LBJ's plans for the reform into an equitable society disillusioned as increasing conflicts between race and class appeared nationally.

THE CHAOTIC CAPs

DIVIDED FEELINGS WITHIN COMMUNITIES

Natural distinction between identities hindered the steps of noticeably short-term successful social reform and political activation.

"The most limiting factor in that movement was the color line. The complexity of that line bewildered policy makers and neighborhood organizers. The Great Society was supposed to bring about more racial parity and more racial amity... Black residents preferred black organizers. Many white organizers were reluctant to branch beyond white areas. Black organizers disliked focusing on the white poor. Leaders of Total Community Action (T.C.A.) and the Social Welfare Planning Council proved incapable of finding ways to get poor whites to interact in a politically meaningful way with poor blacks."
~ Indians, Liberalism, and the Great Society.

RISING CAPs' COST

"The Budget Bureau, fiscal arm of the White House, has told the Office of Economic Opportunity that it would prefer less emphasis on policymaking by the poor in planning community projects. “Maximum feasible participation” by the poor in the anti-poverty program is called for by the law. In the bureau’s view, this means primarily using the poor to carry out the program, not to design it."
~ New York Times, 5 November 1965. A Primary Source retrieved from “A Tale of Two Communities: Fighting Poverty in the Great Society (1964–68)”, by Evelyn Forget.

"A Wasteful Thing". From LBJ Presidential Tapes Library.

Even LBJ admitted that the CAPs were a wasteful program.

RACE RIOTS

Continuous Civil Unrest

Race Riot on the Harlem Streets in 1964 due to the Powell shooting. From Library of Congress.

Policemen pointing their guns at the sky during the 1964 Race Riots. From Library of Congress.

Multiple Race Riots were seen in the early years of 1960s, one of them being the 1965 Watt's Race Riot. Watt Incident led to the coalition of MLK with LBJ pushing for the Poverty Bill, as shown by an earlier audio.

"There was mutual distrust on both sides - Black and White...Week after week you could see the neighborhoods changing as more and more burned out buildings (homes and stores) and vacant lots began appearing. A year or so after the riots my 70 year old Aunt Anna... was mugged by two Black guys... she didn't want to leave... even though it was no longer safe for a White person be be living in that neighborhood any longer."
~ What I Remember about Living Through the 1967 Newark Riots, by Jule Spohn, from Newark memories.

Race Riots, however, were repeated again in 1967, with the same intensity, if not greater.

Enthusiasm for domestic programs waned.

KERNER COMMISSION REPORT

"This is our basic conclusion: Our Nation is moving toward two societies, one black, one white -- separate and unequal... White racism is essentially responsible for the explosive mixture which has been accumulating in our cities since the end of World War II."
- Kerner Commission Report, 1968.

LBJ appointed the Kerner Commission to study the causes of unending race riots. The Report reported poverty and white racism still as the dominant reasons, discrediting the efforts of the Great Society.

The Kerner Commission Report. From the library of National Institute of Justice

THE DISSOLUTION OF MLK WITH LBJ

The President and the Congress have a primary responsibility for low minimum wages, for a degrading system of inadequate welfare, fer subsidies of the rich and unemployment and underemployment of the poor, for a war mentality, for slums and starvation, and racism. The survival of a free society depends upon the guarantee and survival of freedom and equality. This is what we seek."
~ MLK, Poor People's Campaign, 1968.

Divided feelings between MLK and LBJ grew as MLK continuously pushed for economic support for the Black neighborhoods.