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52-579: In 1963 Johnnie Tillmon founded ANC (Aid to Needy Children) Mothers Anonymous, which was one of the first grassroots welfare mothers’ organizations. This organization later became part of the National Welfare Rights Organization. In early 1966, delegates from poor peoples’ organizations all over the country met in Syracuse, New York and Chicago, Illinois to discuss the need for unity among grassroots organizations for

104-408: A Constitutional Amendment to be passed. Four years later the 16th Amendment was officially ratified and in 1913 the nation's first peacetime income tax was instituted. Around that same time the committee lost jurisdiction over banking and currency issues to the newly created Committee on Banking and Currency . The committee did gain jurisdiction over veterans’ benefits when it successfully passed

156-663: A Veterans' Bureau, which would ultimately become the Veterans' Administration. In 1924, the committee passed a "Bonus Bill" that compensated World War I veterans for their service. This series of improved veteran benefits reached a crescendo in 1944 with the passage of the Servicemen's Readjustment Act . Senator Bennett "Champ" Clark , who served as the Chairman of the Subcommittee on Veterans, assured smooth sailing of

208-406: A bureaucratic and fiscal crisis. In turn, this would lead to the replacement of public assistance programs that currently existed with a guaranteed annual income for all people. Cloward and Piven were more concerned with reaching community groups with this work than with academia , and the article helped to serve a link between the two. In May 1966, George Wiley , a nationally recognized chemist,

260-636: A hidden windfall, proof of a man in residence, or evidence of secret profits. Seeing how people on welfare were treated, she organized mothers and welfare recipients in the Nickerson Garden housing project where she lived through the Nickerson Gardens Planning Organization. Within months, she and her friends had founded Aid to Needy Children-Mothers Anonymous, one of the first grassroots welfare mothers' organizations. ANC Mothers Anonymous later became part of

312-491: A house only a few blocks from Nickerson Gardens. Tillmon died at Huntington Memorial Hospital in Los Angeles on November 22, 1995, at the age of 69. Her cause of death was diabetes. Tillmon had used a wheelchair after the amputation of her left foot and was on dialysis for four years prior to her death. In 1996, Harmonica Fats released the album Blow, Fat Daddy, Blow! as a collaboration with Bernie Pearl. The album

364-502: A resource for them. The only power the NWRO had over an affiliate was the power in which to recognize them as an affiliate. The national constitution required that members of local affiliates include a majority of welfare recipients and that all but ten percent of the members be people of low income. Each local group had to be independent of any larger organization that could restrict its freedom of action. Members elected lay leaders who had

416-675: A springboard for the Wagner Act and the National Labor Board . Probably the largest and most lasting pieces of legislation shaped by the Finance Committee during the New Deal was the 1935 Social Security Act . Once again, the committee received jurisdiction owing to the payroll taxes that would be enacted to pay for the new program. The act was the first effort by the federal government to provide benefits to

468-666: The Department of Interior in 1849. Under the Chairmanship of William Pitt Fessenden , the committee played a decisive role during the Civil War . Appropriating all funds for the war effort as well as raising enough funds to finance the war through tariffs and the nation's first income tax. Additionally, the committee produced the Legal Tender Act of 1862, the nation's first reliance on paper currency. In 1865

520-605: The House of Representatives created an Appropriations Committee to relieve the burden from the Committee on Ways and Means . The Senate followed this example by forming the Senate Appropriations Committee in 1867. Despite the loss of one of its signature duties, the committee continued to play a prominent role in the major issues of the nation. The committee was at the center of the debate over

572-558: The New Deal . The committee received jurisdiction over the National Industrial Recovery Act because of tax code changes in the bill. The new bureaucracy was President Franklin D. Roosevelt 's attempt to stimulate the economy and promote jobs for unemployed Americans while also regulating businesses. The National Recovery Administration would ultimately fail as it lost public support, but the act served as

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624-583: The insular possessions ; bonded debt of the United States ; customs , collection districts, and ports of entry and delivery; deposit of public moneys; general revenue sharing ; health programs under the Social Security Act (notably Medicare and Medicaid ) and health programs financed by a specific tax or trust fund; national social security; reciprocal trade agreements ; tariff and import quotas, and related matters thereto; and

676-570: The Civil Rights Movement and Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. in particular. Tillmon was born into a family of sharecroppers on April 10, 1926. When she was five years old, her mother died during childbirth and in 1944, she went to live with her aunt. Tillmon never finished high school. She left to marry James Tillmon in 1948, but they divorced in 1952. In 1959 she moved to California to join her brothers. By that time she

728-728: The House Ways and Means Committee only has jurisdiction over Medicare. (The House Energy and Commerce Committee has jurisdiction over Medicaid.) The other difference in terms of power is that all revenue raising measures must originate in the House, giving the Ways and Means Committee a slight edge in setting tax policy. In addition to having jurisdiction over legislation, the Committee on Finance has extensive oversight powers. It has authority to investigate, review and evaluate existing laws, and

780-616: The NCC. Uniform membership requirements and a common dues structure for its affiliates were adopted by the NCC in April 1967. In August 1967, delegates from 67 local welfare rights organizations met in Washington, D.C., and adopted a constitution that was drafted by the PRAC staff and had been adopted by the NCC, thus forming the National Welfare Rights Organization (NWRO). Johnnie Tillmon became

832-460: The NWRO had gone down by the time Tillmon became the executive director, and the NWRO ended in bankruptcy in March 1975; however, Tillmon continued fighting for welfare rights at the state and local levels. Each local affiliate of the NWRO was fully autonomous. The group was allowed to decide on its own program, make its own decisions, organize itself, and raise money by itself, while the NWRO remained

884-547: The NWRO, giving leaders of the movement and the issues at hand an important part in King's upcoming (without him) Poor People's Campaign . This nod from King later helped to promote the NWRO's first meeting between its leadership and the United States Secretary of Health, Education, and Welfare , held in the summer of 1968. In December 1968, the organization was granted a large government contract to help monitor

936-405: The National Welfare Rights Organization. George Wiley , a chemist and civil rights activist, became the latter's first executive director while Tillmon served as its first chairman. At its peak in the late 1960s, the organization had nearly 25,000 dues-paying members. In 1972, Wiley resigned and Tillmon moved to Washington to become the organization's executive director. Though the organization

988-507: The Senate officially created the Committee on Finance as a standing committee . Originally, the Committee had power over tariffs, taxation, banking and currency issues and appropriations. Under this authority the committee played an influential role in the most heated topics of the era, including numerous tariff issues and the Bank War . The committee was also influential in the creation of

1040-478: The War Risk Insurance Act of 1917. The act shifted pensions from gratuities to benefits and served as one of the first life insurance programs created under the federal government. The Finance Committee continued to play an increasingly important role in the lives of the nation's veterans. The committee helped consolidate the veteran bureaucracy by streamlining the various responsibilities into

1092-486: The Work Incentive Program. Funding from this and several other large grants from foundations helped to finance a major expansion of the NWRO staff, including the addition of field organizers. The NWRO won much access to government officials during the first Nixon administration due to membership rolls growing larger and a bigger presence in the media. Leaders in the welfare rights movement were some of

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1144-495: The ability to do nothing about it. This move was also easier organizationally for the movement because it was strategically more difficult to identify those who were eligible for welfare than those who already received it, it was also more difficult to motivate welfare-eligible individuals to act than those who already received it, and it was easier to organize current recipients of welfare by offering them benefits such as supplementary welfare payments. The NWRO's first major activity

1196-415: The accomplishments and activities that local affiliates participated in. Local groups fueled much of the activity, such as the original June 30 rallies and "birthday in the streets" demonstrations each June 30 after that. Nationwide campaigns revolved around local groups demanding for resources such as supplemental welfare checks to pay for back-to-school clothing for children of welfare recipients as well as

1248-560: The agencies that implement them. In accordance of Rule XXV of the United States Senate, all proposed legislation, messages, petitions, memorials, and other matters relating to the following subjects are referred to the Senate Committee on Finance: Given its broad remit with regards to taxation , mandatory spending , international trade , Social Security , Temporary Assistance to Needy Families , interest on

1300-550: The beginning of the Great Depression the committee passed the Smoot–Hawley Tariff Act . The act greatly increased tariffs and had a negative effect on the nation's economy. Following traditional economic practices the members of the committee, including Chairman Reed Smoot , felt that protection of American businesses was required in order to buoy them during the dire economic times. The effort backfired and

1352-450: The bill through the Senate. The bill not only ended the usual demands from returning veterans that had been seen in nearly every war the US had participated in, but also provided more generous benefits than veterans had previously received, including funds for continuing education, loans and unemployment insurance. Not all Finance Committee legislation was as well received as the G.I. Bill. At

1404-475: The demand for retail credit at major department stores for NWRO members. By August 1969, an NWRO convention in Detroit estimated roughly 20,000 dues paying members of the organization, and thus roughly 75,000 family members total affected by the movement. Most of the members of the movement were poor, mostly black women. By 1971, NWRO included 540 separate welfare rights organizations. In 1972, Johnnie Tillmon

1456-609: The economic situation worsened. The Smoot-Hawley Tariff would eventually be replaced by the Reciprocal Tariff Act of 1934 which authorized the President to negotiate trade agreements. This act not only set up the trade policy system as it exists today but also effectively transferred trade making policy from the Congress to the President. The committee also played an important role in two major acts created under

1508-555: The elderly and the unemployed, leading to enhanced economic welfare for many elderly Americans. In 1981, a Senate Resolution required the printing of the History of the Committee on Finance. The role of the Senate Committee on Finance is very similar to that of the House Committee on Ways and Means . The one exception in terms of authority is that the Finance Committee has jurisdiction over both Medicare and Medicaid, while

1560-572: The first chair of the NWRO. The NCC made a place for itself within the NWRO as the main decision-making body in the national structure of the organization. However, despite a nationwide organization, local welfare rights groups still retained nearly complete autonomy for their local actions. During the first few months of the new movement, the NWRO narrowed its focus from attempting to create a movement that would encompass all poor people to concentrating on those individuals who receive public assistance. Welfare recipients were easily organizable and they had

1612-700: The first to be able to meet with Daniel P. Moynihan after he was appointed to the White House staff and leaders also started to meet regularly with Robert Finch , the Secretary of the Department of Health, Education and Welfare. During the drafting of the Family Assistance Plan , NWRO leaders were consulted by the Nixon administration and these leaders were also active in lobbying against

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1664-609: The greatest measureable performance within the movement. Also in the early stages of the movement, Wiley rejected Cloward and Piven's strategy of flooding welfare rolls with new welfare recipients and instead favored a strategy of organizing current welfare recipients into pressure groups. Critics of the Cloward-Piven strategy argued that it was easier to create a welfare crisis than to bring about its resolution. Activists, who were mainly welfare recipients themselves with little political power, would be left amidst this crisis with

1716-546: The passage of a new income tax law. The Supreme Court's decision in Pollock v. Farmers' Loan & Trust Co. , 157 U.S. 429 (1895) ruled the income tax as unconstitutional, since it was not based on apportionment. The fight for an income tax finally culminated with the Payne–Aldrich Tariff Act of 1909. In order to pass the new tariff Senate leaders, including Chairman Nelson Aldrich , allowed for

1768-622: The plan. Despite demonstrations pointed toward the United States Congress and the Department of Health, Education and Welfare and traditional lobbying and negotiating efforts, welfare rights activities were not mainly centered at the national level. The movement has relied much more on simultaneous demonstrations based on common ideas and themes from local affiliates across the United States. NWRO publications, such as its newspaper The Welfare Fighter, document accounts of

1820-655: The poor in the United States. Around this same time, Richard Cloward and Frances Fox Piven , both of the Columbia University School of Social Work , were circulating a draft of an article called "The Weight of the Poor: A Strategy to End Poverty" that later appeared in The Nation . The article discussed the idea that the widespread distribution of information about welfare benefits eligibility could dramatically increase welfare rolls, thus creating

1872-411: The power to dismiss the staff director. There were biennial conventions of delegates from all local groups in the country which elected a national executive board. The NCC consisted of delegates from each state that contained a local welfare rights affiliate. It met four times a year to make the basic policy decisions of the NWRO. The national staff was responsible to the national executive board, which

1924-550: The rules must be changed to allow women to make their own reproductive decisions. In her landmark 1972 essay, "Welfare Is a Woman's Issue ," which was published in Ms. , she emphasized women's right to adequate income, regardless of whether they worked in a factory or at home raising children. Tillmon married her second husband, Harvey Blackston, a blues harmonica player known as Harmonica Fats , in 1979. They lived together in Watts, in

1976-557: The second African American on the faculty of Syracuse University , and former associate director for the Congress of Racial Equality (CORE) and two of his associates from CORE set up the Poverty Rights Action Center (PRAC) in a two-story row house in Washington, D.C. The PRAC was intended to become a permanent headquarters for coordinating efforts of present poor people's organizations. The PRAC's first project

2028-623: The silver question in the latter half of the 19th Century. Passage of the Bland–Allison Act and the Sherman Silver Purchase Act were attempts to remedy the demand for silver, though the silver cause would eventually fail by the end of the century. The committee also continued to play a role in the debate over income taxes. The repeal of the Civil War income taxes in the 1870s would eventually be raised in 1894 with

2080-481: The transportation of dutiable goods. It is considered to be one of the most powerful committees in Congress. The Committee on Finance is one of the original committees established in the Senate. First created on December 11, 1815, as a select committee and known as the Committee on Finance and an [sic] Uniform National Currency, it was formed to alleviate economic issues arising from the War of 1812. On December 10, 1816,

2132-428: The view that poverty was feminized. Tillmon herself attempted to broaden the horizons of the feminist movement by redefining poverty as a "women's issue," delivering speeches to mostly-female audiences in which she frequently compared the bureaucracy of welfare to a sexist marriage. Whereas the mainstream women's liberation movement was made up of younger, middle-class white women organizing around their right to join

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2184-479: The welfare rights movement, welfare mothers, led by Tillmon, sought to align with a women's movement and gain support from feminist organizations such as the National Organization for Women (NOW). The National Welfare Rights Organization was made up primarily of women, the group's members were among the civil rights movement’s few women leaders, and the organization was one of the first to articulate

2236-619: The workforce, the women of the welfare rights movement—consisting mostly of black women with organizers in Puerto Rican neighborhoods and on Native American reservations —prioritized motherhood and making welfare a guaranteed right. At the time welfare programs could cancel or alter benefits if the recipients had more children or if a male partner moved in, and some welfare mothers were forcibly sterilized to prevent them from having more children. Welfare rights activists fought for reproductive and sexual freedom for welfare mothers, arguing that

2288-538: Was a single mother to six children. In California she found work as a union shop steward in a Compton laundry. In 1963, she became ill, causing her to miss work. She then began to worry about her children growing up without proper supervision as a result of her job. Instead of returning to work, she left her job and went on welfare. After seeking public assistance, Tillmon became subject to harassment by welfare officials, including invasive "midnight raids," wherein officials would inspect residences looking for evidence of

2340-414: Was appointed executive director of the NWRO after George Wiley 's resignation. Wiley had been trying to mobilize the working poor , whereas Tillmon tried to align with the feminist movement. Tillmon's 1972 essay, "Welfare Is a Woman's Issue," which was published in Ms. , emphasized women's right to adequate income, regardless of whether they worked in a factory or at home raising children. The funding for

2392-621: Was dedicated to the memory of Tillmon. The National Union of the Homeless used what was called a "Johnnie Tillmon model" of organizing, named after her. United States Senate Committee on Finance The United States Senate Committee on Finance (or, less formally, Senate Finance Committee ) is a standing committee of the United States Senate . The Committee concerns itself with matters relating to taxation and other revenue measures generally, and those relating to

2444-453: Was financially strained at that point, the role was a paying position which allowed her to go off welfare. She served in this role until 1974, when the organization shut down due to lack of funds. She then returned to California where she worked as a legislative aid and served on welfare committees at both the state and local levels. While Wiley and his advisers tried to mobilize the working poor , especially white blue-collar workers , into

2496-593: Was lobbying against the work incentive provisions of the Social Security Amendments of 1967. The organization held demonstrations that included a sit-in at the United States Senate Committee on Finance hearing room. The activity brought the NWRO a lot of media attention but did not impact the shaping of legislation very heavily. In 1968, just weeks before the assassination of Martin Luther King Jr. , King acknowledged

2548-626: Was needed. In August 1966, the representatives of welfare recipient groups from 24 cities met in Chicago, voting to form the National Coordinating Committee of Welfare Rights Groups (NCC). The PRAC office was officially named the headquarters for a welfare rights movement at a December 1966 meeting of the NCC. PRAC was authorized by the NCC in February 1967 to come up with a membership card for all groups affiliated with

2600-463: Was no formal tie between the participating groups, the NWRO refers to the June 30 demonstrations as "the birth of a movement." Broad coalitions of groups sponsored each city's activities, including, but not limited to, welfare recipient organizations. Over time, there was an increase in coordination and cooperation between these welfare recipient groups and thus a nationwide welfare recipients’ organization

2652-711: Was planning a series of demonstrations that were to be coordinated with a welfare recipients’ march from Cleveland to Columbus, Ohio that had already been planned. This march had been thought up by representatives of the United Farm Workers Organizing Committee led by César Chávez . The PRAC's efforts led to poverty rights demonstrations with thousands of participants in sixteen major cities on June 30, 1966, with extensive newspaper coverage in New York City, Washington, Chicago, Los Angeles, Baltimore , and Boston . Although there

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2704-516: Was representative of the largest states within the movement because they contained the most delegates. Johnnie Tillmon Johnnie Tillmon Blackston (born Johnnie Lee Percy ; April 10, 1926 – November 22, 1995) was an American welfare rights activist. She is regarded as one of the most influential welfare rights activists in the country, whose work with the National Welfare Rights Organization influenced

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