DAVID GREENE, HOST:
This is MORNING EDITION, from NPR News. Good morning. I'm David Greene.
RENEE MONTAGNE, HOST:
And I'm Renee Montagne. There was a surprise in the U.S. Senate yesterday. Six Republicans crossed party lines and voted to extend long-term unemployment benefits, benefits that expired for 1.3 million Americans just after Christmas. The bill still needs to clear the House.
GREENE: The Federal Unemployment Insurance Program dates back to the 1930s and the New Deal. And it was 50 years ago today that the American public heard a solemn promise to build on existing protections for the poor. It came from President Lyndon Johnson.
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PRESIDENT LYNDON JOHNSON: This administration today, here and now, declares unconditional war on poverty in America.
MONTAGNE: Johnson said it was a war that the nation could not afford to lose. At the time, one in five Americans was poor. Today, things are better, but tens of millions of Americans are still poor, which raises the question: Did the war on poverty fail?
GREENE: It's a question NPR will explore during the course of this year. We'll also be looking at what's being done today to reduce poverty. We begin in Appalachia, where President Johnson traveled to generate support for his new campaign.
Here's NPR's Pam Fessler.
PAM FESSLER, BYLINE: People in the isolated hills of Martin County, Kentucky, rarely saw outsiders, let alone a president. So Johnson's visit in 1964 was a very big deal. Lee Mueller was a young newspaper reporter. He recalls the crowds in downtown Inez, the county seat, waiting for the presidential party to arrive at an abandoned miniature golf course.
LEE MUELLER: It was just like a hayfield full of long grass, and it looked like helicopters landing in Vietnam or something when they came over the ridge. There were four or five of them, I think.
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FESSLER: He says the locals didn't know their role in this new, domestic war, but a government film shows that the White House clearly did.
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UNIDENTIFIED MAN: In this south central mountain country, over a third of the population is faced with chronic unemployment.
FESSLER: It was to give poverty a face and a name.
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UNIDENTIFIED MAN: Typical of this group is Tom Fletcher, his wife and eight children. Fletcher, an unemployed sawmill operator, earned only $400 last year, and has been able to find little employment in the last two years.
FESSLER: At the time, the poverty rate in this coal-mining area was more than 60 percent. Johnson visited the Fletchers on the porch of their home, a small wooden structure with fake brick siding. And photographers took what would become one of the iconic images of the war on poverty: the president crouched down, chatting with Tom Fletcher about the lack of jobs.
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FESSLER: Fast forward 50 years, and some things haven't changed much at all: the Fletcher cabin for one. It's still standing along a windy road about five miles outside of town. It now has wood siding, painted orange. There's a metal fence with a no trespassing sign to keep out strangers. There are lots of small houses and trailers along this road, but also some new, bigger homes that could be found in any American suburb.
And downtown, Inez has some new offices and a big bank. Roads are well-paved, and people say the schools and hospitals here are a lot better than they used to be.
Still, Martin County remains one of the poorest counties in the country. Its poverty rate is 35 percent, more than twice the national average. Unemployment is high. Only 9 percent of the adults have a college degree.
Much of the poverty today is tucked between the mountains, in what are called the hollers.
NORMA MOORE: Hi.
FESSLER: Hi. How are you?
MOORE: We were up all night. Hi, I'm Norma.
FESSLER: Norma Moore greets visitors from Appalachia Reach Out, a faith-based charity that helps the area's poor. Moore cares for her eight-year-old grandson, Brayden. She says his parents didn't want him, that he was born with a rare blood disease and is severely disabled.
MOORE: And they said he was dying. And then at four months, I got him. And I've had him ever since.
FESSLER: Brayden doesn't talk or walk. But he's in constant motion, rolling on the floor of their double-wide trailer home, bumping into walls and doors.
MOORE: Come on. Come in here, get mommy. Come on.
FESSLER: There's no question that Moore's life is incredibly stressful. She says she gets by on her faith. But here's where the war on poverty has also made a big difference. Today, she gets food stamps, supplemental security income for her grandson and energy assistance to heat her home. She shakes her head thinking about life without it.
MOORE: I would be homeless. I would be the one living on the street, if it wasn't for that.
FESSLER: She looks down at her grandson on the floor.
MOORE: He would probably be in a home somewhere.
FESSLER: Today, many people here rely on government aid. In fact, it's the largest source of income in Martin County. People say it's helped reduce hunger, improved health care and given young families a boost, especially at a time when coal mining jobs are disappearing by the hundreds.
UNIDENTIFIED WOMAN: (Singing) Get your body moving, get your body grooving.
FESSLER: Children in a Head Start class skip across the lunchroom in a nearby school. This is one of the signature programs of the war on poverty, helping low and moderate-income children get ready for school. Budget cuts are always a concern here. Some of these children get their only hot meal of the day here at school.
DELSIE FLETCHER: My name is Delsie Fletcher. I am a family service worker at Martin County Head Start.
FESSLER: Fletcher helps Head Start parents with services, such as getting their high school diplomas, so maybe they can get a better job. And yes, Delsie is one of those Fletchers: married to one of the children who stood on the porch with President Johnson. I'm curious how the war on poverty has helped her husband's family, if at all. Turns out, along with the famous photo, it's a sore topic.
FLETCHER: They don't like to talk about it, because, you know, they don't want to be known as the poorest family in Martin County.
FESSLER: And she says they probably weren't, that most of the Fletchers have done OK for themselves. Still, it hasn't been easy. Her husband had some of his toes cut off when he worked in the sawmills, and now he's on disability. Work around here can be tough and dangerous, which is why coal mining jobs pay so well. But now they're scarce, and there's nothing to replace them, so people are struggling to adjust.
THOMAS VINSON: My name is Thomas Vinson, and I've been a resident of Martin County for 41 years. And I work in the coal fields, and I'm unemployed right now.
FESSLER: Vinson says he has a big house payment and three sons to raise.
VINSON: You know, times is tough, but, you know, we're making it.
FESSLER: One reason is Vinson's wife got a job at a gear factory through a federally funded program to help unemployed miners. Vinson's grateful for the short-term help, but worried about his future. Overall, he's disappointed in the war on poverty. He says he sees too many people around here just collecting checks. And to what end?
VINSON: They call it poverty, but I call it abusing the system. You know, like, if you're going to file up for SSI, you go in there and say the right things, you'll come out of there with a check.
FESSLER: His feelings are widespread around here: What good are all these government programs if they don't get you a job? Mike Howell runs the local community action program, where the Vinsons came for help. The program's a direct result of the war on poverty. Howell agrees that the war has yet to achieve its goals, but says the reason is a lack of support, that the burst of enthusiasm after President Johnson's visit has waned. Every year, his program has to fight for funds.
MIKE HOWELL: We have kind of let poverty go to the side. It's still way too high. Somebody asked me one time about the war on poverty, and I said, well, it really wasn't a war. It was more of a skirmish. And we need to declare war on poverty again.
FESSLER: One, he says, that goes back to Johnson's original goal, which was to help people not only survive, but to thrive. Pam Fessler, NPR News.
GREENE: Later today on ALL THINGS CONSIDERED, we'll hear how some are trying to convince young people to stay in Martin County, Kentucky.