Appalachian Volunteers
Encyclopedia
Appalachian Volunteers, Inc. was a non-profit organization
engaged in community development
projects in central Appalachia
that evolved into a controversial community organizing
network, with a reputation that went “from self-help to sedition” as its staff developed from "reformers to radicals," in the words of one historian, in the brief period between 1964 and 1970 during the War on Poverty
.
(CSM), which had been headquartered in Berea, Kentucky
, since 1925. Following President Lyndon Johnson’s State of the Union message of January 8, 1964, in which he announced his War on Poverty, CSM staff member Milton Ogle organized a group of students from Berea College
to help repair a one-room school in Harlan County, Kentucky
. During the following two months, students from other eastern Kentucky colleges were involved in similar weekend projects. A meeting was held at the Pine Mountain Settlement School in Harlan County to formally organize the Appalachian Volunteers to expand such efforts. Representatives of the Kentucky Governor’s office, the President’s Appalachian Regional Commission, and the President’s Committee for a War on Poverty were present to encourage college and school officials and to promise federal support. A $50,000 grant from the federal Area Redevelopment Administration to the CSM was arranged in March 1964 to fund AV activities during the rest of the year..
, providing recreation and remedial work for the children in a remote hollow. A “Books for Appalachia” campaign, which collected over a million volumes, was begun in cooperation with the National Parent-Teacher Association
.
Following the establishment of the Office of Economic Opportunity
(OEO) in fall 1964, the AV applied for a Community Action Program demonstration grant, and was awarded $300,000 in December to expand its program in 1965. The following spring the AV negotiated a $40,000 training grant with VISTA. The new funding allowed Ogle to hire staff, including Gibbs Kinderman, a recent Harvard graduate who had taken part in the Freedom Summer
project in Mississippi in 1964. Also in spring 1965 the AVs received a $139,000 community action demonstration grant to support 150 college students for an eight-week summer project in eastern Kentucky. Half the students were recruited from the Kentucky colleges with active AV chapters, and the other half were recruited from colleges and universities in such major cities as Boston, Chicago and New York.
, a location more central to the southern Appalachians into which the AV hoped to expand.
With its new funding the AV greatly expanded its summer program in 1966, placing 500 students with eight-week projects in four states: eastern Kentucky, southern West Virginia, southwestern Virginia, and eastern Tennessee. OEO was becoming unhappy with the failure of many community action agencies (CAAs) in central Appalachia to take seriously its mandate of “maximum feasible participation” of the poor in the administration of the CAAs. OEO encouraged the AV to rally the rural poor for a bigger role in the local CAAs. Conflict in Kentucky’s Cumberland Valley was acute, and led to a controversial defunding of its eight-county CAA, which was split into one- and two-county agencies.
to do the same, as conflict over strip-mining was developing on Island Creek, where Jink Ray was planning to block bulldozers from his land. The stand-off gained state-wide publicity, and ended only when Governor Edward T. Breathitt
flew to Island Creek in July to see for himself and suspend the coal operator’s permit, and on August 1 revoked the permit to strip-mine Ray’s property.
On the evening of August 11, 1967, as the AV summer volunteer program was winding down, the Pike County sheriff raided the homes of AV Joe Mulloy and his wife Karen (an AV Vista volunteer) and Alan and Margaret McSurely, who were then working for the Southern Conference Education Fund (SCEF), and confiscated a large quantity of the McSurelys’ personal papers and books. (Alan had worked briefly for the AV that spring). Books that supposedly demonstrated their seditious nature included "a large number of works about Communism, including a couple dozen by Marx, Engels, and Lenin," as well as copies of Joseph Heller's novel, Catch-22, and Mao's Red Book. Joe Mulloy and the McSurelys were charged with sedition
(“plotting the violent overthrow of Pike County, Kentucky”) by Pike County Commonwealth Attorney Thomas Ratliff, who was a Republican candidate for lieutenant governor and president of the Independent Coal Operators Association. SCEF’s controversial leaders, Anne
and Carl Braden, were also charged, although they resided in Louisville
. Three days later federal appeals court judge Bert T. Combs
(a former Kentucky governor) declared Kentucky’s sedition statute unconstitutional and dismissed the charges.
Although the sedition charges were thrown out of court, the case continued to haunt the AV. The group’s opponents were encouraged to go on the attack in hope of cutting off OEO funding. For their part, the McSurelys spent eighteen years in various courts, first to get back their personal papers and books, and then suing for financial damages various individuals who had held them illegally, with only limited success. The AV had supported Joe Mulloy when he was charged with sedition, but later that fall when he announced he would resist being drafted to fight in Vietnam, most of the local AV staff opposed having to defend his position. After bitter discussion and argument, the full staff voted 20 to 19 to fire Mulloy, who then went to work for SCEF.
authored an amendment to the Economic Opportunity Act, attached to an appropriation bill, which assured that local political officials would have more influence on CAAs. Knowing its OEO funding was threatened, the AV retrenched and attempted to focus its scattered projects. Needing a more central location for its downscaled programs, now limited to eastern Kentucky and southern West Virginia, the AV moved its central office from Bristol, Tennessee to Prestonsburg, Kentucky
in March 1968. In July, Milton Ogle announced that he would resign from his position as executive director of the AV in September. Assistant director David Walls
was appointed acting director, and was later confirmed as executive director for the organization’s final year.
Adding to the AV’s troubles, Louie B. Nunn
had been elected governor of Kentucky in November 1967 (the only Republican governor of Kentucky between 1943 and 2003). He moved quickly to support legislation creating the Kentucky Un-American Activities Committee (KUAC), which passed in March 1968. Once KUAC had held hearings on the civil disorders in Louisville, governor Nunn honored his political debts to the independent coal operators by supporting the dispatch of KUAC to Pikeville to investigate alleged “subversive” activities in anti-poverty programs and at Pikeville College
. One focus of the hearing was the AV’s work for reduced tap-on fees for poor people to a proposed water system along Marrowbone Creek. Walls issued a statement challenging the constitutionality of KUAC and the legality of the hearings, noting the topic of the water system would be better suited for a public utilities commission. The AV senior staff refused invitations to appear, but were not issued subpoenas, which they had hoped to challenge in court. Local AV staff who were subpoenaed appeared and denounced KUAC and its local political and coal operator allies.
Although the KUAC hearings caused serious difficulties for the AV, the most immediate casualty was Thomas Johns, the liberal president of Pikeville College, who faced what was most likely the only conservative student revolt in the United States in 1968. He resigned not long after.
, where insurgent groups gained control of the CAA board and named Gibbs Kinderman executive director. In 1968 the AV staff helped form the Fair Elections Committee in Mingo County
where voter fraud was rampant, and also supported the Political Action League in Raleigh, Mingo and Wyoming
Counties, which ran a slate of reform candidates.
Governor Hulett C. Smith
had requested that OEO cease funding the AV, and OEO was not persuaded to continue its program grants. Walls announced that support for AV activity in West Virginia would end on January 1, 1969. Kinderman and Tom Rhodenbaugh formed Designs for Rural Action, which supported the Black Lung Association and the Miners for Democracy movements which helped Arnold Miller
become the reform president of the United Mine Workers of America following the murder of Joseph Yablonski
. The AV also helped start the legal services group Appalachian Research and Defense Fund (Appalred). Milton Ogle moved to Charleston, West Virginia
, and after a year’s sabbatical went to work for Appalred. Kinderman became director of the Mountaineer Family Health Plan in Raleigh County. Bill Schechter worked for the successful campaign of Jay Rockefeller
, who ran for West Virginia secretary of state in 1968. Schechter and Bruce Boyens later worked for the UMWA in West Virginia. AV staff Tom Bethell, Tom Rhodenbaugh, and Dave Biesmeyer went to work for Arnold Miller’s reform team in the UMWA national office in Washington, DC.
and a favorable review by the OEO regional office, no more OEO grants were forthcoming. Walls continued to seek private foundation funds, but none were obtained beyond modest support for an orderly close-out. Federal funding for the AV was over, and working part-time, Walls attempted to downsize in a fashion that could successfully spin off legal services to Appalred, the Grassroots Craftsmen co-op to the Commission on Religion in Appalachia (CORA) under Ben Poage, and welfare rights activities to local groups. Walls resigned as director at the end of April 1970 to devote full time to graduate studies at the University of Kentucky
, and the AV closed its doors later that year.
.
Non-profit organization
Nonprofit organization is neither a legal nor technical definition but generally refers to an organization that uses surplus revenues to achieve its goals, rather than distributing them as profit or dividends...
engaged in community development
Community development
Community development is a broad term applied to the practices and academic disciplines of civic leaders, activists, involved citizens and professionals to improve various aspects of local communities....
projects in central Appalachia
Appalachia
Appalachia is a term used to describe a cultural region in the eastern United States that stretches from the Southern Tier of New York state to northern Alabama, Mississippi, and Georgia. While the Appalachian Mountains stretch from Belle Isle in Canada to Cheaha Mountain in the U.S...
that evolved into a controversial community organizing
Community organizing
Community organizing is a process where people who live in proximity to each other come together into an organization that acts in their shared self-interest. A core goal of community organizing is to generate durable power for an organization representing the community, allowing it to influence...
network, with a reputation that went “from self-help to sedition” as its staff developed from "reformers to radicals," in the words of one historian, in the brief period between 1964 and 1970 during the War on Poverty
War on Poverty
The War on Poverty is the unofficial name for legislation first introduced by United States President Lyndon B. Johnson during his State of the Union address on January 8, 1964. This legislation was proposed by Johnson in response to a national poverty rate of around nineteen percent...
.
Origins
The Appalachian Volunteers (AV) began as an activity of the Council of the Southern MountainsCouncil of the Southern Mountains
Council of the Southern Mountains was a non-profit organization, active from 1912 to 1989, concerned with education and community development in southern Appalachia.-Origins:...
(CSM), which had been headquartered in Berea, Kentucky
Berea, Kentucky
-Demographics:As of the census of 2000, there were 9,851 people, 3,693 households, and 2,426 families residing in the city. The population density was 1,055.4 people per square mile . There were 4,115 housing units at an average density of 440.9 per square mile...
, since 1925. Following President Lyndon Johnson’s State of the Union message of January 8, 1964, in which he announced his War on Poverty, CSM staff member Milton Ogle organized a group of students from Berea College
Berea College
Berea College is a liberal arts work college in Berea, Kentucky , founded in 1855. Current full-time enrollment is 1,514 students...
to help repair a one-room school in Harlan County, Kentucky
Harlan County, Kentucky
Harlan County is a county located in the U.S. state of Kentucky. It was formed in 1819. As of 2000, the population was 33,200. Its county seat is Harlan...
. During the following two months, students from other eastern Kentucky colleges were involved in similar weekend projects. A meeting was held at the Pine Mountain Settlement School in Harlan County to formally organize the Appalachian Volunteers to expand such efforts. Representatives of the Kentucky Governor’s office, the President’s Appalachian Regional Commission, and the President’s Committee for a War on Poverty were present to encourage college and school officials and to promise federal support. A $50,000 grant from the federal Area Redevelopment Administration to the CSM was arranged in March 1964 to fund AV activities during the rest of the year..
Program expansion
During 1964 the AV continued to expand the number of colleges involved in school renovation, cultural enrichment, and recreation programs for children in one and two room schools. A prototype summer project was tested by an AV staff member and three students, who spent eight weeks in Clay County, KentuckyClay County, Kentucky
- Demographics :As of the census of 2011, there were 21,000 people, 8,556 households, and 6,442 families residing in the county. The population density was 52 people per square mile . There were 9,439 housing units at an average density of 20 per square mile...
, providing recreation and remedial work for the children in a remote hollow. A “Books for Appalachia” campaign, which collected over a million volumes, was begun in cooperation with the National Parent-Teacher Association
Parent-Teacher Association
In the U.S. a parent-teacher association or Parent-Teacher-Student Association is a formal organization composed of parents, teachers and staff that is intended to facilitate parental participation in a public or private school. Most public and private K-8 schools in the U.S. have a PTA, a...
.
Following the establishment of the Office of Economic Opportunity
Office of Economic Opportunity
The Office of Economic Opportunity was the agency responsible for administering most of the War on Poverty programs created as part of United States President Lyndon B. Johnson's Great Society legislative agenda.- History :...
(OEO) in fall 1964, the AV applied for a Community Action Program demonstration grant, and was awarded $300,000 in December to expand its program in 1965. The following spring the AV negotiated a $40,000 training grant with VISTA. The new funding allowed Ogle to hire staff, including Gibbs Kinderman, a recent Harvard graduate who had taken part in the Freedom Summer
Freedom Summer
Freedom Summer was a campaign in the United States launched in June 1964 to attempt to register as many African American voters as possible in Mississippi which had historically excluded most blacks from voting...
project in Mississippi in 1964. Also in spring 1965 the AVs received a $139,000 community action demonstration grant to support 150 college students for an eight-week summer project in eastern Kentucky. Half the students were recruited from the Kentucky colleges with active AV chapters, and the other half were recruited from colleges and universities in such major cities as Boston, Chicago and New York.
Break with the Council of the Southern Mountains
As the AV students and staff became more deeply involved in poor rural communities, they began to see local politicians and school leaders as part of the problem rather than allies in uplift. The AV began to move from a consensus to a conflict understanding of how social change takes place. In 1966 tensions between the AV and the CSM came to a head when CSM executive director Perley Ayer, who was committed to a nonpolitical, consensus vision of community development, fired AV director Ogle and his assistant director. The remaining 13 AV staff resigned. They quickly moved to incorporate as a separate organization, and OEO promptly transferred its grants to the newly independent AV. To emphasize its separation from the CSM, the AV moved its headquarters from Berea, Kentucky, to Bristol, TennesseeBristol, Tennessee
Bristol is a city in Sullivan County, Tennessee, United States. The population was 26,702 at the 2010 census. It is the twin city of Bristol, Virginia, which lies directly across the state line between Tennessee and Virginia. The boundaries of both cities run parallel to each other along State...
, a location more central to the southern Appalachians into which the AV hoped to expand.
With its new funding the AV greatly expanded its summer program in 1966, placing 500 students with eight-week projects in four states: eastern Kentucky, southern West Virginia, southwestern Virginia, and eastern Tennessee. OEO was becoming unhappy with the failure of many community action agencies (CAAs) in central Appalachia to take seriously its mandate of “maximum feasible participation” of the poor in the administration of the CAAs. OEO encouraged the AV to rally the rural poor for a bigger role in the local CAAs. Conflict in Kentucky’s Cumberland Valley was acute, and led to a controversial defunding of its eight-county CAA, which was split into one- and two-county agencies.
Strip-mining and the sedition controversy
As the summer of 1967 approached, the AV made plans for 400 students in three states, (pulling back from a small project in eastern Tennessee). During the previous winter, field coordinator Steve Daugherty became concerned about a landslide from a strip-mine bench that threatened a house at the head of Jones Creek, above Verda on the Clover Fork of the Cumberland River in Harlan County. Daugherty contacted the original Knott County members of the Appalachian Group to Save the Land and People (AGSLP) that had generated widespread publicity when the Widow Combs resisted strip-mine operators, and 80-year-old Dan Gibson threatened the bulldozers with his rifle in 1965. Daugherty helped organize an AGSLP chapter in Harlan County, and encouraged Joe Mulloy, AV field coordinator in Pike County, KentuckyPike County, Kentucky
Pike County is a county located in the U.S. state of Kentucky. As of 2010, the population was 65,024. Its county seat is Pikeville. Pike is Kentucky's largest county in terms of land area. Pike County is the 11th largest county in Kentucky in terms of population preceded by Bullitt County and...
to do the same, as conflict over strip-mining was developing on Island Creek, where Jink Ray was planning to block bulldozers from his land. The stand-off gained state-wide publicity, and ended only when Governor Edward T. Breathitt
Edward T. Breathitt
Edward Thompson "Ned" Breathitt, Jr. was a politician from the US state of Kentucky. A member of one of the state's political families, he was the 51st Governor of Kentucky, serving from 1963 to 1967...
flew to Island Creek in July to see for himself and suspend the coal operator’s permit, and on August 1 revoked the permit to strip-mine Ray’s property.
On the evening of August 11, 1967, as the AV summer volunteer program was winding down, the Pike County sheriff raided the homes of AV Joe Mulloy and his wife Karen (an AV Vista volunteer) and Alan and Margaret McSurely, who were then working for the Southern Conference Education Fund (SCEF), and confiscated a large quantity of the McSurelys’ personal papers and books. (Alan had worked briefly for the AV that spring). Books that supposedly demonstrated their seditious nature included "a large number of works about Communism, including a couple dozen by Marx, Engels, and Lenin," as well as copies of Joseph Heller's novel, Catch-22, and Mao's Red Book. Joe Mulloy and the McSurelys were charged with sedition
Sedition
In law, sedition is overt conduct, such as speech and organization, that is deemed by the legal authority to tend toward insurrection against the established order. Sedition often includes subversion of a constitution and incitement of discontent to lawful authority. Sedition may include any...
(“plotting the violent overthrow of Pike County, Kentucky”) by Pike County Commonwealth Attorney Thomas Ratliff, who was a Republican candidate for lieutenant governor and president of the Independent Coal Operators Association. SCEF’s controversial leaders, Anne
Anne Braden
Anne McCarty Braden was an American advocate of racial equality. Born in Louisville, Kentucky, and raised in rigidly segregated Anniston, Alabama, Braden grew up in a white middle-class family that accepted southern racial morals wholeheartedly...
and Carl Braden, were also charged, although they resided in Louisville
Louisville, Kentucky
Louisville is the largest city in the U.S. state of Kentucky, and the county seat of Jefferson County. Since 2003, the city's borders have been coterminous with those of the county because of a city-county merger. The city's population at the 2010 census was 741,096...
. Three days later federal appeals court judge Bert T. Combs
Bert T. Combs
Bertram Thomas Combs was a jurist and politician from the US state of Kentucky. After serving on the Kentucky Court of Appeals, he was elected the 50th Governor of Kentucky in 1959 on his second run for the office. Following his gubernatorial term, he was appointed to the Sixth Circuit Court of...
(a former Kentucky governor) declared Kentucky’s sedition statute unconstitutional and dismissed the charges.
Although the sedition charges were thrown out of court, the case continued to haunt the AV. The group’s opponents were encouraged to go on the attack in hope of cutting off OEO funding. For their part, the McSurelys spent eighteen years in various courts, first to get back their personal papers and books, and then suing for financial damages various individuals who had held them illegally, with only limited success. The AV had supported Joe Mulloy when he was charged with sedition, but later that fall when he announced he would resist being drafted to fight in Vietnam, most of the local AV staff opposed having to defend his position. After bitter discussion and argument, the full staff voted 20 to 19 to fire Mulloy, who then went to work for SCEF.
Governor Nunn and KUAC
Congressional leaders were becoming concerned by the controversies generated by OEO’s community action programs across the country, and in 1967 Oregon Representative Edith GreenEdith Green
Edith Louise Starrett Green was an American politician and educator in the state of Oregon. A native of South Dakota, she was raised in Oregon and completed her education at the University of Oregon and Stanford University...
authored an amendment to the Economic Opportunity Act, attached to an appropriation bill, which assured that local political officials would have more influence on CAAs. Knowing its OEO funding was threatened, the AV retrenched and attempted to focus its scattered projects. Needing a more central location for its downscaled programs, now limited to eastern Kentucky and southern West Virginia, the AV moved its central office from Bristol, Tennessee to Prestonsburg, Kentucky
Prestonsburg, Kentucky
Prestonsburg is a city in and the county seat of Floyd County, Kentucky, United States. It lies in the eastern part of the state, along the banks of the Levisa Fork of the Big Sandy River. It was founded in 1797 by Col. John Preston—for whom it was named—along with Solomon Stratton, Matthias...
in March 1968. In July, Milton Ogle announced that he would resign from his position as executive director of the AV in September. Assistant director David Walls
David Walls (academic)
David Walls is an activist and academic who has made significant contributions to Appalachian studies and to the popular understanding of social movements...
was appointed acting director, and was later confirmed as executive director for the organization’s final year.
Adding to the AV’s troubles, Louie B. Nunn
Louie B. Nunn
Louie Broady Nunn was the 52nd governor of Kentucky. Elected in 1967, he was the first Republican elected to that office since Simeon Willis in 1943 and the last to hold it until the election of Ernie Fletcher in 2003....
had been elected governor of Kentucky in November 1967 (the only Republican governor of Kentucky between 1943 and 2003). He moved quickly to support legislation creating the Kentucky Un-American Activities Committee (KUAC), which passed in March 1968. Once KUAC had held hearings on the civil disorders in Louisville, governor Nunn honored his political debts to the independent coal operators by supporting the dispatch of KUAC to Pikeville to investigate alleged “subversive” activities in anti-poverty programs and at Pikeville College
Pikeville College
The University of Pikeville is a private, liberal arts university affiliated with the Presbyterian Church, located in Pikeville, Kentucky. The university is home to one of three medical schools in the state of Kentucky. It's current president is former Kentucky Governor Paul E...
. One focus of the hearing was the AV’s work for reduced tap-on fees for poor people to a proposed water system along Marrowbone Creek. Walls issued a statement challenging the constitutionality of KUAC and the legality of the hearings, noting the topic of the water system would be better suited for a public utilities commission. The AV senior staff refused invitations to appear, but were not issued subpoenas, which they had hoped to challenge in court. Local AV staff who were subpoenaed appeared and denounced KUAC and its local political and coal operator allies.
Although the KUAC hearings caused serious difficulties for the AV, the most immediate casualty was Thomas Johns, the liberal president of Pikeville College, who faced what was most likely the only conservative student revolt in the United States in 1968. He resigned not long after.
AV in West Virginia
The AV sent staff to West Virginia in 1966 to prepare for the expanded program of summer volunteers. Unconstrained by the earlier history of one-room schoolhouse service projects in Kentucky, the West Virginia staff moved immediately into the contention over poor people’s representation on the county community action agencies. Their greatest success came in Raleigh CountyRaleigh County, West Virginia
As of the census of 2000, there were 79,220 people, 31,793 households, and 22,096 families residing in the county. The population density was 130 people per square mile . There were 35,678 housing units at an average density of 59 per square mile...
, where insurgent groups gained control of the CAA board and named Gibbs Kinderman executive director. In 1968 the AV staff helped form the Fair Elections Committee in Mingo County
Mingo County, West Virginia
As of the census of 2000, there were 28,253 people, 11,303 households, and 8,217 families residing in the county. The population density was 67 people per square mile . There were 12,898 housing units at an average density of 30 per square mile...
where voter fraud was rampant, and also supported the Political Action League in Raleigh, Mingo and Wyoming
Wyoming County, West Virginia
Wyoming County is a county located in the U.S. state of West Virginia. As of the 2010 census, the population was 23,796. Its county seat is Pineville. Wyoming County was created in 1850 from Logan County and named for the Delaware Indian word meaning "large plains."-Geography:According to the U.S...
Counties, which ran a slate of reform candidates.
Governor Hulett C. Smith
Hulett C. Smith
Hulett Carlson Smith served as the 27th Governor of West Virginia from 1965 to 1969.The son of West Virginia Congressman Joe L. Smith, Hulett C. Smith was born in Beckley, West Virginia. He served in the Navy during World War II. Active in community service and civic affairs, he served as...
had requested that OEO cease funding the AV, and OEO was not persuaded to continue its program grants. Walls announced that support for AV activity in West Virginia would end on January 1, 1969. Kinderman and Tom Rhodenbaugh formed Designs for Rural Action, which supported the Black Lung Association and the Miners for Democracy movements which helped Arnold Miller
Arnold Miller
Arnold Miller was a miner and labor activist who served as president of the United Mine Workers of America , AFL-CIO, from 1972 to 1979.-Early life and mining career:...
become the reform president of the United Mine Workers of America following the murder of Joseph Yablonski
Joseph Yablonski
Joseph Albert "Jock" Yablonski was an American labor leader in the United Mine Workers in the 1950s and 1960s. He was murdered in 1969 by killers hired by a union political opponent, Mine Workers president W. A. Boyle...
. The AV also helped start the legal services group Appalachian Research and Defense Fund (Appalred). Milton Ogle moved to Charleston, West Virginia
Charleston, West Virginia
Charleston is the capital and largest city of the U.S. state of West Virginia. It is located at the confluence of the Elk and Kanawha Rivers in Kanawha County. As of the 2010 census, it has a population of 51,400, and its metropolitan area 304,214. It is the county seat of Kanawha County.Early...
, and after a year’s sabbatical went to work for Appalred. Kinderman became director of the Mountaineer Family Health Plan in Raleigh County. Bill Schechter worked for the successful campaign of Jay Rockefeller
Jay Rockefeller
John Davison "Jay" Rockefeller IV is the senior United States Senator from West Virginia. He was first elected to the Senate in 1984, while in office as Governor of West Virginia, a position he held from 1977 to 1985...
, who ran for West Virginia secretary of state in 1968. Schechter and Bruce Boyens later worked for the UMWA in West Virginia. AV staff Tom Bethell, Tom Rhodenbaugh, and Dave Biesmeyer went to work for Arnold Miller’s reform team in the UMWA national office in Washington, DC.
Decline and demise
By 1969 the AV was operating on the unexpended funds from previous grants, under extensions from OEO. Despite the endorsement of influential liberals like Robert ColesRobert Coles
Martin Robert Coles is an American author, child psychiatrist, and professor at Harvard University.-Life and career:...
and a favorable review by the OEO regional office, no more OEO grants were forthcoming. Walls continued to seek private foundation funds, but none were obtained beyond modest support for an orderly close-out. Federal funding for the AV was over, and working part-time, Walls attempted to downsize in a fashion that could successfully spin off legal services to Appalred, the Grassroots Craftsmen co-op to the Commission on Religion in Appalachia (CORA) under Ben Poage, and welfare rights activities to local groups. Walls resigned as director at the end of April 1970 to devote full time to graduate studies at the University of Kentucky
University of Kentucky
The University of Kentucky, also known as UK, is a public co-educational university and is one of the state's two land-grant universities, located in Lexington, Kentucky...
, and the AV closed its doors later that year.
Reunion
A reunion of former AVs was held in Richmond, Kentucky, March 11-13, 2011, in conjunction with the 34th annual conference of the Appalachian Studies AssociationAppalachian Studies Association
The Appalachian Studies Association is an organization of scholars and activists interested in Appalachian studies.According to its web site, “The Appalachian Studies Association was formed in 1977 by a group of scholars, teachers, and regional activists who believed that shared community has...
.