Reference no: EM133686832
ASSIGNMENT:
Topic: Civil Rights
On August 31, 1964, President Lyndon B. Johnson signed the Food Stamp Act into law calling it "one of many sensible and needed steps" to "the task of building a better life for every American."
1. He proclaimed that the new legislation "weds the best of humanitarian instincts of the American people with the best of the free enterprise system."
2. The FSP proved an exciting new venture for businesses and politicians.
3. For the people that could afford the purchase requirement, the FSP offered a greater variety of healthier and fresher foods.
However, in the first four years of program implementation, communities dealing with destitute poverty, joblessness, and discrimination, found that the FSP did not reach them. The year 1968 served as turning point in conversations about food policy, when the media and grassroots organizations, angered that the FSP did not work to alleviate hunger, starvation, and malnutrition throughout the country, demanded that the Johnson administration re-evaluate the goals of the program. But their vision for the FSP went beyond its intended scope. The FSP became a battleground where Americans fought over food rights and the responsibility of the government to its citizens.
Prompt: What were some of the barriers that people faced in accessing the federal food assistance program and in having enough to eat more generally? How did the public understand these barriers in terms of race, gender, and class?
Linked here are several types of primary sources from the 1960s - 1970s regarding hunger in America. Watch, read, and analyze the sources and answer the prompt.
1. CBS Documentary, Hunger in America (May 1968), YouTube,
2. "Interview with Marian Wright Edelman," conducted by Henry Hampton, Blackside, Inc., Eyes on the Prize Interviews, December 21, 1988, for Henry Hampton Collection, Film and Media Archive, Washington University Libraries, digitized.
3. Oral history transcript, Orville Freeman, interview 4 (IV), 11/17/1988, by Michael L. Gillette, LBJ Library Oral Histories, LBJ Presidential Library, accessed August 17, 2022.