How I Helped LBJ Fight The War On Poverty In The Summer Of 1966 In Mound Bayou Mississippi

Click to enlarge the photos above.

 In the summer of 1966 I took a job with the old OEO(Office Of Economic Opportunity) and LBJ's War On Poverty. I was hired to teach illiterate blacks in Mound Bayou, Miss. to read and write. Mound Bayou is an all black owned and operated town in Mississippi started after the Civil War.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mound_Bayou,_Mississippi
The link below is to photographs of Mound Bayou Mississippi on FLICKR.com
http://www.flickr.com/search/?q=mound+bayou&f=hp

The classes were at the local Catholic church. The poor blacks were paid 35 dollars a week by the federal government to learn to read and write and count numbers.

I was paid by the federal government as a teacher. I was paid twice as much as a public school teacher would have been making in Mississippi at that time. I was the only white person working there. Also no whites would sign up for the program.

I went to the welfare office to find whites on welfare and was told no whites are on welfare.

We went to a few homes of whites and were told to get off their property.
The link below provides information on Mound Bayou Mississippi.
http://www.cityofmoundbayou.org/aboutmoundbayou.html

And the link below this is information about the history of OEO.
http://www.answers.com/topic/oeo