IRP Book Talk: Casey Nichols on Poverty Rebels: Black and Brown Protest in Post–Civil Rights America

Siers-Poisson [00:00:06] Hello, and thanks for joining us for the Poverty Research and Policy podcast from the Institute for Research on Poverty at the University of Wisconsin–Madison. I’m Judith Siers-Poisson. For this episode, Dr. Casey Nichols joins us to discuss her newly published book, Poverty Rebels: Black and Brown Protests in Post-Civil Rights America. That was published by the University Of North Carolina Press. You can find a link to the book in the program note for this episode. Casey Nichols is an Assistant Professor of History at Texas State University. She’s also an IRP Emerging Poverty Scholar Fellow. Casey, thanks for joining us today.

Nichols [00:00:41] Thanks for having me.

Siers-Poisson [00:00:43] I’d like to start with an overview of how and when Black and Brown people came to Los Angeles and where in the city they settled.Nichols [00:00:52] Yeah, that’s a great question. And I think it helps really kind of set the foundation for my book, right? So, it’s a more complicated story than I think we usually think when we’re thinking about migration to cities. In that because the focus of my study, which is Los Angeles, that is a city that was formerly Mexico, right. So, there was a Mexican, a Mexican-American population in the city of Los Angeles prior to the United States sort of gaining control over California and other parts of the U.S. West. So there was already an existing Mexican population that when the US took control became a Mexican-American population in various parts of areas of the city right. But once the US sort of gained control of California and again more specifically Los Angeles. That then opens up the question of, what would a U.S. Los Angeles look like? So in sort of ending, transitioning from Mexican Los Angeles to U.S. Los Angles, as I described in my book, the question is, you know, what opportunities existed there? And one of the first groups to sort of see Los Angeles as a potential location to create new opportunities were African Americans. And so by the late 19th century, African Americans began to move, to migrate to Los Angeles from various parts of the country, including especially the U.S. South, and began to sort of settle in, you know, various areas of Los Angeles, but largely in the sort of South Central area. And by the late19th century, there were already some Mexican Americans living in that area. And then an area that increasingly became largely Mexican American over time, over the 20th century, is the area known as East LA. And there’s a map in the book that lays out the areas that would have been sort of historically African-American and historically Mexican-American. And so there are instances where the groups can be sort of separate in terms of geographical area. And also a lot of opportunities and neighborhoods where they are coexisting and living amongst one another, right? So early on, there isn’t as much of this sort of question of division between where people are living, because the early part of U.S. Los Angeles is infrastructure building, right. So that kind of neighborhood structure isn’t as strong as it’s going to be later on in the 60s, 70s, which is the bulk of my study.

Siers-Poisson [00:03:46] That leads into how did you decide to really focus in on the years of 1964 to 1979 in this area of Black and Brown relations in Los Angeles?

Nichols [00:03:59] So there’s so many different layers to this question. So the first is sort of where did I gain this interest, right? And then the second is within a scholarly realm, how did I sort of settle on this particular period? So for me, my initial interest emerged in my childhood, in that I’m originally from Long Beach, California, which is a part of Los Angeles County. And so in Long Beach growing up there in the 90s and the 2000s, there were typically a lot of discussions and a lot a debate about how to share space, how to share political power, how to share resources. And oftentimes, right, the question was, “Well, how can we find leadership that meet both the needs of African Americans and Mexican Americans?” And increasingly, it became African Americans and Latinos as the Latino population became more diverse throughout Los Angeles County throughout the 90s and the 2000s. And so that was sort of the first introduction to the topic. The second layer, as you might know, is that the 1980s and the 1990s also led to an increase in debates about various gangs and gangs along racial lines. So one of the other critical debates that I witnessed a lot growing up was the question of whether or not there was this sort of deep violent conflict between African Americans and Latinos, right, especially as it also related to sort of the growth of gangs. So those were kind of two of the key aspects of life in LA County that sparked this interest. And so once I went on to graduate school, I knew I wanted to study Black–Brown relations. I knew that was of interest, but I wasn’t sure how to approach the topic. But as I got into the archival research, so as you see from my book, I did research at a variety of different places. So the Lyndon Johnson Library, the U.S. National Archives, California State Archives, Stanford University, as well as UCLA, the Los Angeles City Archives. So, I went to so many different archives. I also reviewed a lot of available oral histories, a lot of different government reports and studies. So, I really pulled together this diverse set of sources. And as I was reviewing them, what really came to mind was, oh, the 1960s and 1970s actually set the foundation for these debates that I witnessed growing up in L.A. County. And so as I got into documentation related, especially to the Civil Rights Act and the War on Poverty, I began to notice that throughout the US, a popular interest in Black–Brown relations began to grow in the 60s and 70s. So it wasn’t just that on a local level, people were debating how to share space and resources, but nationally, people throughout the U.S., including federal government stakeholders, were paying attention to the relationship between African Americans and Mexican Americans in places like California and Texas. And there was an increasing public consumption of, “Well, what’s going to happen now? How is this relationship going to grow and develop?” And so that really stood out to me. And so I settled on this topic because I was interested in really fleshing out, like how is this a, the 1964 and 1979, this foundational moment that then comes to shape these debates later on about things like gangs or about political representation, et cetera.

Siers-Poisson [00:08:22] So let’s lead up to that really pivotal year of 1964. What were the shared and also distinct concerns of Black and Brown communities leading up to civil rights legislation and the Economic Opportunity Act being passed?

Nichols [00:08:40] Thank you, thank you. So I think this is a good question that aligns with one of my critical interventions, especially as I described within the first sort of two chapters of my book. In that 1964 to 1979, I argue, is this foundational moment, but it’s a foundational moment that inherits sort of the previous three decades or so of activism that African Americans and Mexican Americans in LA were engaged in. So if you take a look at Los Angeles, Black and Brown Los Angeles starting in about 1910 or so through 1964, then you see the growth of sort of thriving movements, organizations like the National Advancement of Colored People, the National Urban League, both African-American organizations, also the National Association of Colored Women’s Club, again, another African-American sort of organization. You see the growth, right, of really thoughtful movements that not only focus on the Black experience nationally and internationally, but try to zero in on what are the experiences of African Americans in Los Angeles. And how to address the unique ways that Black people experience injustice and inequality in Los Angeles. Because being in LA in the 1920s, 1930s, 1940s, there are some distinct differences from say, being in parts of the South, and we can even say parts of the sort of Midwest in that there wasn’t the constant fear of potential racial violence against African Americans. There was a concern with things like police harassment or police brutality, but there wasn’t as much of a fear of say something like a lynch mob showing up at your door. So then what these early Black organizations were trying to do was come up with an agenda that fit the distinct needs of African Americans in LA. And that meant trying to create resources to do things like gain access to home ownership, trying to actively gain access to even the film industry. And so, Los Angeles really has these sort of unique features right around things like popular culture, film, public amusement, even the efforts to gain access to public spaces like beaches. So, it has this really sort of interesting history of fighting that’s unique to LA in itself, right? Or places similar to LA. And at the same time during this period, we also see the development of various Mexican-American focused organizations. So we see the development of organizations like the Political Association of Spanish-Speaking People, the Sleepy Lagoon Defense Committee, as well as say, the Mexican-American Political Association, GI Forum. Right, so we see the growth of these localized civil rights organizations. And for Mexican Americans, part of what they’re fighting for is, first, recognition that they are a racially subjugated group. Because prior to about the late 1960s, early 1970s, Mexican Americans were legally classified as white. So even though they were legally classified as white, they weren’t treated that way and they didn’t have the sort of various privileges that white people in LA had. So, part of the struggle was creating a visible and vocal movement to say, “We are classified as white, but this is our experience.” And that was things similar to African Americans. Police brutality was a major campaign for Mexican Americans throughout LA. They were perhaps one of the first groups to lead movements against police brutality, you know, trying to bring awareness to greater access to educational resources, even trying to bring awareness to housing and residential segregation. So, there were a lot of similarities, but the fundamental difference was that African Americans didn’t have to carve out a movement to acknowledge their racial discrimination, right? Because everyone was aware of that. But for Mexican Americans, they had to build out this identity of brownness that I describe in my work before kind of moving to the next step in the development of their movement agendas.

Siers-Poisson [00:13:41] Certainly the Civil Rights Act brought a lot of progress, a lot of hard-fought progress, to communities of color. But in reading your book, it felt like pretty clearly and pretty quickly, there was an acknowledgement in those communities that economic justice elements were missing, and especially trying to make strides towards some kind of economic equity. Who were the main proponents and opponents to bringing in more of that economic equity lens?

Nichols [00:14:13] That’s an important question. So one thing I want to make sure that I am clear on is that I’m not, in this work, I’m not saying that the Civil Rights Act was a bad thing, right? Or that the Civil Rights Act was a legislation that harmed in some way. But what I want to demonstrate is that when we look closely at the activist work of African Americans and Mexican Americans between 1964 and 1979, we see them celebrating the passage of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and saying, this is an opening. This is an opening to continue moving forward. Part of what the federal government stakeholders expected was for activism to sort of come to a halt once the 1964 Civil Rights Act passed, but for Black and Brown people and a variety of other activists, this was just the start. And so I want people to see that the Civil Rights Act was this opening that further galvanized Black and Brown people. And then when we sort of add some layers to that, then we see that The Economic Opportunity Act, which was the legislation that set the foundation for the War on Poverty and allocated funding for the War on Poverty, we see that Black and Brown people utilize War on Poverty funds, essentially as an extension of the Civil Rights Act. Other scholars have absolutely discussed this, right? And that the Civil rights Act is this really monumental piece of legislation that lifts barriers to a variety of different forms of inequality. The Civil Rights Act creates the EEOC, right? The Equal Opportunity Employment Commission. So, the Civil Rights Act creates that organization so that there’s a federal oversight in terms of ensuring equality in the workforce. The Civil Rights Act helps to lift some barriers to voting rights, right. But it’s not until the Voting Rights Act itself where that will be clarified, but the Civil Rights Act is an opening to the Voting Rights Act. We also see the closing of some loopholes that remain in things like housing segregation or housing discrimination. So it really is this monumental piece of legislation that tries to address a variety of different issues that were holding back the US from being a society where people had access to what we would have called the American Dream at that time, right, where people had access to the American Dream, and they had legislation that they could use to challenge discrimination when they went to buy a home or enroll in school or et cetera. But what was missing was an acknowledgement that white Americans had actively built an economic profile through racial discrimination, and how the U.S. federal government had played a critical role in that process, by extending federally-subsidized home loans, by opening up more educational opportunities. But again, many institutions continuing to discriminate by investing in manufacturing and the defense industry. So these are all institutions that the U.S. federal government begins to invest more time, energy and funds into, but the continuation of racial discrimination means that not all people of color will have access to them. And what the Civil Rights Act does is begin to slowly open up those resources for people of color with the funds to purchase homes or to enroll in colleges or whatever. But there are generations of people who have not had the economic resources to do so. And so what the War on Poverty does is local communities begin to seek out this funding to do things like even make plans or proposals to build housing, which is very surprising, right? Because again, they’re trying to make up for what they didn’t have access to, proposals to create programs from people who didn’t finish K-12 school. So now perhaps they can have some resources to receive their high school diplomas and then move on to college. There were resources to create a pipeline for Black and Brown youth to go on to become doctors and attend medical school. There were resource for aid to provide lawyers, right, to people who might have experienced some sort of inequality or discrimination or…what have you, where they need to seek out legal support or legal help. So the War on Poverty becomes this opportunity to try and provide more people with access to the resources opened up by the 1964 Civil Rights Act. And so when we look at these two pieces of legislation, the Civil Rights act and the Economic Opportunity Act, both passed in the same year. We can see how they’re deeply intertwined, especially for Black and Brown people. And so I would say that the main supporters were typically Black and Brown people, were some of the biggest supporters of the War on Poverty. And not only poor, working-class African Americans, but, African American and Mexican Americans, but also professionals. Right, because it was professionals who did things like start tutoring programs or other War on Poverty-based programs and even politicians like I described, politicians like Augustus Hawkins and Edward Roybal, who were first in local and state government, who then moved on to Congress. So, there are people who are actively advocating for the war on poverty in a variety of different levels and in a variety of different class statuses. But I’ve noticed that Black and Brown people were some of the biggest proponents. And I think it’s because it added that extra layer to the Civil Rights Act.

And so quickly I’ll talk about the opponents because there were opponents. And some of the main opponents of the War on Poverty were local politicians. And in the first sort of couple chapters of my book, you sort of see that struggle. And that local government officials were resistant to the idea of putting federal funding in the hands of local people. Because the concern was that local people would be able to have access to more political power. And that was a concern, but the African Americans and Mexican Americans were motivated by the possibility of having that political power because it gave them a direct line to federal policy stakeholders or what have you. Right? It gave them that opportunity to actively talk directly to people who were making those major decisions. Local politicians did not like that. They wanted to be the mediator between the federal stakeholders and the people. And so, they were some of the biggest resistors to the War on Poverty.

Siers-Poisson [00:22:11] Casey, the title of your book is Poverty Rebels, Black and Brown Protest in Post-Civil Rights America. And I wondered where does that phrase, “poverty rebels,” come from?

Nichols [00:22:22] Yes. So, in thinking through the title of my book, my book started as my dissertation project and the dissertation had a very different title, which at the moment I can’t remember what that was. It’s a very different title. And as I began the process of transforming my dissertation into a book, I noticed that the term poverty was not in the title, even though my book is about the War on Poverty, as an opportunity to mount an economic justice movement. So, I said to myself, I need to have poverty in the title somewhere, right? So, I began to brainstorm and then brainstorming, I also thought about, well, the people who I am describing, what was their main motivation? What were they hoping for? How did they interpret the work that they were doing? And then regardless of again, where they were economically or their political standpoint, I noticed that when we think through the activism that emerges around the War on Poverty in LA, what we see is this sort of deep grassroots effort. And it’s a grassroot effort that includes local people, that includes professionals, it includes some members of the local government, it includes some members of the state government and the federal government. And as a collective, they saw themselves as sort of mounting this grassroots effort that would be led by the masses in a way, or that would be  motivated by the masses. And so, I thought, okay, well, the term rebel sort of came to mind there. Because when we think about that type of activism, right, we’re thinking about an effort to really make a difference at the most local level. And so that’s where I settled on the title of Poverty Rebels. I wanted to make sure that the term poverty was in there. Again, especially because that’s what the people I’m examining, that’s with their focus is. And if you see the cover of my book, you see there’s a protest, a demonstration, a march and folks are holding signs that say things like “end poverty now,” they’re actively utilizing that term as a rallying cry for economic justice, and they’re out in the streets, in addition to being in the city council meetings, et cetera. So, I wanted to really harness and celebrate the work that they did with that title.

Siers-Poisson [00:25:01] There was a lot going on socially, culturally, and politically in these years that you’re discussing. Can you talk about the rise in identity politics and the role that more militant groups like the Black Panther Party and the Brown Berets played?

Nichols [00:25:17] Yes, thank you. Thank you for that question. So I think about these organizations a lot because I also teach about them when I teach like my U.S. history survey as a way to help students understand why this particular moment of 1964 to 1979 was a critical moment in U.S. social justice and activist history. And one of the reasons is the rise in identity politics. But then also how those identity politics critically shaped the development of new organizations. Right? Organizations like the Black Panther Party for Self Defense and the Brown Berets. And so, when we look at those organizations, we see the continuation of work that began in the 19-teens, again, with organizations like the NAACP, organizations like the American GI Forum, the Political Association of Spanish-Speaking People, we can definitely see influences, but we can also see this younger generation of people, many of whom were either born in Los Angeles or came of age in Los Angles, trying to actively articulate their unique experiences. And so I would argue that part of what makes identity politics critical during this period of 1964 to 1979 is also an age component or a generational component, in that younger people who were actively building movements like the Black Panther Party, student movements, the Brown Berets, had witnessed the growth of things like over policing within their childhood, they’d witness the growth of this divide between, sort of life for white Americans in the post-World War II decades versus their lives, some of which were middle class, right? Some of the folks who were actively mounting this movement can be classified as middle class, but many of them were also impoverished and came from families that didn’t have access to a lot. And they noticed that there was this clear divide that had been created between their white peers across town and their experiences in day-to-day life, right? So, we see actively trying to craft a movement that not only incorporates those social justice issues, but that tries to celebrate their uniqueness. So, for the Brown Berets, that’s celebrating the speaking of Spanish, that’s celebrating East LA as the sort of hub of Mexican-American political organizing, Mexican American history, cultural production, and also, again, reinforcing their identity around Brownness of really saying, you know, there is a deep pride in being Brown people who were colonized, who have origins here, and we have a story to tell. And then African Americans sort of similar. Again, sort of reinforcing identity politics around Blackness, which aligns African Americans, especially younger people during this time, also aligns them with colonized people and post-colonial people, right, around the world. It also helps to sort of become a way to celebrate their culture and to sort of try and create something that felt more positive and exciting during this period where people really felt as though they were being repressed by over policing, a lack of resources, et cetera, right? So, identity politics opened up the opportunity for more experiences of joy amidst, I guess you could say depression, economic depression.

Siers-Poisson [00:29:35] We’ve been talking a lot about relationships between Black and Brown communities. At some point, the movement becomes more multiracial and Indigenous people, Asian and Asian-American people come into this and poor white people as well. What was the thread that brought those groups together?

Nichols [00:29:54] I talk a lot about this in my chapter on the Poor People’s Campaign. And when I was originally doing research for this project, when it was a dissertation forum, I didn’t actually have a plan to research or even write about the Poor People’s Campaign, but once I began to sort of dig into the archival documents, I found that it was this really kind of interesting story of how Black-Brown relations in a way sort of opens up the door for this bigger movement, right, as you were describing. And so what I argue in this work is that when we kind of take a look at the planning for the Poor People’s Movement, which was a campaign, a part of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference, which is typically known as the organization with Martin Luther King at the lead and then later on, Ralph Abernathy at the lead. And we associate that organization solely with the South. But when we look, when we are searching for the history of economic justice, what we see in SCLC by the late 1960s is an effort to move outward, to sort of take their southern campaign and try to create a more kind of nationalized movement that includes other parts of the United States. And doing that… SELC began to realize that they also needed to open up more to other groups, not just African Americans. So, from California’s standpoint, especially Los Angeles, where there was a history of multiracial organizing, especially among Black and Brown people, and there was also a precedent of organizing among Black and Brown people through the War on Poverty, right? That already existed. And so for the SCLC, through the Poor People’s Campaign, what I noticed was that SCLC understood that mounting a national campaign by the late 1960s going into the 1970s required trying to build relationships with other groups. Because by 1968, the Mexican-American Civil Rights Movement was active throughout the United States. Right? Not just in Los Angeles, but there were movements in LA, the San Francisco Bay area, San Diego, various parts of Texas, Chicago. So, there was an active Chicano movement that was taking place in various parts with the country. It had become a national movement by that point. And SCLC came to the conclusion that, you know, moving outward, outside of the South also required becoming a more kind of racially diverse movement, especially as it related to questions of poverty and inequality, because that was a shared issue that could bring a variety of groups together. And from what I noticed, sort of appear to come with the least resistance in terms of multiracial organizing, because there wasn’t really a debate of whether or not race and poverty were interrelated. It seemed as though everyone agreed from the various different groups. And so by the late 1960s into the 1970s, we see sort of more of an effort to create multiracial movements. But I would argue that those multiracial movements were partly influenced by the growth of Black-Brown relations, especially through the War on Poverty. And seeing the potential impact that coming together could have on U.S. federal government policy.

Siers-Poisson [00:33:56] Casey, it seems like then, and even now, there’s often excessive attention paid to conflicts instead of collaboration between different groups. Can you talk a little bit about that?

Nichols [00:34:08] Again, you know, that question of, is conflict the essence of Black-Brown relations or is collaboration the essence Black-Brown relations really motivated my interest in pursuing this project. And so initially when I went into this project, I had the same question, “Am I going to find more conflict? Am I going to find more cooperation or am I going to find collaboration?” And what I found is that, at the very basic level when we research Black and Brown people, especially Black and Brown people, working-class and poor Black and Brown people, what we see is a story of people just getting through every day. There didn’t appear to be a daily debate or question, right? For the people that I researched about whether or not they got along with African Americans, that seemed to be more of a bigger popular and political question that I noticed that was emerging. And so there are instances where we can obviously see conflict, but the conflict never seemed to have the type of impact that the collaboration had, as I noticed in my work. I noticed a collaboration meant, you know, say politicians like Edward Roybal and Augustus Hawkins coming together to actively advocate with Congress for resources for both Black and Brown Los Angeles, right? I noticed that coming together and collaborating crafted something like the Poor People’s Campaign, which is this massive campaign in 1968 where a multiracial group of people come together to actively protest at the Capitol. And in doing so, they really show that poverty and economic inequality was much deeper than one particular community in Chicago, right? That it’s so much more deeper than that, that it’s a fundamental issue that the U.S. federal government needed to address. And even though there were conflicts, even in the Poor People’s Campaign, right, within the midst of that, there were conflicts between various groups or various individuals, I would say. In the end, when we really look holistically at the story, we see collaboration having the most significant impact on the lives of Black and Brown people. And when conflict occurs, I didn’t see any instances where conflict completely derailed any of their activist efforts.

Siers-Poisson [00:36:52] I want to turn to the role that violence like the Watts Rebellion and the Chicano Moratorium police riot played in drawing attention and even funding to neighborhoods and communities. How did that work?

Nichols [00:37:06] So, I describe the Watts Rebellion and the Chicano Moratorium because they’re both important moments that help to demonstrate the urgency of the need for federal funds into Los Angeles, right? So my book begins with the Watts Rebellion sort of early on as the event that finally brings the war on poverty to LA. Because once the Economic Opportunity Act was passed in 1964, there was sort of this year-long struggle to actually implement the War on Poverty in Los Angeles because the mayor and the local government was trying to wrestle control of the War of Poverty away from local people. And so, at the time, many people argued that the Watts uprising had been caused by that year of struggle between the mayor and again, the stakeholders who were actively trying to bring the War on Poverty to Los Angeles. And those stakeholders were not only local people, but also again, professionals and politicians, right? Creating this group that I’m calling Poverty Rebels. So, when we look closer at the Watts Rebellion, we don’t simply see a story of unorganized or unfocused protest, we see an actual community of people being denied resources that have been allocated by the U.S. federal government to improve their communities being held up by the local government. And in response, you know, that frustration led to the Watts Rebellion, which then led to the disbursement of those funds, right? So, we can see an actual, I wouldn’t say benefit, but a response. We see that uprisings lead to federal responses because the urgency is so clear when an uprising takes place. And similarly with the Chicano Moratorium police riots. So as I describe later on in my book with model cities, the Chicano Moratorium police riots is what helps to sort of bring more attention and more funding through the Model Cities program, which we can think of as sort of the next stage in the War on Poverty, but specifically designated for cities where uprisings took place. So again, we can see that the U.S. federal government even allocated funding, right, specifically in response to uprising. So again we can that that urgency leads to a response to try and improve the conditions that people were living under. And so when we look at the Chicano Moratorium, which is this really significant moment in Mexican-American history, because these were demonstrations, mass demonstrations that brought people from throughout the US into LA to protest the Vietnam War, to protest police brutality, educational equality. But when we peel back the layers and we examine the police riot aspects of the Chicano Moratorium, we see these links to anti-poverty, again, through Model Cities. The Chicano Moratorium police riots opened up the opportunity for Mexican Americans in East LA to gain access to funding to improve their communities. And a lot of times, because of this sort of popular divide of debating violence versus nonviolence, I think folks have sort of backed away from critically analyzing the Chicano Moratorium police riots. But what I realized when I got into the archival documents about this event, I realized that there was this additional connection and this additional link to anti-poverty resources that was made available as a result of the Chicano Moratorium police riot. So, I learned also from doing that research that, you know, it’s okay to kind of dig into the stories that might feel embarrassing or that might be defined as violent. There’s something behind that. And perhaps we can get more of the context and the details of the bigger story if we just kind of push through, you know, a moment that might consider a type of protest that maybe we don’t agree with, but maybe it tells us more about the story.

Siers-Poisson [00:41:56] And you bring this history up to 1992 and the beating of Black motorist Rodney King and the subsequent riots in response to the acquittal of three of the officers who were involved. Casey, what does that episode tell us about what has or has not endured from the period that you wrote about?

Nichols [00:42:15] So yeah, so I end in 1992 with Rodney King as this moment where Los Angeles revisits the goals that were originally set out in the War on Poverty. And again, when I started this project, I did not think that I would end up in 1992, but again, as I got into the research, especially the local report that was created after the 1992 uprising related to Rodney King, the report that was created to kind of highlight what may have led to that 1992 uprising. As I was reading the report, I noticed that so much of it was a comparison to 1964, 1965, and 1992. And so how the committee who was brought in to compile that report, how they thought about 1992 was in the frame of the time period that I focus on in my book. And so, I wanted to like really do a close analysis of that report to really kind of get a sense of why, right? Why did they revisit the War on Poverty era? And so, what I noticed is that they revisited that moment. One is because it goes back to the ways in which that uprisings create an immediate response to try and understand what led to the uprising. So in 1965, we get an immediate response. We also get a report, a state government and also a federal government report that’s commissioned to analyze the issues. And then those reports led to the dispersal of funding to address what was identified as the causes. And then similarly in 1992, the uprising creates an immediate urgent response. And as a result, the commission in 1992 who was brought together to study the uprising and describe the causes and then also try to propose some solutions, right? We also see that through that uprising, it opens up the possibility to actually make improvements in the lives of people continuing to live in South Central Los Angeles. Again, which was also the location of the Watts Uprising in 1965. And so when we compare those two incidents of Rodney King, and then we compare 1965, what we see is that over time, once the War on Poverty ended, the efforts to try and continue to support and revitalize those communities, slow down. Now there were people who began organizations in the War on Poverty or began a political career through the war and poverty who continued to contribute to the community or who contribute to maintain organizations that would enhance South Central Los Angeles, but we also saw an increasing divestment throughout South and South Central LA. And so when we compare those two reports, we see that the War on Poverty was really this moment of opportunity where local people were actively galvanized, motivated, and excited. But by the 1980s, as that money was divested and little support was provided to these institutions, we can see how that moment of opportunity or possibility kind of quickly closes. And then what we get is once again, another uprising in ‘92. To address the issues that were never fully improved upon through the War on Poverty, opening up another opportunity for change. But that doesn’t fully come to LA, right? LA begins to experience a lot of gentrification after that point.

Siers-Poisson [00:46:28] Casey, are there any last thoughts you’d like to leave us with?

Nichols [00:46:32] The last thing I would add is that there’s a lot to be gained by studying the relationship between groups that we might think don’t come up in the archive. But what I learned from this project is that I pushed forward with my interest in Black-Brown relations, and when I got into the archives, their stories were there. And so, I think it’s important to just push through and look and sort of find these stories. And as I described at the very beginning of this interview, I had to sort of piece together a variety of different sources, right? There wasn’t just one collection or two that offered this story, but I had really think creatively about how to piece together little bits and pieces from a variety different source materials. So, I would encourage people who are interested in histories like these to kind of go into the archives and really think creatively about where they can locate these stories and don’t give up because they may not be easily accessible.

Siers-Poisson [00:47:44] Casey, thank you so much for taking the time to discuss your book with us. It’s a fascinating history.

Nichols [00:47:50] Thank you, thank you. I’m happy that I was able to share some insights into this project.

Siers-Poisson [00:47:57] Thanks so much to Dr. Casey Nichols for joining us to talk about her recently published book, Poverty Rebels, Black and Brown Protest in Post-Civil Rights America, that was published by the University of North Carolina Press, and you can find a link to the book in the program note for this episode. Please note that views expressed by our speakers don’t necessarily represent the opinions or policies of the Institute for Research on Poverty or of any other sponsor, including the University of Wisconsin–Madison. Music for the episode is by Poi Dog Pondering. Thanks for listening.