Implicit in the attempt to give a larger perspective is a desire to radicalize the local people. Mendeloff describes one of the meetings between the welfare mothers and city officials almost gleefully: "It was a great confrontation. Power was the issue. They were saying in effect, 'we'll give you people food if you don't ask to make decisions.'"
But the radicalizing goes beyond local issues. Often workers talk about Vietnam with members of the community, stressing that money should be spent to help the poor at home not to fight a foreign war.
How successful has the Center been in achieving its goals? Perhaps its greatest success has been to teach the workers how to begin organizing; in a sense the past seven months have been largely a training session. But there have been more concrete accomplishments. The surplus food project, for example--now MAW (Mothers for Adequate Welfare)--certainly demonstrated the potential power of organization to women who had probably had no consciousness of the meaning of political participation.
But there have been many failures and difficulties. One of the major problems still facing the organization is how to inter rate white Irish and Italian families into what is now an almost wholly Negro movement. As one worker put it, "Even if you organize ten per cent of the people (Boston is one-tenth Negro), you'll need allies."
No Single Cure
Another difficulty is that of finding meaningful issues on which to focus. Organizing Southern Negroes is in many Ways much easier, because there is a readily identifiable enemy, an easily defined problem, and a built-in unity in race. But the problem of poverty is much more diffuse; there is no single enemy, no single cure. How can better garbage collection be related to a larger vision of a better society?
And finally, there is the ultimate question which is largely left unspoken by the project staff: Can one action center--or even a hundred action center--really make a dent in the problems of poverty and unemployment in the United States? That is should be asked reflects not the