TROUBLE IN THE JOB CORPS
Morgan, Edward P.
Trouble in the Job Corps by EDWARD P. MORGAN Trouble seems to be breaking out all over in the Job Corps and if it is not properly understood—and thus treated with understanding—there is a danger...
...The anti-poverty program will expand but more slowly than if Vietnam were not draining dollars from domestic projects...
...local custom was still segregated...
...When you live a life in which things are constantly denied you and then comes a glimmer of getting something, you want it now...
...Many had never been beyond their city limits...
...the old ways simply are not good enough...
...But it slipped into a crevasse of misunderstanding widened by an almost utter failure of communication...
...Treat me like a man," one youth said...
...These reluctant, homesick migrants from city slums were sophisticated after their fashion and burned with resentment when the staff, from the director down, referred to them as "boy" or "son...
...Most of the 750 volunteers came from big cities, like Chicago and Los Angeles...
...So for infrequent leave the youths, black, and white, had to take long bus rides to Evansville, Indiana, where no proper preparations were made— no "hospitality center" to receive them...
...The cancellation stemmed from the riot...
...Skeptical, suspicious in the first place, these recruits decided to see what the promises were...
...And what did they find...
...As if these difficulties were not enough, the Job Corps share of the "poverty" pie has been cut from $310,-000,000 in the current budget to $228,-000,000 in the budget for the next fiscal year...
...plained and even when parents sent money for fare, a pass might not be granted...
...It added up to how not to train a Job Corps...
...They came quickly to regard Breckenridge as a prison, not a door to opportunity...
...Home leave was rigidly controlled, partly due to expense, but this was never adequately exEDWARD P. MORGAN is the distinguished news analyst on whose nightly ABC program this commentary was originally presented...
...Trips to Mammoth Cave to kill time—which were suspended when some, in the fury of frustration, misbehaved...
...Trouble in the Job Corps by EDWARD P. MORGAN Trouble seems to be breaking out all over in the Job Corps and if it is not properly understood—and thus treated with understanding—there is a danger that the war on poverty may be lost...
...Some industrial corporation will take over on July 1. Another corporation, a subsidiary of International Telephone and Telegraph called Federal Electric, has the Camp Kilmer contract to the tune of $11,500,000 and nobody quite knows what the upshot will be to the argument between the company and Rutgers University professors, hired as consultants, over Kilmer's administrative policies...
...Inextricable racial tension helped explode the riot but it undoubtedly was a mistake to bill it simply as a "racial incident...
...Inevitably there were incidents...
...There has been a running dispute for months at the Camp Kilmer Job Corps Center in Edison, New Jersey, between academicians and businessmen on how to run the camp...
...Take the camp at Fort Breckenridge, Kentucky...
...The Rutgers group and Job Corps teachers contend Federal Electric is trying to impress "business methods" on a sociological assignment -—namely the preparation of poor youngsters, most of them school dropouts, for a productive role in society...
...Few in the camp administration seemed to comprehend the low threshold of patience among their charges...
...Suspicions rose that the staff feared dropouts and a blot on its record...
...The nub of the problem—which the OEO seems belatedly beginning to realize— is this: If we are going to win the war on poverty we have to train more cadres in new ways to fight it...
...The staff and the volunteers simply did not speak the same language...
...Chores of cutting grass for "discipline" because job training courses weren't ready when they arrived...
...There were scores of other angry sparks—over inferior classrooms, lack of equipment, long waits in the chow line...
...Last August 20th there was a serious riot in the Job Corps camp at Fort Breckenridge, Kentucky...
...The nearest town, Morganfield, was off limits...
...The old condescending social welfare approach is out...
...Security patrols were put on the buses, the men were searched for knives and other weapons while their girl friends watched...
...Here were urban fish flung out of familiar waters, into a strange Kentucky countryside...
...The desire to wage war on poverty is not enough...
...There was good will here...
...One fact sticks out...
...Nor can this experiment in social revolution be successful if the local community is uncooperative...
...This is too bad but not tragic—especially if everybody, including the politicians, the poverty experts, and the public—will use the interval to take sharp but constructive looks into the methods used so far in waging this worthwhile but strange sociological revolution...
...One man who had a fat construction contract at Breckenridge ran a motel and bar in Morganfield that barred Negroes...
...With a self-image of virility their pride was outraged by clothing issues of ancient Navy bell-bottom trousers and khaki shirts...
...Nobody in his right mind would argue that these tough young charges be given a silver-spoon-and-Little-Lord-Fauntleroy treatment...
...But more adequate preparation, with some realization of their problems and how to communicate with them on their own terms, is vital...
...Recently it was revealed that the Office of Economic Opportunity, Sargent Shriver's GHQ in the war on poverty, was cancelling a $9,000,000 contract with Southern Illinois University to run the Fort Breckenridge operation...
...Some of the mistakes were so obvious that their commission seemed incredible...
...If you treat me like a man I'm gonna act like a man...
Vol. 30 • March 1966 • No. 3
