Reformers to Radicals

by Thomas Kiffmeyer

  Realizing that school-based academic projects failed to address overwhelming problems, whether those problems were immediate or long term, the Appalachian Volunteers concluded that the region’s complex political relationships operated to the detriment of those most in need of government services, the poor and the unemployed. While international energy corporations, including the American Association, in part controlled mountain politics, an indigenous political force nevertheless existed. In cooperation with major internationals, local political and economic power brokers emerged in the mountains in the 1950s and 1960s with the expansion of federally funded social service programs, such as social security, Medicaid, and the War on Poverty. Mechanization of the coal-mining industry and the rollback of United Mine Workers of America benefits in the late 1950s provided local elites with further opportunities to solidify their hold on power. As this native power structure attempted to bolster its position through control of the federal largesse provided by the Johnson administration, it faced open opposition from the Appalachian Volunteers. Through issue organizing, direct political campaigns against corrupt officials, and attempts to control local CAPs, the AVs challenged multinational conglomerates and, more important, the local politicos who exerted direct and overt control over the rural mountaineers of eastern Kentucky.

  Institutional autonomy was, nevertheless, only the beginning for the Appalachian Volunteers as it prepared for 1967. Rejecting the Council of the Southern Mountains and its cooperative approach to solving problems in the Appalachian coalfields, the AVs transformed themselves from a volunteer service association into a professional political organizing institution. Along with this metamorphosis came changes in personnel and strategy. Still, while their analysis of the region’s problems shifted from a “cultural” explanation to one emphasizing the “colonial” relationship the mountains had with the rest of the country and, thus, itself required a quantitative solution to Appalachian problems, the Volunteers still spoke in terms of Appalachian “isolationism.” While, on the one hand, they began to understand the nature of the region’s poverty, they still—as their descriptions of “isolated” mountaineers and the “peculiar” world with which Volunteers would have to come to terms suggested—held the impoverished to be outside modern America. Somehow, the contradiction of the mountaineers being simultaneously victimized and isolated eluded the Appalachian Volunteers. Their failure to rectify this dichotomy, again, proved detrimental to their reform efforts.

  7

  Peace without Victory

  Three Strikes and a Red Scare in the Mountains

  That some employees of the Appalachian Volunteers and other federally financed anti-poverty programs have collaborated and cooperated with known communist organizers to help them organize and promote the violent overthrow of the constitutional government of Pike County. . . . That the contract of the A.V.s who are operat[ing] on a Federal Grant of $1,500,000 be immediately canceled.

  —Report of the September 1967 Pike County Grand Jury

  “Appalachia needed help. I can’t say that they needed the War on Poverty,” Louie Nunn remembered in 1993, “but I think they got too much help. . . . They got food, they got medicine, they got everything that they needed and they didn’t have to work for anything. Consequently they decided that they never would work.” Elected in 1967, Louie Nunn was the first Republican governor of Kentucky in twenty-four years. Running a campaign that stressed the social turmoil of the latter half of the decade, Nunn typified the desires of many who were, as the Hazard Herald stated, “tired of the beatniks, hippies, and civil righters” whom the “decent, law-abiding, constructive citizens who form the heart and conscience of our nation” saw as the source of that turmoil. Nunn claimed to have coined the term the silent majority, a phrase that figured significantly in Richard Nixon’s 1968 presidential campaign, and, in many ways, his election foreshadowed the national conservative backlash against the reform efforts of the Johnson administration. Nevertheless, Nunn objected to the War on Poverty for reasons other than his conservative ideology. He believed that government at all levels—local, state, and federal—used the federal programs as a way to buy votes.1

  According to Nunn: “There was a lot of pork-barrel legislation going on in [the War on Poverty]. And they started doing what I call mainlining—like a dope addict going into the vein.” The Democratic representative Carl Perkins (from the Seventh District, in southeastern Kentucky), in particular, though “probably well-intended,” “did more harm to the mountains of eastern Kentucky than any other single person”—“social and . . . economic harm”—because he used his seniority to “get programs through that were patterned primarily for the Appalachian area” and that “show[ed] how they were focusing in on specific areas.” Thus, Perkins got “legislation that fit [his] congressional district”: “Rather than poverty as a whole, they got down to where they had select areas of poverty and it was a vote getting process, . . . and everyone found an excuse to be needy, . . . so some of those programs were being used for political purposes and that’s where I drew the line.” After Nunn raised objections to the War on Poverty, somebody from Perkins’s district said: “‘Why hell governor, if you take that poverty away from us we won’t have nothing left.’ And that was about the attitude.”2

  Because of that “attitude,” the “political purposes,” and the fact that the War on Poverty was “detrimental to the ‘morality’ . . . of the community,” and because “the benefit ratio didn’t begin to match the expenditure,” Nunn “thought the dollars could be better spent.” In response, he started CREATE, or Community Resources for Employment and Training Effort. Unlike what Nunn considered the handout, entitlement programs of the Johnson administration, CREATE attempted to prepare people for employment. Further, Nunn supported a state initiative, the Kentucky Un-American Activities Committee (KUAC), that, ultimately, questioned the patriotism of those seeking to end poverty and, in the end, contributed to the end of the Appalachian Volunteers (AVs). Interestingly, the AVs considered KUAC—created by both Democrats and Republicans—to be a political tool. Ironically, Nunn, for all his protestations against strict political maneuvering, “didn’t see any harm in it”: “Hell, [it was] just like the wind blowing through the trees. It makes some noise today and tomorrow, . . . and sometimes they’ll blow a few things out. . . . The rotten limbs will get blow off. . . . So let it blow through; if the rotten limbs fall out, well that’s fine. If there aren’t any rotten limbs, nothing gonna fall out.”3

  Ironically, both Nunn and the Appalachian Volunteers condemned the War on Poverty for basically the same reason, Nunn because people like Perkins, and the AVs because local governments and especially community action programs (CAPs), used it for political purposes. Still, however, internal questions preoccupied the antipoverty warriors in the late spring and early summer of 1967. Just as in early 1966, questions about personal appearance figured prominently in the discussion. While it was acceptable for a volunteer to get dirty in the course of performing his duties, all AVs should strive to be as “neat” as possible. “There was a feeling,” the board prophetically declared, “that a large number of people are looking for things to use . . . against the AVs.” Training of new Appalachian Volunteers should make the recruits “aware of the types of conduct that the people consider acceptable.” In addition, the Volunteers announced, female volunteers could not wear short skirts in mountain communities.4

  Personal conduct was not the only problem with which the Volunteers had to cope. Dennis Forbes, a visitor to Breathitt County who wanted to join the AV staff, observed during his stay in eastern Kentucky that “the basic problem of the Appalachian Volunteers is getting the cooperation of the people.” He encouraged the Volunteers to be flexible and to adapt to many different types of issues and circumstances: “Each county will have different problems to solve so it is doubtful that one program will solve the entire situation.” Forbes believed that a number of smaller programs would be necessary to make
major improvements in the central Appalachian highlands. Apparently, similar feelings existed within the Volunteer ranks, especially concerning the difficulties of getting rural people to cooperate with and participate in AV efforts. The Volunteers’ job was to advise the people and to “let the people do the work themselves.” During the 1966 summer project, some complained, “the AV’s did everything and when they left almost everything they had done fell apart.”5

  Joining in this self-examination was Richard Boone, who, along with Milton Ogle, originally conceived of the idea of the Appalachian Volunteers. Boone agreed with the AV intern Tom Hamilton that the AVs were “spreading themselves too thin,” and he argued that they should go into “one area with sufficient personnel and a definite plan.” Moreover, the Volunteers should make common cause with as many “democratically controlled” CAPs as possible. Together, the AVs and their CAP allies could put pressure on those programs that were “unresponsive to the poor” and those that had lost “their democratic function” and bring them back in line.6

  As the Appalachian Volunteers developed programs to fight the coal companies and county officials, they certainly were overextended. In order to help as many mountain residents as possible, they moved quickly from county to county and from state to state, “responding to whatever things caught their eye.” As a consequence: “The development of a field ‘turf’ was, at best, haphazard.” This rapid pace prevented the AVs from following up in many counties where they had performed work. After the program’s extension to West Virginia and Virginia, they “suddenly neglected” such Kentucky counties as Jackson, Rockcastle, and Knox. As a result of this “passing commitment,” many of the poor became disillusioned with the AVs—which may explain the “apathy” some volunteers claimed they witnessed—and “expressed regret at being left ‘high and dry’” by them. Many AVs themselves, fieldmen as well as volunteers, “suffered a feeling of isolation from other field areas and ideas—and from the Bristol Office.” Communications between the office and the field were hazy and confusing. Should the organization continue in this “ ‘thither and yon’ kind of style,” the AVs reasoned, “the errors will persist and . . . we [will be] sitting ducks for the well organized forces which oppose us. . . . Implications of this hard fact are that the AV effort can only be described in terms of isolated individuals—like the interns who, so far have been unable to co-ordinate any kind of group action—and not in terms of a movement or a regional attitude about problems.” The most significant problem was that those places that the Volunteers believed most needed their attention were too far away.7

  Because “no one person knew enough about the whole AV operation to make any intelligent speculation about what should be done,” the Appalachian Volunteers formed an evaluation team called the “E-Squad.” Consisting of two people from the central office and two from the field, the E-Squad traveled throughout the entire AV operating area and looked for ways to make improvements. In particular, it sought a way to focus the AV effort into a more limited, defined area. Though its members thought in terms of contiguous counties with common features, the E-Squad was not confined by state boundaries. “Too much of our energy,” the team decided, “is spent thinking about state structures and boundaries and . . . we ought to be thinking much more in terms of poor Appalachians as a class of people and Appalachia as a region.” Working from this basic idea, the E-Squad reasoned that, with “a lump of Kentucky and a neighboring lump of West Virginia” and the central office relocated in that newly defined region, the Volunteers could stimulate teamwork and mutual support.8

  After surveying the expanse of AV territory, the E-Squad recommended creating four districts, roughly equal in population and size, with at least two fieldmen in each. From west to east, these counties were Breathitt, Wolfe, Floyd, Pike, and, ultimately, Harlan, in Kentucky, and Raleigh, Wyoming, Mingo, and Logan in West Virginia. These counties, explained the E-Squad, “would receive the full attention of the AV outfit,” which would “go for broke” in them. To better serve the proposed area, the E-Squad advocated once again relocating the central office, this time to Pikeville, in Pike County, Kentucky. Pikeville was “the most central point of [the] new arrangement . . . [and the] most suitable setting” for their headquarters. Because of its distance from the majority of Volunteer activity, Bristol was in “another world,” too far from the new area of concentration to be an effective headquarters. The move to Pikeville would ensure a more effective AV program.9

  Probably to finalize the recommendations of the E-Squad, the Appalachian Volunteers held a meeting in Pikeville in May 1967. Not only was the proposed new location in the center of the recently redefined Volunteer “turf,” but the E-Squad believed Pikeville to be in the “most populous (and perhaps most progressive) county in eastern Kentucky.” Also, the city was close to those areas, most notably Whitley County, Kentucky, and Wise County, Virginia, from which the AVs had retreated but still hoped to influence. Despite the advantages of the location, the recommendation of the E-Squad to limit the scope of AV activity and to make Pike one of those counties to see a concentrated Volunteer effort proved to be a monumental error—one that, ultimately, proved fatal to the organization.10

  Many people in those counties “dropped” by the Volunteers did feel a sense of abandonment. After a Volunteer meeting, AV Joel Hasslen had dinner with a few of the AV interns who lived in counties scheduled for termination. “They talked about their work,” Hasslen wrote to Ogle, “and their feelings about being dropped, [and] as they talked I begin to see the AV’s in a different light. They begin to look a lot like county politicians or established CAPs. I thought it was only my Fieldman that had begun to identify with the enemy, (wants a pine paneled office and digs Cadilacs) but the AV program is beginning to look like a East Kentucky election promise. . . . In one area scheduled to be rubbed out of AV land the folks seem to take a resentful, ‘hell with them attitude.’” Hasslen argued that he “could see too clearly that arguments brought forth . . . to drop certain areas [were] not necessarily going to convince the folks that the AV’s [were] acting in their best interests.” Rather, he concluded, this action instilled in the poor mountaineers a sense of “distrust and contempt” for the Appalachian Volunteers.11

  Ironically, distrust and contempt long characterized the history of the Appalachian Volunteers in Pike County. On October 21, 1965, in the initial stages of their reform efforts, the Volunteers first strained relations with Pikeville’s business community when, in an early step that went beyond the cooperative approach favored by the Council of the Southern Mountains (CSM), Flem Messer traveled to Pikeville College to explain the Volunteer program and to recruit participants from among the student body. During his presentation, Messer discussed the “hopelessness of the situation because of the lack of jobs and the shortcomings of the various welfare programs” and argued that “the politicians and the banks . . . concentrated . . . all the money and power” of the county in their hands and reinvested nothing in the community. Rather, the wealth of the county flowed out and left the people impoverished. If used to establish new enterprises locally, Messer explained, this money could help develop jobs in the region. “The War On Poverty,” he concluded, was an “opportunity . . . to see that turn around.”12

  These statements angered John Yost, then a vice president of the Citizens Bank of Pikeville, who interpreted them as an indictment of his institution’s business practices. Denying that he singled out Yost’s bank or implied any sort of irregularities on the part of the establishment, Messer attempted to resolve the conflict with Yost. Though Messer phoned Yost to assure him that he meant no harm, his efforts exacerbated the already tense situation. The bank executive notified Messer that the conversation was being recorded and “spent approximately one hour on the phone talking a great deal . . . and seemingly heard very little.” Yost then informed Messer that he did not know much about the AV program and that, given his experiences thus far, he did not wish to learn anything more.
Ending the exchange with a threat, Yost warned Messer that “the people at the heads of the hollows . . . are happy and that [the AVs] would do damn well to leave them alone.”13

  Yost’s reaction to Messer involved more than a defense of his bank. His desire to see the Volunteers out of Pike County indicated that he knew something about the program and that he viewed it as a potential threat. Moreover, the Persimmon Fork organization in Leslie County, among others, provided Yost with examples of AV activity. Coupled with the roving picket movement of that same period, these developments surely placed those individuals such as Yost who benefited significantly from the established system on the defensive.14

  Yost’s recording of the phone conversation also revealed that his concerns went beyond his business. On the surface, this could simply be a bluff designed to intimidate Messer and the AVs. Taking this incident a bit further, however, it appears that Yost hoped to gather some sort of evidence either to help him defend his position or to inflict damage on the Appalachian Volunteers.

  School renovation projects that began in 1965 also gave Yost an opportunity to hear and learn about AV activity in the area. Interestingly, it was in Pike County that an early AV school renovation project yielded disastrous results. According to the AV fieldman Messer, not only did the local community fail to take part, but the project proved to be “a waste of materials, and more importantly a great waste of enthusiasm for . . . the Appalachian Volunteers program.” Unknown individuals almost immediately vandalized the newly refurbished building.15