"Us Indians Understand the Basics":
Oklahoma Indians and the Politics of Community Action, 1964–1970

Daniel M. Cobb

This case study brings interdisciplinary methods to bear on a subject that might ordinarily fall under the rubric of "policy history." Challenging historians to envision the politics of federal-Indian affairs in terms of complex encounters that cut across racial, class, and community boundaries, the author examines how competing constructions of poverty, community, and Indianness intertwined as Oklahoma Indians engaged in the War on Poverty's Community Action Program.

There are so many misunderstandings about Indian people in Oklahoma. It's an interesting thing.

LaDonna Harris (Comanche)¹

I come from Oklahoma, which is a nonreservation area, whatever that is. . . .

Clyde Warrior (Ponca)²

By the spring of 1967, the fate of Lyndon Johnson's War on Poverty hung in the balance. Stories of racial and class unrest, corruption, and fiscal waste beleaguered its most contested innovation, the Community Action Program (CAP). From his home in the small town of Picher, Oklahoma, Jess Fronterhouse, an active member of Picher's CAP, followed the news with concern. Only months after a round of compromising amendments, it appeared that Congress might end Johnson's domestic war entirely. To stave off further criticism, the Office of Economic Opportunity (OEO), headquarters to the antipoverty campaign, proposed a series of internal reforms. One of these reforms promoted efficiency by consolidating rural Community Action Agencies (CAAs) into large multicounty consortia. Fronterhouse questioned the wisdom of this proposal and favored the retention of local control over decision making. Dashing off a hurried letter to Senator Fred R. Harris (D-OK), he explained his rationale. "In Okla[homa]," Fronterhouse wrote, "us Indians understand the basics." 3     Lyndon B. Johnson (right) deliberates with Oklahoma Representative Carl Albert (12 April 1968). Johnson declared "unconditional war on poverty in America" in January 1964. Courtesy Carl Albert Center Congressional Archives, University of Oklahoma. Photo No. 3460.

1

With this succinct assertion, Fronterhouse captured the essence of Community Action. Its guiding philosophy, "maximum feasible participation of the poor," held that people who understood the basics of living in poverty were best qualified to design, implement, and administer programs that affected their lives. This precept unified diverse initiatives, such as Foster Grandparents, Head Start, work experience, and adult and remedial education. Thus conceived, maximum feasible participation sounded innocuous, and its authors allowed it to remain so to insure passage of the Economic Opportunity Act (EOA) of 1964. But once implemented, it generated an unanticipated degree of controversy as the poor, and civil and welfare rights activists used Community Action to mobilize against discrimination, corruption, and paternalism.4

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