Impossible Democracy: The Unlikely Success of the War on Poverty Community Action Programs

Explores how community action programs used federal funds to sponsor social protest–based community reform.

Honorable Mention, 2008 Gustavus Myers Book Award, presented by the Gustavus Myers Center for Human Rights in North America

Impossible Democracy challenges the conventional wisdom that the War on Poverty failed, by exploring the unlikely success of its community action programs. Using two projects in Manhattan that were influential precursors of community action programs-the Mobilization for Youth and the Harlem Youth Opportunities Unlimited-Associated Community Teams-Noel A. Cazenave analyzes national and local conflicts in the 1960s over what the nature of community action should be. Fueled by the civil rights movement, activist social scientists promoted a model of community action that allowed for the use of social protest as an instrument of local reform. In addition, they advanced a more participatory view of how democracy should work, one that insisted local decision making not be left solely to elected officials and other powerful people, as traditionally done.

Noel A. Cazenave is Associate Professor of Sociology at the University of Connecticut and coauthor (with Kenneth J. Neubeck) of the award-winning Welfare Racism: Playing the Race Card Against America's Poor.