1 CHAPTER 1: AMERICAN INDIAN SELF-DETERMINATION AND ...

chance to participate in the economic growth of our
country." 70
How would the Economic Opportunity Act open the doors of
opportunity to the poor? It provided the OEO and other
federal agencies with a number of mechanisms. The Job Corps
provided young people with remedial education and vocational
training; Adult Basic Education programs offered adult
literacy instruction; the Neighborhood Youth Corps provided
young adults with vocational training or employment designed
to encourage them to stay in or return to school; other
programs provided loans, grants, and technical assistance to
farm families, migrants, and small business persons; the
VISTA program served as a antipoverty, domestic version of
the Peace Corps.
Finally, Community Action Programs (CAPs) made available
federal funds and technical assistance to local community-run
efforts to battle poverty. 71 The government officials and
social scientists who developed the idea for CAPs argued that
the existing federal, state, and local welfare bureaucracies
and officials had failed to effectively address the problem
of poverty. Therefore, community action would bypass the
70 Shriver's "hand up" quote taken from Isserman and
Kazin, America Divided, 110; Shriver to James Patton, 11
August 1964, fd. 5: "Sargent Shriver 1961-1966," box 7,
James G. Patton Papers, AUCL.
71 Congress, Senate, S. 2642, 88th Cong., 2d sess.,
Congressional Record (23 July 1964), vol. 110, pt. 13, 16787-
16795. Andrew, Lyndon Johnson, 70.
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