaunched a daycareprogramwith the help of local churchesand a nutritionistemployedby the Officeof EconomicOpportunity."Althoughproponentsof daycarecenters,women in the welfare rights movementwere, nevertheless,criticalabout the dynamiccreated when poor women were hired to carefor otherwomen'schildren.Afraid of the way institutionalizedchildcarecould be used to oppress women, Tillmonwarnedthat the fight for universalchildcareshould not be used to create "areservoirof cheap female labor"that "institutionalized, parThe image of the Mammywas a powtially self-employedMammies.""8 erful one for AfricanAmerican women. Since slavery, they had been forced to leave their own childrenand care for other people's children. Thus, althoughdaycarecenterscould potentiallyfree some women from the constraintsof childcare,it couldjust as likely create an exploitative situationfor otherwomen. Because Black and white women, in this case welfare moms and white middle-classmoms, had differentexperiences,they came to different conclusions about the necessity of paid employment, the scope of sexual and reproductive freedom they desired, and the value placed on motherhood. For poor Black women, paid employment was not necessarily a challenge to sexual inequality. On the contrary, encouraging women to enter the world of work would only reinforce the kind of ex-

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ploitationand oppressionthat many of them faced on a dailybasis. Instead, they proposed that women have the option of staying home by providing adequate public support. This, in itself, was a radical challenge to the socially defined gender roles of poor Black women, who had never been seen primarilyas homemakers or mothers. Although some may arguethat the welfare rights movement did not pose a challenge to the conventionalwisdom that "women'splace is in the home," it did question the popularbelief that "Blackwomen's place is in the workforce." Autonomy within NWRO By the early 1970s, the distinctivefeminist analysisthat had been gradually formulatedat the grassrootslevel became a more defined element within NWRO,leadingto clashes with the nationalstaff, who were predominantlymale and mostly white. When welfare recipients put forth their own analysis of work, motherhood,and sexuality,they were continuallyconfrontedwith the opposingviews of male leaders.As women in the organizationbecame increasinglyawareof the sexist and condescending attitudesof some staff members,they respondedby asserting their autonomy and insisting on recipient control of the organization. This struggle for power within the welfare rights movement helped women define and asserttheirfeminist outlookeven more clearly. One of the fundamentalissues that divided staff and recipientswas how the two groups definedthe movement.For the staff, NWROwas a movementof poor people with the primarygoal of eradicatingeconomic injustice.It was a struggleabout power, makingdemands on the state, and staging mass protests and demonstrationsagainst welfare abuse. Staff membershad one goal-to win greaterbenefits for welfare recipients. For recipientleaders, especiallyBlackwomen, the issues of power and economicjustice were significant;but their strugglewas also about racist and sexist ideology, the meaning of welfare, and self-determination. The meager monthly checks, the persistentefforts to force recipients to work outside the home, the poor treatmentthey receivedfrom caseworkers,and the stigma associatedwith their assistance could not be separatedfrom what society expected of them and how society demeanedthem as Blackwomen. The struggleover the WIN Programexemplifiedthis difference.The women opposed the basic premise of WIN because it requiredmothers to work. They argued:"Thismeans that a mother with school-agechildrenwill be forced(if they do not volunteer)to acceptthe same old inferior training or jobs that have alwaysbeen left for poor people."''The
desire of welfare mothers to have a choice whether to work at home raising their children or to take paid employment outside the home was not always respected by the predominantly male staff of NWRO. Indeed in late 1968, middle-class staff members reversed the organization's

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earlierstand opposing WIN and accepteda $434,000 contractwith the Departmentof Laborto educate and train participantsin the program. This deal was bitterlyopposedby women involvedin the movement,especially those at the grassrootslevel. The PhiladelphiaWelfare Rights led by RoxanneJones and Alice Jackson, denouncedthe Organization, nationalleadershipfor supporting,and helping to implement "themost reactionaryprogram in decades."60 Challengingsociety's assumptions aboutpoor mothers,puttingfortha morallydefensibleposition,and protectingtheir dignityand worth as motherswere more importantto these women than the infusionof cashto build up the nationalorganization. In acceptingthe Departmentof Laborcontract,staff memberswere thinking very practically,hoping to use governmentfunds to organize recipients and transformthe welfare system. They believed the money would strengthenNWROimmensely,enable it to build its membership, and put it in a strongerpositionto lobbyfor its long-termgoal of a guaranteedincome. Mostwomen welfarerightsactivistswere not opposedto but they saw the probstrategiesthat would build up the organization, lem of welfare as ideological as well as practical. Other NWRO campaigns, to extract resources from the welfare departmentor get credit cardsfrom departmentstores, servedthe dual purposeof strengthening the organizationand furtheringthe goal of achievingdignity.6' Even if the Department of Labor contract might have practical benefits, it worked against the women's ideological goals. It was accepting this assumption-that poor Black women ought to work-that grassroots activistsviewed as a majorsourceof repressivewelfarepolicies. To concede that groundwould,in the long run,workagainsttheir interests. NWROwas theoreticallystructuredto ensure control by welfare recipients, but in practice,staff members-who took charge of fund-raising, coordinatingwelfarerights groups, managingthe budget, planning Unprograms,and devisingstrategy-wieldedpowerin the organization. like recipients, staff members could make welfare work a full-timejob and be availableon a day-to-daybasis. These middle-classmen, were, in effect,the leaders.An internalreportdocumentedthe problemin 1972: Attitudesof sexismon everylevel affectthe way that programs are implemented. comesout of the national officewhichis conMajor decision-making trolled of this,membership at local,stateandregional levels by men.Because do nothavethe opportunity in anymeaningful to participate wayin theirorgaandevery timetheyattempt to participate or regardnization, theyareignored ed as emotional women.Theproblem thenbecomesnot "how do we havean effective but "what do we do aboutthe guidedby the membership," program ladies". ... Further, the program areascannot be implemented as long properly
as there is such wide rangesexism.6' Bill Pastreich, a white male organizer of the Massachusetts Welfare Rights Organization, exemplified the attitude some men had of their own importance and of women's limited significance. In a 1969 letter to

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the national office, Pastreichtrivializedthe needs and problems of the mothers in his area. He suggestedthat the national office should guarantee organizersboth a car and insurance, whereas national officers (who were welfare recipients) "shouldbe people who can take care of their own babysittingproblems and they should look to neither their local WROor [the] National[office]for babysittingmoney."Speakingto a student group in the same year, Pastreichsaid, "I would discourage because she doesn'thave the time their pickinga lady [as an organizer], I also think that women in genin hours on that kind of stuff. to put the eral are bad leaders. They have to take a week off to have emotions."63 White male organizersin Boston maintained rigid control over meetings, demonstrations,and other activitiesand, on occasion,told recipient leaderswhat to say in meetings.64 These subtle and not-so-subtle instances of racism and sexism the helped raise the consciousnessof welfarerights activists.Paralleling experiencesof some women in SDS, SNCC,and the BlackPantherParty, who experiencedsexism while fightingalongsidemale allies, women in the welfarerights movementbegan to questiontheir marginalization These internal tensions helped nurture the within the organization."6 sentiment among welfare recipients that NWRO should be a Black women'sorganization. Tillmonwas one of those assertingwomen's right to controlNWRO and determineits political direction.As GuidaWest recounts,Tillmon proposedthat the nonpoorserve only in supportiveroles and advocated a strategyin whichwomen on welfareorganize"totry and do something Centralto for ourselvesand by ourselvesto the extent that we could."''66 Tillmon'svision was that women, in additionto challengingthe welfare The issue of should developautonomyand self-sufficiency. bureaucracy, control within the orgaboth who would have informed empowerment nization and what would be the strategiesand goals of the movement. For recipientleaders,the methods of organizingand the process of empoweringone of the most oppressedsectors of societywas as important as demandingthat the state provideadequateassistancefor the poor. In Boston,the independentMAWwas criticalof NWROand its state affilibecause they beate, the MassachusettsWelfare Rights Organization, lieved that the organizerswere using the mothers for their own ends. Theywanted, instead, "toreconstruct,reorient,and have welfaremothers themselvesimplement,the welfaresystem."67 The issue that in early 1970 led to a permanent division between NWROstaff and recipientsand the resignationof many staff members was how to revivethe flounderingorganization.Internalconflictintensified as membership rolls shrank, donations slowed to a trickle, and the political climate became increasingly hostile. The male staff, under George Wiley's leadership, sought to broaden the movement to include the working poor and unemployed fathers. Wiley believed that the racist

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and sexist attacks on the movement could be neutralized if the constituencywas enlarged,and Blackwomen were no longer the most visible actors. Many recipientleaders opposed to this change because they believed the politicalfocus on the needs of women and childrenwould be diluted. As a result of these irresolvabledifferences,women leaders became convinced of the need for an organizationrun by and for welfare recipients, meaning mainly poor Black women. Wiley resigned from NWROin 1972 and began anotherorganizationcalled the Movement for Economic Justice which included the working poor. Tillmon succeededhim as executivedirectorof NWROand after that point, the was in the hands of the female recipients. organization Withinany organization that is cross-race,cross-class,and cross-gender, the issues of racism, sexism, and classism affect relationsboth between the organization and societyand withinthe organization itself.The welfarerights movement was not shelteredfrom the politics of the dominant culture,and there was a constantbattle over goals, aspirations, and organizationalstyle. Whatevergood intentions motivated the national staff, they ended up replicating the very power relations they sought to eradicate.The popularperceptionof welfarerecipientsas unworthy and undeservingwas only reinforcedwhen the key organization formedto representthem continuedto marginalize recipientsandbelittle their ideas and input.Thus,Blackwomen on welfarehad to wage a struggle not only againstdominantpoliticalinstitutionsand culturalforcesbut their radicalallies as well. This process of seekingempowermentwithin their organization, in additionto theirbattleswith the state and the labor welfarerecipients' feministoutlook. market,helpedcrystallize Welfare Is a Women's Issue By the early 1970s, the ideas that had germinatedamong welfarerights activists on the local level became part of an analysis that reflected NWRO'splace in the largerwomen'smovement.Becauseof their earlier conflicts with male allies and the growingvisibility of women's liberation, women in the welfare rights movement more directly and with greaterfrequencyspoke of themselves as a part of the feminist movement. Some believed that they were "thefront line troops of women's freedom"and that the criticalissue of women's,and mothers',right to a Even those who did not exliving wage was of concern to all women.68 plicitly characterizetheir organizationas feminist, clearlysaw the empowerment of women on welfare as their ultimate goal. Rather than eclipsing the struggle for economicjustice, the identity of NWROas a women's group was firmly rooted in members' desire to mitigate the
effects of poverty. Far from being contradictory, the diverse goals of the movement reinforced its strength and supported a universalist agenda. Upon assuming control of NWRO, recipient leaders immediately issued a "Women's Agenda" which defined poverty and welfare as wom-

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en's issues. The official shift in focus was signaled by changes in procedures as well as priorities. Members, for example, began to refer to the At the national convention chair as chairwoman rather than chairman."9 convention in 1974, the organization offered a panel on feminist politics at which Margaret Sloan of the newly organized National Black Feminist Organization (NBFO) spoke. Women in the welfare rights movement also endorsed the Equal Rights Amendment; and at one point, welfare leaders on the Executive Committee considered changing the name of the organization to the National Women's Rights Organization.7' The organizers believed that in order to succeed, all women must unite. Jeanette Washington, longtime community activist who served on the Executive Board of the Citywide Coordinating Committee of Welfare Rights Groups in New York, said it most succinctly: We women must stay together on this issue and not let anyone divide us. We can do this first by challengingthe male power-holdinggroups of this nation. We must make them rememberthat we, as mothers and as women, are concernedaboutthe survivalof our children,of all human life. We women have to organize,agitate,pressure and demand;not beg. You see, in the past, women have alwaysbeen told that they should stay behind their men and be nice and cool and don't rockthe boat. Well, I just don'twant to rock one boat, I want to rockall boats-the big boats.And I want all womento help me.71 Perhaps most indicative of the change in the organization at the national level was a pamphlet issued by the national office entitled "Six Myths about Welfare." The pamphlet wove together an analysis of poverty, welfare, and motherhood from threads that had emerged earlier among grassroots constituencies. Now the NWRO articulated a fullfledged feminist vision of welfare: Whetheror not one accepts the notion that child-raisingshould be "woman's work," the fact is that in most American families childraising is woman's work-and hard work, at that. If a woman'shusband dies or leaves home, does In effect, that's what the welfare childraising suddenly cease to be "work"? "work" defines is when it solely as a job outside the home. saying department The reality,of course,is that a woman who becomes the head of a householdis doing more work,being both the father and the mother of her children.It's at least paradoxical,perhaps cruel, that a society which traditionallyextols the virtues of motherhoodis simultaneouslyforcing some mothers to leave their homes and childrenfor low-wage,dead-end,outsidejobs.71 After women officially took control of NWRO, political activity around reproductive choice expanded as well. The organization took more proactive measures in regard to the forced sterilization of African American, Native American, and Puerto Rican women. Coerced sterilizations had been practiced on poor, nonwhite, and "feeble-minded" women throughout the twentieth century.73Welfare recipients, in particular, were sometimes forcibly sterilized under the threat of losing their welfare payments.74 In the mid-197os, the sterilization rate for

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women on public assistancewith three childrenwas 67 percent higher than for women with the same number of children but not on public assistance.'7 Thus, sexualfreedomfor welfarerecipientswas definednot only by access to birth controland abortionbut also by completecontrol over one's reproduction,includingthe right to oppose sterilizationand bear healthy children. In 1973 Tillmon, as executive director,issued a statementjointly with CharlesFanueff,executive directorof the Association for VoluntarySterilization,opposing forced sterilizationof welfare recipients.76 NWRO'sposition on reproductiverights was consistent with that of many Black women at the time, including the NBFO,but it preceded mass movementsof white and Blackwomen aroundthis issue. As early as 1969, the CitywideWelfareAlliancein Washington,D.C., challenged for free abortionsat the city'sonly public restrictive eligibilityprocedures that a hospital.Theyargued rigorouspolicyfor decidingwho was eligible low-incomewomen,becausethese women for an abortiondisadvantaged would most likely resortto an illegal abortionor attemptto self-induce, puttingthemselvesin grave danger.Afterpicketingand filing a lawsuit, welfare activistswere appointedto a committeeto reviewthe hospital's abortionpolicy."For these activists, access to abortionmeant not just demandingits legality but assuringthat public funding be availableto poor women who otherwisewould not be able to affordthe service.The concerns of welfare recipientswith reproductiverights soon developed into a more widespreadpoliticalmovement.In the mid- and late-1970os several local organizationsto end sterilizationabuse and protect women's rightto abortionwereformed,includingthe Committee forAbortion Abuse,an interracial groupin New York Rightsand againstSterilization City. In 1981 a group of mostly white socialist feminists formed the Reproductive RightsNationalNetwork,which embodiedNWRO'sgoals for both abortionrightsand preventionof sterilization abuse. In the early 1970s mainstream white women's organizations also began to take a greaterinterestin povertyand welfare.As earlyas 1970, NOW passed a resolutionexpressingsupportfor NWROand recognizing the importance of poverty as a woman's issue: "Thepoor in the United States are predominantlywomen. ... NOW must, therefore, work particularly hardto free our sisters in povertyfrom the intolerable burdenswhich have been placedon them. The system must workfor the most oppressedif it is to succeed.The National Organization for Women, therefore,proposes to establish at the nationallevel immediate and continuing liaison with the National Welfare Rights Organizationand similar groups and urges each chapter to do the same at the local The followingyear, NOW endorsed NWRO'sgoal of a guaranlevel."'8 teed income, which Merrillee Dolan, chair of NOW Task Force for Women in Poverty, said, "is the most important women's issue for which we should be fighting."" Similarly,the National Women'sPoliti-

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cal Caucus (NWPC) supported NWRO's proposal for a guaranteed annualincome and formeda WelfareReformTaskForce.80 The actions by NOW and other organizationswere importantsymbolicallyand demonstratethe impact the welfarerights movementhad on the priorities of more mainstream feminist groups. Martha Davis suggests that it was NOW'srelationshipwith NWROthat encouraged linked to common feminists to recognizethat povertywas "inextricably in as barriersfaced by women society, such violence, wage discriminaand that poor women tion, and disproportionate familyresponsibilities" needed "socialsupportsto redress these burdens."8' By the early 1970s welfare had become clearly identified as a women's issue. Both NOW and the NWPCbuilt on the activitiesand analyses offeredfirst by welfare rightsactivists. This success, however,was both temporaryand superficial. Although NOWofficiallyexpressedsupportfor NWRO,little came of the relationship. Once the welfare rights movement folded in 1975, mainstream took little action on behalf of women on welfare. women'sorganizations and middle-classwhite Interactionbetweenwelfarerightsorganizations of their divergent limited because was largely organizations women's views aboutwork,family,and independence.Boththe ideologicalorientation and politicalplatformof NOW and other liberalfeminist organithe concernsof poorwomen and womzations continuedto marginalize en of color.MarthaDavis arguesthat the effortswithin NOWto address povertyoriginatedmainlywith the leadershipand that the middle-class membershipremained"fixedon formal,legal equalityfor those already in the workplace as the proper instrument for addressing women's This was not a strategy that women on welfare, who were poverty."8' the right to stay home and care for their children, would for fighting find useful or appealing.Although a common interest in empowering women broughtNWROand NOWtogether in the late 196os and early 1970s, the boundariesof class and race continuedto inhibit a long-term alliance as Black welfare activists and white middle-classNOW members developeddifferentstrategiesto addresstheir own particular experiencesof sexism. As the welfare rights movement waned, the concerns of welfare recipients seemed to be more adequatelyaddressedby emergingsocialist feminist groups than by NOW. Socialistfeminists made povertya central componentof their analysisof women'soppression.Theyaddressed rights,women'sunequalwages in the workplace,as well as reproductive the way in which women's labor in the home contributedto the reproduction of the labor force and thus helped sustain capitalism. In the mid-1970s, socialist feminists led the wages for houseworkcampaign, which demanded pay for the work that women did in the household. The movementsaw itself as a productof both the welfarerights and the women'sliberationmovements.In England,wages for houseworkadvo-

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cates suggestedthat "welfare mothers ... not only spoke to the needs of all women but were in fact a publiccrescendoto the massive rebellionof A more direct women that had been going on behind closed doors."83 connectionbetween welfarerightsand socialistfeminismwas evidentin 1974, when a group of self-proclaimedsocialist feminists renewed welfare activism in New YorkCityby forming the DowntownWelfareAdvocate Center.84By combiningan analysis of class and gender, socialist feminists more effectively reached out to working-class women and tackledissues of povertyand reproductive rights that were so centralto the welfarerights movement.However,these groupswere, for the most part, predominantlywhite and did not see race and racism as a core concern.Consequently, they, too, were unableto cross the racialdivide. Although a successful long-term relationship between NWROand NOWnever developedand most socialistfeminist initiativeswere short lived, the attempts at cooperationreveal the possibilities for alliances across race and class among women. Poor Black women on welfare were positionedat the bottom of the social hierarchy,and this may have inspiredtheir effortsto recruitwhite and middle-classwomen as allies. Similarly,they could workwith men committedin a practicalway to the eradicationof poverty-so long as this did not impede the goal of women's autonomy.And they identifiedwith and reachedout to the ongoing movement for Black liberation-so long as this did not subsume their concerns as women. They had simultaneousgoals of personal autonomy, communityempowerment,ideologicaltransformation,and practical change.Theirinstitutionalpowerlessnessencouragedthem to make allianceswith and appealsto others who might respondto their issues. Indeed, from their vantagepoint, such allianceswere necessaryif a successful strugglewas to be waged. But at the same time, they took careto ensure that their integrityand politicalvision were not compromised. Conclusion Poor Blackwomen are positionedat the nexus of race, class, and gender These women often understoodthe importanceof gender oppression.8" in shaping their lives, but they also realized that all women were not treated in the same way. They believed that how they were treated was determinednot just by their sex but by their race and class as well. For poor Black women to decide if racism or sexism or povertywas more important in their lives was both impossible and nonsensical. They could not understandthe meaning of gender without class, or poverty withoutracism.This realityenabledactivistsin the welfarerightsmovement to understand not just how these oppressions coexist, but, for
example, how the meaning of class is transformed by and lived through racism and sexism. Through their struggle to reform the welfare system, poor women formulated a vision of Black feminism, or what Maxine Baca Zinn and

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Bonnie ThorntonDill have recentlycalled multiracialfeminism, which They incorporatedaspects of class integratedrace, class, and gender.86" racial liberation,gender equity, and sexual autonomy. empowerment, were able to organizearoundwelfarerights and unthey Consequently, derstandthis work as partly about women's liberation.Their example provides us with a broader definition of women's rights and suggests that the strugglefor welfarerightsshouldbe consideredpartof the feminist movement. Like many other feminists of the 196os, these women ultimately wantedautonomy,althoughwhatthat meantfor them in concreteterms was quite different from what it meant to women of other class and For them, this goal was coupledwith both ideologiracialbackgrounds. cal and practicaldemands.Theyfoughtfor an increasein welfarebenefits or a guaranteedannual income which would providethe means to make choices about parenthood,employment,and sexualityotherwise closed to them. They believed that economic assistancewas not a form of dependencybut a source of liberation.They also constructeda political platformthat challengedthe racist and sexist stereotypesassociated with Black single motherhood. The movement, then, was as much a women'smovementas a poor people'smovement,as much aboutfeminism as Blackliberation. The welfare rights movement, like other Black women's political struggles,has been renderedinvisible in most accounts of feminism in the 1960s. Few mainstreamnarrativesof women'shistoryand feminism even mention women on welfare.But researchersare increasinglyturning to the welfarerights movementto better understandwomen's politics. Annelise Orleckand Anne Valkhave examinedthe role of motherhood as a justification of and motivation for Black women's political has suggestedthat the involvementin the movement. Felicia Kornbluh movement can help expand our notion of rights beyond a work-centered conceptualizationand toward recognition of the rights of consumers. Some historians of the welfare rights movement, in particular GuidaWest, JacquelinePope, and Susan HandleyHertz,have produced work that analyzesthe gender politics of the movement."8 pathbreaking They assert that welfarerights was a social protest of poor women, not simplypoor people. But the analysisneeds to be taken one step further. It is not enough to suggest that women in the welfarerights movement identified as consumers, mothers, or addressed issues of concern to women and feminists. In addition,we need to examinewhetherwomen in the welfarerights movement-on their own terms-considered themkind of feminismthey espoused. selves feministsand what particular
The history of welfare rights has often been told from the perspective of the middle-class leaders or the national office, where middle-class (mostly male) organizers tended to dominate.88 In a much-needed and insightful book on Black women's organizations, Deborah Gray White

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argues that within the welfare rights movement, class was prioritized over race and gender.89Forthe middle-classstaff,who initiallydirected the organization,it was. But this was not so for much of the membership. In an article on welfare rights and women's rights, MarthaDavis argues that because of differences of race and class, an attempted alliance betweenNWROand NOWwas unsuccessful.As a result,she conand state welfarepoliciesduringthat periodwere seldom cludes,"federal a view that fails to take into accountthe challengedon feministgrounds," In this article, I have focused politics of local welfare rights activists.90 less on nationaldevelopmentsand legislativestrugglesand instead have analyzedthe sentimentsof the rank-and-file membership,most of them poor Blackwelfarerecipients.A readingof the welfarerightsmovement from the standpointof these welfaremothersgives us a differentview of the movementboth institutionally and intellectually. Understandingthe welfarerights movement as a part of the struggle for women'sliberationin the 196os forcesus to rethinkour definitionof what constitutes "women'sissues." If, as White argues, NWRO,along with the National BlackFeministOrganization, was importantpolitically because it put Black women "backat the center of race progress,"'' then I would arguethat NWROwas also significantbecauseit broughta race and class analysis to gender issues. As a movement dedicated to women's liberation,in fact if not in word, the strugglefor welfarerights leaves little doubt as to how the map of feminism in the 196os shouldbe redrawn.Welfareadvocatesattemptedto define welfareand povertyas women's issues. This gave them a springboard to explore in a more sophisticated way issues of race and class in relation to gender. The Blackwomen in the welfare rights movement were not plaguedby the same dilemmas that many middle-classwhite feminists struggledwith: Do we workwithin the system or outside of it? Do we form a movement of women dedicatedto issues of importanceonly to women; or can we work in organizationsthat address problems such as poverty, racism, and militarism?As PatriciaHill Collinsnotes, Blackfeminists often rejected the oppositional, dichotomized model of organizing.92 These Black women could simultaneouslywork on issues of race, class, and gender. They were workingfor their own benefit and to improvetheir community. They worked both to make the system work for them as well as to challengeit. Women in the welfare rights movement opposed essentialized notions of race and genderand formedallianceswith Blackand white men and white women. Throughtheir organizingefforts they learned that not all women (Blackor white) would be their allies and not all African
Americans (women or men) would support their political positions. They rejected encompassing appeals to women or African Americans that did not take into account the general problem of poverty or their particular problems as welfare recipients, yet they were able to form

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their viable,if short-lived,politicalalliances.Ratherthan compromising their as the alliances Black helped strengthen identity radicals, integrity, consciousness" liberationists,and feminists.Their"multiple encouraged them to become advocates of feminism, proponents of a guaranteed annual income, and combatantsin the strugglefor Blackliberation-all at the same time. Women in the welfare rights movement were certainlynot the first Blackwomen to address the issues of race, class, and gender. But the welfarerights movementwas one of the most importantorganizational expressionsof the needs and demandsof poor Blackwomen. Predating the outpouringof Blackfeminist literaturein the 1970s, women in the welfarerights movement challengedsome of the basic assumptionsoffered by other feminists-white and Black-and articulatedtheir own version of Blackfeminism. The problemof economic survivaland dayto-day experienceswith povertyseparatedthem from some other Black Blackwomen in the welfare rights movement never sought feminists.93 solutions in self-improvement, racial uplift, or individual assistance. They rejectedtraditionalnotions of female respectability-andall of its class trappings-as a conditionfor their politicaldemands. Rather,they called for a nationalsafety net and demandedthat such assistancebe a right.Relyingon the Blackcommunity,althoughhistoricallyimportant, and the guaranteeof rights assured was still charity;self-empowerment long-termsolutions. The process of tryingto understandand take seriouslythe ideas put forthby welfarerecipientsis part of a long traditionamong Blackfemiwomen not commonly certified as nists to look to "African-American intellectuals by academic institutions [who have nevertheless] functioned as intellectuals."Through their experiences, these poor Black women, welfarerecipients,mothers, and activistsformulatedan analyfeminist orientation.By interpretingtheir sis that reflecteda particular the and "clarifying Blackwomen's standpoint,"women in experiences the welfare rights movement contributedin an important way to the developmentof Blackfeminist thought and feminist thought more genWomen in the welfarerights movementdemanded"bread, juserally.94 and tice, Althoughbreadandjustice were important,they were dignity." not enough. Recipientsalso demanded dignity-that they have control over their own lives, have the means to choose their careers, and the that they be opportunityto shape their own organizations-essentially, in their To effectively, they had position society empowered. challenge to confront racism, sexism, and class oppression. And it was through this effortthat they succeededin creatinga movementthat was as much a feminist movement as a movement for racial equality and economic
justice.

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NOTES
Thanks to Betsy Blackmar,Eileen Boris, Eric Foner, Tami Friedman, Bill Gladstone, Barbara Ransby,DarylScott, RobynSpencer,Ula Taylor,and the OakleyCenterFaculty Seminarat WilliamsCollegefor providingvaluablefeedbackand commentson this article. In addition,specialthanksto GuidaWest for sharingher interviewsof welfarerights activists.This articlewas writtenwhile I was on a grantprovidedby the Aspen Institute NonprofitSectorResearchFund.
1. Johnnie Tillmon, "Welfare Is a Women's Issue," Ms. 1 (spring 1972): 111. 2. Jorge Castanedaarguesthat in polarizedsocieties such as LatinAmericawhere civic

institutionsare weak,the figureof "anintellectual" can take the form of a "writer, priest, See his Utopia Unarmed:TheLatinAmericanLeft journalist,academic,artist,activist." after the Cold War (New York:Knopf, 1993), 20-21. For a similar approachto Black women building theory from everydaylife, see Elsa BarkleyBrown, "WomanistConsciousness: Maggie Lena Walkerand the IndependentOrderof Saint Luke,"Signs 14
(spring 1989): 610-33.

3. For the role of experience in producing counterhegemonic discourse, see Shari Stone-Mediatore,"Chandra Mohanty and the Revaluingof Experience,"Hypatia 13 (spring 1998): 116-33;and PaulaStewartBrush,"TheInfluenceof SocialMovementson Articulations of Race and Gender in Black Women's Autobiographies,"Gender and
Society 13 (February 1999): 120-37.

Lives 4. See, for example,TeraHunter,To 'JoyMy Freedom:SouthernBlack Women's and Labors after the Civil War (Cambridge: Harvard UniversityPress, 1997);Elizabeth Clark-Lewis, Living In-Living Out:AfricanAmerican Domestics in Washington,D.C.,
1910-1940 (Washington, D.C.: Smithsonian, 1994); Donna L. Van Raaphorst, Union

Maids Not Wanted: Organizing Domestic Workers,187o-1940 (New York:Praeger, 1988); GlendaGilmore,Genderand Jim Crow: Womenand the Politics of WhiteSupremacy in North Carolina, 1896-1920 (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1996); and DeborahGrayWhite, TooHeavy a Load: Black Womenin Defense of
Themselves, 1894-1994 (New York: W. W. Norton, 1999).

5. ChanaKai Lee, For Freedom'sSake: The Life of Fannie Lou Hamer (Urbana:University of Illinois Press, 1999); and Kay Mills, This Little Light of Mine: The Life of Fannie LouHamer (NewYork:Dutton,1993), chap. 15. 6. Bruce Fehn, "African AmericanWomen and the Strugglefor Equalityin the MeatpackingIndustry,1940-196o,"Journal of Women's History 10 (spring1998): 45-69. 7. Etta Horn, of the Washington, D.C., Welfare Alliance, "Letterto D.C. Women's Groups,"23 Feb. 1968, box 24, GeorgeWiley Papers, State HistoricalSociety of Wisconsin, Madison. 8. CorettaScott King, "SpecialMessageto Mrs. Beulah Sandersand Leadersof Womin the New YorkArea," en's Organizations 23 July 1968, box 24, WileyPapers. 9. MichiganWelfareRights Organization, press release, priorto 17 Mar. 1968, box 25, WileyPapers. movementthat includedotherwomto. The welfarerightsmovementwas a multiracial en of color and white women. In some cases, the women describedmay have been Latina, Native American,white, or their racialbackground may not have been evident to the writer. Nevertheless, the vast majority of women in the movement were African American. 11. Westside Mothers(ADC),"TheChallenge," Newsletter, 21 Jan. 1968, box 25, Wiley Papers. 12. Englewood Welfare Rights Organization, Report, 16 Aug. 1968, box 25, Wiley Papers. 13. Hobart Burch, "Insightsof a Welfare Mother:A Conversationwith Johnnie Till-

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mon," The Journal 14 (January-February 1971): 13-23; and Robert McG. Thomas Jr.,

"JohnnieTillmon Blackston,WelfareReformer,Dies at 69," New YorkTimes, 21 Nov.

1995-

14. The executivedirectorwas electedby the ExecutiveCommittee. 15. JeanetteWashington,interviewby GuidaWest,New York,25 Sept. 1981. 16. MilwaukeeCountyWelfareRights Organization,WelfareMothers Speak Out: We Ain'tGonnaShuffleAnymore (NewYork:W.W.Norton,1972), 25-26. 17. For an extended discussion, see GuidaWest, The National WelfareRights Movement: TheSocial Protest of Poor Women(New York:Praeger,1981),57-64. West states that most staff were college-educated white men but included some Black men and white women. Therewas also, occasionally,a Blackwoman on staff. The staff was hired and firedby the executivedirector. 18. David Street, George T. MartinJr., and LauraKramerGordon, The WelfareIndustry: Functionaries and Recipientsof PublicAid (BeverlyHills, Calif.:Sage, 1979), 124;cited in West, 45-46. 19. On local chapterssee LawrenceNeil Bailis, Bread or Justice: GrassrootsOrganizing in the Welfare Rights Movement (Lexington, Mass.: D.C. Heath, 1972); Susan HandleyHertz,The WelfareMothersMovement:A Decade of Changefor Poor Women Jacksonand WilliamJohnson, (Lanham,Md.:UniversityPress of America,1981);Larry Protest by the Poor: The Welfare Rights Movement in New York City (Lexington, Mass.:LexingtonBooks, 1984); and JacquelinePope,Biting the Hand ThatFeeds Them (NewYork:Praeger,1989). 20. ShulamithFirestone,TheDialectic of Sex: The Casefor FeministRevolution(New
York: Morrow, 1970), 193.

21. FrancesBeale, "DoubleJeopardy:To Be Blackand Female,"in Wordsof Fire: An (New York: Anthology of AfricanAmericanFeminist Thought,ed. BeverlyGuy-Sheftall
New Press, 1995), 146-55.

22. For an extended discussion of culturalfeminism, see Alice Echols, Daring to Be Bad: Radical Feminism in America, 1967-1975(Minneapolis:Universityof Minnesota Press, 1989), chap.6. 23. Lauri Umansky, "TheSisters Reply: Black Nationalist Pronatalism,Black FemiCriticalMatrix Women'sMovement,1965-1974," nism, and the Quest for a Multiracial
8, no. 2 (1994): 19-50.

24. For an excellent overviewof the connectionbetween motheringand activism, see ThePolitics of Motherhood:Activist Voices from Left to Right, ed. Alexis Jetter, Annelise Orleck,and DianaTaylor(Hanover,N.H.: UniversityPress of New England,1997). 25. Massachusetts WelfareInformation CenterNewsletter, 7 Apr. 1969, box 2, WhitakerPapers,Ohio HistoricalSociety,Columbus. 26. Ohio Steering Committeefor AdequateWelfare, "OhioAdequateWelfareNews," Newsletter, 13June 1966, box 1, WhitakerPapers. 27. Gordon Brumm, "Mothersfor Adequate Welfare-AFDC from the Underside," Dialogues Boston 1 (January1968): 11. 28. VeraWalker,quotedin BobAgard,"Welfare RightsGroupSeeks ChargeAccounts," newspaperarticle(newspaperunknown),6 Dec. 1968, box 25, WileyPapers. 29. CassieB. Downer,quotedin WelfareMothersSpeak Out,135-36. 30. "OhioAdequateWelfareNews," Ohio Steering Committee for Adequate Welfare Newsletter, 18 Apr.1968, box 1,WhitakerPapers. 31. Theda Skocpol,Protecting Soldiers and Mothers: The Political Origins of Social Policy in the United States (Cambridge:HarvardUniversity Press, 1992); and Linda Gordon,Pitied but Not Entitled:Single Mothersand the History of Welfare(New York:
Free Press, 1994).

Mink,The Wages of Motherhood: 32. Gordon,Pitied but Not Entitled;and Gwendolyn Inequality in the WelfareState, 1917-1942(Ithaca:CornellUniversityPress,1995). 33. Wendy Edmondand Suzie Fleming,eds., All Workand No Pay: Women,House-

PremillaNadasen

299

work, and the WagesDue (London:Powerof Women Collectiveand FallingWall Press,

1975), 7.

BlackWomen, and the Work, Jones,Laborof Love,Laborof Sorrow: 34. Jacqueline to thePresent York: (New Books, 1986),257-58. Vintage fromSlavery Family, The Black andFreedom, York: in Slavery (New Gutman, 35. Herbert 1750-1925 Family "The Power of Motherhood: Books, 166-68; Jones,chap.2; EileenBoris, 1976), Vintage Activist Black andWhite Redefine the 'Political,' Women of a New World: "in Mothers MaternalistPoliticsand the Originsof Welfare States, ed. Seth Kovenand Sonya Michel(NewYork:Routledge, in 1993),213-45;and M. RivkaPolatnick, "Diversity Howa Blackand a WhiteGroup Women's Liberation of the 196osViewed Ideology: Motherhood," 1996): 679-706. Signs21(spring "Race andValue:BlackandWhiteIllegitimate 36. See RickiSolinger, Babies,19451965," in Mothering: Ideology, Experience, and Agency, ed. Evelyn Nakano Glenn,
Grace Chang, and Linda Rennie Forcey (New York: Routledge, 1994), 287-310; and

Regina Kunzel,"WhiteNeurosis, Black Pathology:ConstructingOut-of-Wedlock Pregnancy in the Wartimeand PostwarUnited States,"in Not June Cleaver: Womenand Genderin Postwar America, 1945-1960, ed. Joanne Meyerowitz(Philadelphia: Temple
University Press, 1994), 304-31.

37. See Umansky;and Angela Davis, "TheBlack Woman'sRole in the Communityof

Slaves," The Black Scholar 3 (December 1971): 2-15.

38. Tillmon. 39. Quotedin Brumm,11.

40. Ibid.

41. "YourWelfare Rights," handbook written by the Welfare Rights Committee, West Virginia,n.d., box 3, Whitaker MohongaliaCounty,Morgantown, Papers. Action: PublicAssis42. Allan Becker,RobertDaniels, and Susan Wender,"Proposed tance," paper submitted to MetropolitanDetroit Branch,ACLU,17 Nov. 1968, boxes ACLU PrincetonUniversity. 1134-1136, Archives,MuddLibrary, 43. See BarbaraOmolade,The Rising Song of African American Women(New York:
Routledge, 1994).

44. See esp. essays by FrancesBeale, "Double Jeopardy:To Be Blackand Female"(14655); Pauli Murray,"TheLiberationof Black Women"(186-97); and Michele Wallace, "Angerin Isolation: A Black Feminist's Search for Sisterhood"(220-27), all in Guy Sheftall. 45. DorothyRoberts,Killing the BlackBody: Race, Reproduction,and the Meaning of Liberty (New York:Vintage, 1997), chap. 2; Linda Gordon, Women'sBody, Women's Right: Birth Controlin America (New York:Penguin, 1974); and Thomas Littlewood, ThePolitics of Population Control(Notre Dame, Ind.: Universityof Notre Dame Press,
1977), 72. 46. Tillmon, 115.

47. Georgiana Henderson, quoted in Loretta Ross, "AfricanAmerican Women and Abortion,1800-1970,"in TheorizingBlack Feminisms: The VisionaryPragmatism of Black Women,ed. Stanlie James and Abena P.A. Busia (New York:Routledge,1993),
155.

48. Chicago Welfare Rights Organization, handbook, June 1968, box 3, Whitaker WelfareRightsManual," Papers;and Mothersfor AdequateWelfare,"Your n.d., box 3, WhitakerPapers.
49. Tillmon, 115.

50. White,chap.4. 51. "Ohio AdequateWelfareNews."

52. Tillmon, 112.

53. Ibid. 54. MAW,quotedin Brumm,5, 11. 55. West, 253.

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Nadasen Premilla

56. NWRO,"Howto Organizea ComprehensiveCommunityControlled Child Care Program," pamphlet,n.d., box 16, WileyPapers. 57. James Evans, "Quarterly Report to Campaignfor Human Development,"1 Feb.
1972, box 25, Wiley Papers. 58. Tillmon, 115.

59. Massachusetts WelfareInformation CenterNewsletter, 7 Apr. 1969, box 2, WhitakerPapers. ProtestGroupAccusedof Joiningthe Establishment for 60. FrancisX. Clines,"Welfare
a $434,930 Contract," New York Times, 29 May 1969.

61. See Felicia Kornbluh,"ToFulfillTheir 'RightlyNeeds': Consumerismand the National WelfareRightsMovement," RadicalHistory Review 69 (fall 1997):76-113. 62. Task Force on ProgramCommittee,"Report of ProgramServicesTask Force,"22 Staff Meeting and TrainingConference, Aug. 1972, box 14, Wiley Papers; "Romney" 1970, box 8, Wiley Papers; "National Welfare Rights Organization Staff Retreat,"
January 1971, box 8, Wiley Papers.

26 July 1969,box 25, WileyPapers;"BillPastreich 63. "BillPastreichto Tim Sampson," Speech on WRO to the Student Health Organization,"June 1969, box 3, Whitaker Papers.
64. Bailis, 42-47.

65. See Sara Evans, Personal Politics: The Roots of Women'sLiberation in the Civil Rights Movement and the New Left (New York: Vintage, 1979); Clay Carson, In HarvardUniversity Struggle: SNCCand the BlackAwakeningof the 1960s (Cambridge: Press, 1981);TracyeMatthews,"'No One EverAsks What a Man'sPlace in the Revolution Is': Genderand the Politics of the Black PantherParty, 1966-1971," in The Black Panther Party Reconsidered,ed. CharlesJones (Baltimore:BlackClassicPress, 1998); and Elaine Brown,A Taste of Power: A Black Woman'sStory (New York:Pantheon,
1993).

66. JohnnieTillmon,interviewwith GuidaWest, quotedin West, o101. October1998, box 3, WhitakerPapers,3. 67. "Interviews by MaryDavidson,"
68. Tillmon, 115.

for Survival," 69. NWRO,"Strategies 1973,box 7, WileyPapers.

70. West, 243, 49.

sourceunknown,n.d., box 28, WileyPapers. 71. JeannetteWashington,"IChallenge," 72. NWRO,"SixMyths about Welfare," pamphlet, 1971,CitywideCoordinatingCommittee of Welfare Rights GroupsPapers, Lehman Library,ColumbiaUniversity,New

York, 5.
73. Roberts,chap.2; and Gordon,Women's Right, chap. 14. Body, Women's 74. Betsy Hartmann, Reproductive Rights and Wrongs:The GlobalPolitics of Population Control (Boston: South End Press, 1995), 255.

75. Thomas Shapiro,Population ControlPolitics: Women,Sterilization, and ReproductiveChoice(Philadelphia: TempleUniversityPress,1995), 103-4. for Survival," the Associationfor Voluntary Sterilization was not 76. NWRO,"Strategies formedfor the preventionof sterilizationabuse. Rather,it had its roots in the eugenics movementbut was movingtowarda position of voluntarysterilization. Power:The Movementfor WelfareRightsin Washington,D.C., 77. AnneValk,"Mother
1966-1972," Journal of Women's History 11 (winter 2000): 41-42.

78. "Womenin Poverty,"statement adopted by the ExecutiveCommitteeof the Nafor Women, 29 Nov. 1970, box 21, Wiley Papers. See also Martha tional Organization Davis, "Welfare Rightsand Women'sRightsin the 196os,"Journal of Policy History 8,
no. 1 (1996): 144-65.

79. MerrilleeDolan, chair, Task Force for Women in Poverty,to GeorgeWiley, 1 Oct.
1971, box 36, Wiley Papers. 80. West, 254. 81. Davis, "Welfare Rights and Women's Rights," 145; see also West, chap. 5.

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301

82. Davis,"Welfare 157. Rightsand Women'sRights," 83. Edmondand Fleming,9. 84. Megan Morrissey, "TheDowntown Welfare Advocate Center:A Case Study of a Social ServiceReview 64 (June 1990): 189-207. WelfareRightsOrganization," 85. See DeborahKing, "Multiple Jeopardy,MultipleConsciousness:The Contextof a Black Feminist Ideology,"Signs 14 (autumn 1988): 42-72; and Evelyn Brooks HigginAmericanWomen'sHistoryand the Metalanguage of Race," botham, "African Signs 17
(winter 1992): 251-74.

86. Maxine Baca Zinn and Bonnie ThorntonDill, "Theorizing Differencefrom Multiracial Feminism," Feminist Studies 22 (summer 1996): 321-31.

in ThePolitics Educationof LasVegasWelfareMothers," 87. AnneliseOrleck,"Political West;Pope;and Hertz. ofMotherhood,102-18;Valk;Kornbluh; 88. See FrancesFox Piven and RichardCloward,"TheWelfareRights Movement," in Poor People'sMovements: Why TheyFail and How TheySucceed(New York:Vintage, 1977);MarthaDavis, Brutal Need: Lawyers and the WelfareRights Movement,19601973 (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1993); Nick Kotz and Mary Lynn Kotz, A Passion for Equality: GeorgeA. Wiley and the Movement (New York:W.W. Norton, and Developmentof a Social MovementOrganiza1977); GeorgeMartin,"Emergence tion among the Underclass:A Case Studyof the NationalWelfareRightsOrganization" (Ph.D. diss., Universityof Chicago,1972); and William HowardWhitaker,"TheDeterminants of Social MovementSuccess:A Study of the National WelfareRights Organization"(Ph.D.diss., BrandeisUniversity,1970). 89. White,chap.7. 162. 90. MarthaDavis,"Welfare Rightsand Women'sRights,"
91. White, 215.

92. PatriciaHill Collins,Black Feminist Thought:Knowledge,Consciousness,and the Politics of Empowerment(New York:Routledge,1990), chap.4. 93. Lisa Albrecht and Rose Brewer have urged scholars to look at class differences of Power:Women'sMulticultural among women, includingBlackwomen. See "Bridges Alliances for Social Changes,"in their edited collection, Bridges of Power: Women's MulticulturalAlliances (Philadelphia:New Society Publishers, 1990), 5. See also E. FrancesWhite, "Africa on My Mind:Gender,CounterDiscourse,and AfricanAmerican Journal of Women's Nationalism," History 2 (spring 1990): 73-97, for an excellentdiscussion of Blacknationalismand feminism.
94. Collins, 14, 15.