On April 10, 1967, United States Senators Joseph S. Clark and Robert F. Kennedy toured the Mississippi Delta at the behest of civil rights lawyer Marian Wright. Clark and Kennedy, together with two other Senators, Jacob Javits and George Murphy, traveled to Mississippi to investigate reports of extreme poverty and starvation. Following a field hearing, they drove from Greenville to Clarksdale, stopping and touring impoverished communities as they went. Deeply disturbed by what they saw, the senators returned to Washington, D.C., and began pushing for a series of reforms to alleviate the situation. Extensive media coverage of the event exposed the American public to real instances of malnutrition and starvation. The country was shocked and hunger became an important topic nationwide as people began looking for solutions. Efforts by the government and political action groups ultimately resulted in the problem being largely reduced by the 1970s.
Background
In 1967, the majority of legislative programs supporting the United States government's War on Poverty were due to expire. In an attempt to generate national interest in renewing funding for the effort, the United States Senate Committee on Labor's Subcommittee on Poverty held a series of hearings related to hunger, starting March 15. One of the firsttestifying witnesses was Marian Wright, a 27-year-old Yale Law School graduate working with the NAACP's Legal Defense Fund in Mississippi. She told the subcommittee that increased mechanization and requirements that cotton fields lie fallow under federal subsidy stipulations had put thousands of black sharecroppers out of work in the Mississippi Delta. In addition to this, two-parent families were ineligible for many welfare benefits, and most counties in Mississippi had switched welfare programs from one that distributed surplus food to an alternative that required a monthly purchase of food stamps. With little to no income, most households could not produce the necessary funds. As a result, Wright argued, Mississippians were "starving. They're starving, and those who can get the bus fare to go north are trying to go north... I wish that [the senators] would have a chance to go and just look at the empty cupboards in the Delta and the number of people who are going around and begging just to feed their children."
Chairman Joseph S. Clark suggested that the subcommittee travel to Mississippi to verify Wright's testimony. Of the subcommittee's nine members, Senators Robert F. Kennedy, Jacob Javits, and George Murphy agreed to the idea and accompanied him. Kennedy dispatched his aide, Peter Edelman, to get an advanced view on the situation. Edelman spoke extensively with Wright, whom he would marry 15 months later.
Trip to the Delta The subcommittee members flew into Jackson on April 9. That evening the senators dined with prominent Mississippians, including Oscar Carr and Charles Evers. Carr later described Kennedy as "a very shy man" who "continuously asked questions." Evers said "We talked and talked and he listened." Local civil rights activist Amzie Moore acted as Kennedy's host.
Hearing in Jackson A field hearing was scheduled for April 10. Mississippi Senator John Stennis, a staunch segregationist, was scheduled to be interviewed. He disapproved of the federal efforts to improve the economic situation of black people and sought to discredit them by attacking the Head Start program's parent agency, the Child Development Group of Mississippi (CDGM). The Head Start project provided services to impoverished children and was funded with grants from the federal government, thereby preventing state authorities from interfering with its activities. By potentially improving the socioeconomic status of black Mississippians, Head Start threatened the white political power base that dominated the state. Just days after money for the program had been appropriated, Stennis and state officials began scrutinizing it and requesting financial records. In the days before Stennis' scheduled testimony Jackson's two newspapers, both supportive of segregation, ran several stories about the senator's planned critique. Upon the poverty subcommittee's arrival in the city, Clark announced that he considered questions concerning Head Start and funding irregularities to already be answered and that the hearing would not spend significant time discussing the issue. Stennis responded by leaking his draft testimony to the press.
The subcommittee hearing took place in the Olympic Ballroom of the Heidelberg Hotel in Jackson. It was originally supposed to take place in a room meant to accommodate 300 persons, but the subcommittee relocated after local media attention stirred enough interest to bring the crowd to about 1,000 people. In his opening remarks, Clark stated that the hearing intended to be "neither a witch hunt or a whitewash. We are here to find out the basic facts." Stennis was called as the first witness. He admitted that there was poverty in his state, but posited that federal anti-poverty programs were overrunning expected costs and that he wished to support taxpayers. He then declared that the federal government had bypassed "responsible, honest, capable local leadership" and in favor of northerners and as a result its offices had become "a stake hold of beatniks and immorality". He requested that the governor be empowered to suspend "any project he determines not in the public interest" and finished by highlighting the fact that $500,000–$650,000 of CDGM's funds were proclaimed by a government audit to be unaccounted for.
Clark then allowed members of the subcommittee to question Stennis. Kennedy presented a private report conducted by a New York-based firm at the behest of the college that hosted CDGM. According to the new audit, the amount of wasted funds was deemed to be "relatively minor" and no evidence was found to substantiate the government's allegation. Stennis was flustered and declared that the Senate Committee on Appropriations—of which he was a member—should have been informed of the conflicting calculations. He concluded, "It's another illustration of the mysterious way in which this independent agency operates," thanked the committee for their time, and left the hotel. Testimony was then given about conditions in the Delta from both public officials and local impoverished inhabitants. A black doctor stated that the state suffered from a high infant mortality rate, and that the rate was twice as high for black babies. He added that the mortality rate of black babies from early childhood illnesses was five times greater than that for white infants. Head Start workers testified that older children they had examined displayed symptoms of anemia and other nutritional deficiencies. It was also stated that the decline in demand for agriculture labor increased unemployment, and that many of the adults were unskilled, did not have access to adequate transportation or training programs, or faced racial discrimination in their work. Robert Ezelle, former chairman of the Jackson Chamber of Commerce, asserted that the greatest problem afflicting Mississippi was its dysfunctional education system. He stated that 200,000 adults (out of the total 2 million) had not received schooling beyond the fourth grade and that a further 40,000 had never had any education.
Civil rights activist Unita Blackwell defended the Head Start program, saying it was the only anti-poverty initiative that addressed the locals' problems. When questioned by Kennedy about hunger, she stated that there was a problem with hunger in her county and that the shift from surplus food aid to the stamp program had worsened the situation. Wright spoke once more, asserting, "After two civil rights bills and the third year of the poverty bill, the...Negro in Mississippi is poorer than he was, he has less housing, he is badly educated; he is almost in despair." Kennedy took his greatest interest in the locals' statements. Afterwards, he told Evers, "I want to see it."
Kennedy's and Clark's tour
The following day Kennedy and Clark drove into the Delta area, while the other senators flew back to Washington, D.C. They were accompanied by Evers, Wright, Moore, Edelman, Carr, a dozen or so reporters from state and national newspapers and the Big Three television networks, and an assortment of U.S. Marshals, state highway patrolmen, and local police. That morning the senators reviewed anti-poverty programs underway in Greenville and a nearby tent city that had been established by striking farm workers. After lunch, Kennedy's and Clark's motorcade traveled at speeds over 80 mph down U.S. Route 61 to visit locations specifically selected by Wright and Moore.
Their first stop was a dilapidated shotgun house in Cleveland, in which 15 people resided. Holes were present in the flooring and roofing, and the only food in the refrigerator was a jar of peanut butter. One boy told Kennedy that all he had for breakfast and dinner was molasses, and that he didn't eat any lunch. Walking to the next house, Kennedy whispered to Edelman, "I've been to third-world countries and I've never seen anything like this."
The following home belonged to a mother of seven. There were no tables or cutlery in the house, and the toilet operated without plumbing. Roaches and rats ran across the floor. Kennedy's attention was drawn to a 20-month-old boy who was playing with rice grains on the floor. The child was covered in sores and bloated from hunger. Kennedy knelt down and stroked his cheek. He said, "My God, I didn't know this kind of thing existed. How can a country like this allow it? Maybe they just don't know." Clark labeled what lay before them a "national disgrace." Kennedy caressed the child and talked to him, but elicited no response. The senator began to cry. Kennedy stepped outside and quietly remarked, "We spend $75 billion a year on armaments and $3 billion a year on dogs. We have to do more for these children that didn't ask to be born into this." Local newspaper editor Cliff Langford, who strongly disliked Kennedy, shouted back that the two senators were being brainwashed. Clark retorted, "Don't worry. We've been brainwashed from the other side." Langford added, "I don't know of anybody starving down here." Kennedy responded, "Step over here and I'll introduce you to some." Clark reassured the reporters that he and Kennedy were not observing conditions in the Delta to "find fault," but rather "just to see if we can do anything about it."
The senators' motorcade continued on towards Clarksdale, but Kennedy asked that they stop in the small town of Mound Bayou. With no advance notice, Kennedy, his aides, and half a dozen reporters walked into the home of a 39-year-old man named Andrew Jackson, his wife, and their six kids. There was no electricity, running water, or toilet. There were two pictures in the house; one of the Glorybound Singers (a Clarksdale-based Gospel group) and another of John F. Kennedy. Jackson was incredulous that he was meeting the brother of the late president and asked, "Is you really Mr. Bobby Kennedy?" Kennedy smiled and shook his hand, replying, "Yes. And are you really Mr. Andrew Jackson?"