Reformers to Radicals: The Appalachian Volunteers and the War on Poverty by Thomas Kiffmeyer

The Appalachian Volunteers (AVs) started in 1964 as a program of the Council of Southern Mountains under the leadership of Milton Ogle, a staff member who supported Barry Goldwater in the Presidential election that year. The program began by enlisting college students to renovate and run enrichment programs at one and two-room schools in Eastern Kentucky. The next year the Office of Economic Opportunity, a part of Lyndon Johnson’s War on Poverty gave the AVs  grants of $300,000 and $139,000 to hire a full-time staff in support of the federal Community Action Program that was at the time devoted to “the maximum feasible participation of the poor.”  By 1966 the combination of emboldened local people and the influence of nation-wide student movements convinced both Milton Ogle and most of the staff that band-aid efforts could not achieve the systemic change needed in the region, and the AVs split from the Council. At its height, the AVs employed 500 workers in four Appalachian states. The