Chapter 3: Race and rumor
“There’s a sign in [a] Montgomery [Alabama] or Atlanta railroad station that says ‘Go to Newburgh and get paid for not working.’ That’s what we’re up against.”
So reads a 1961 newspaper article about Newburgh, New York, and its war on welfare.
Starting in the 1950s, a rumor about signs telling poor Black people to move to Newburgh to live off welfare riled up the town. When leaders hired a new city manager, Joseph Mitchell, he essentially declared war on welfare — and the people who received it. It laid the groundwork for what would become a national fight over reforming welfare laws.
Across the country, suspicions grew about welfare recipients and the issue of “government dependency,” just as more Black people started gaining access to welfare benefits.
In this episode, host Krissy Clark and producer Peter Balonon-Rosen go back in history to tell a surprising origin story about part of our welfare system — and put a magnifying glass on how we determine who deserves help and who doesn’t.
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This season of “The Uncertain Hour” tells the unheard stories of real people affected by the welfare-to-work industrial complex.
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