Abstract
In 1964, with the creation of the Office of Economic Opportunity and the onset of the “War on Poverty,” Community Action Programs across the country were provided with financial backing by the Federal Government to fight poverty. W.A.M.Y. was one of eleven Community Action Programs in North Carolina, all kick started in 1963 by the North Carolina Fund. The W.A.M.Y. Community Action Program, mirroring the ideological orientation of policy makers at the national level, sought to address what they saw as behavioral and cultural problems in lieu of addressing systemic economic and political realities to fight poverty. Out of W.A.M.Y.’s “cautious reformism” emerged grass-roots efforts to confront the political and economic status quo, only to be met with swift backlash. The story of W.A.M.Y., from 1963 to 1967, represents a microcosm of the War on Poverty in the Western North Carolina counties of Watauga, Avery, Mitchell, and Yancey.
How to Cite
Harrington, J., (2020) ““Beyond These Hills:” Cautious Reformism, Grass-Roots Activism, and Backlash in Western North Carolina”, Capstone, The UNC Asheville Journal of Undergraduate Scholarship 33(1).
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