Walk for Decent Welfare (Columbus, OH)

Today, a staggering number of Americans struggle to put food on the table. The Hunger Museum is a unique and powerful exploration of how we got here and how we can end hunger.
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The Hunger Museum Tour We Can Solve Hunger — The Proof is in Our History

The Walk for Decent Welfare

One key example of advocacy opposing unequal access to food assistance is this one, an image from the Walk for Decent Welfare, led by the National Welfare Rights Organization in 1966, in Ohio.

6000 people marched 150 miles across the state, from Cleveland to Columbus, to protest new restrictions and payment caps imposed on the main cash assistance program at the time, Aid for Families with Dependent Children (AFDC).

Before the Civil Rights Act of 1964, 90% of AFDC recipients were white, single mothers, who were receiving support in order to provide for their families. But the program was inaccessible to Black families, and especially to Black single mothers. After the Civil Rights Act passed, and the program legally had to be made available to Black families, states like Ohio created new restrictions on accessing the program and imposed new, draconian caps on welfare payments, all thinly veiled attempts to block access to this and other programs for Black families.

Where is it located in the Museum?

Hunger, Justice, and Civil Rights

Rottier, Jack. “National Welfare Rights Organization March, Washington D.C.” 1968. Courtesy of George Mason University Libraries.

By the time the Walk for Decent Welfare reached Washington, DC in 1968, it had spanned 150 miles, touched dozens of cities, and had been joined by some 6,000 people. The protesters — mostly women of color and their children — demanded their roles as caregivers be recognized, valued, and financially supported, highlighting the vitally important need for meaningful government programs to feed families, and showcasing the barriers at the intersection of racism, sexism, and paternalism in those programs.

Nadasen, Premilla. Rethinking the Welfare Rights Movement (New York: Taylor & Francis, 2012).

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