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Tillmon, Johnnie (audio interview #4 of 5)
INTERVIEW DESCRIPTION - This is the fourth of five interviews with Johnnie Tillmon, the third in the 1991 oral history recorded with her in the living room of her small, compact home of the Watts/Willowbrook neighborhood of south Los Angeles. The warm relationship established with the narrator was strengthened by the political discussions that we held both before and after the recording session. n.d.
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- 2022-10-03
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- *** File: wmjtillmon14.mp3 Audio Segments and Topics: (0:00-3:21)... Brief introduction. Tillmon refers to a publication in a United Church of Christ newsletter regarding a conversation with her and George Wiley. (3:21-14:47)... Tillmon does not recall any conflicts between the welfare recipients and [social work] male organizers. There were no paid organizers in California except in a few city organizations. Rather, 99 percent of the organizers for welfare rights were women who were not paid for their efforts. There were very few Black organizers for welfare rights on the national level; and Tillmon maintains that there was no division of labor along racial and gender lines. She does not agree with the assessment that a gender conflict erupted because most of the organizers were men who advocated jobs for men and welfare for women. Within her organization, none of the organizers were paid. Talking about George Wiley, Tillmon notes that the only money he received was generated during fundraising efforts. Organizers were given money to pay their rent and purchase groceries and other necessities. (14:47-17:22)... Tillmon discusses the organizing efforts in Virginia, which was the largest southern state that was organized for welfare rights. She notes that the leadership in Virginia was racially mixed. The national welfare rights campaign was organized in four zones: eastern, western, southern, and central. (17:22-20:31)... She did not experience the gender dynamics that Guida West documented in her book regarding male organizers and female recipients. {Editor's note: This refers to her 1981book: The National Welfare Rights Movement: The Social Protest of Poor Women, NY, Praeger.] The women she worked with were not concerned about gender relations; their conflict was the "recipient versus the establishment." In general, welfare recipients had fewer problems with male social workers than women social workers. The majority of the legislators making decisions about the welfare system were also men. Tillmon does not feel that welfare recipients had any problems due to the disparate number of women in leadership positions. Occasionally, there were issues related to [romantic] relationships between male organizers and welfare recipients; however, she cannot recall any specific instances. (20:31-25:45)... Tillmon did not agree with Wiley who didn't not believe that women should work. In fact, he did not advocate jobs for women. He felt that people should have access to welfare and be treated like human beings in the process. Tillmon saw welfare as a means for women to get back on their feet and eventually improve themselves by getting a job and getting off of welfare. She discusses Wiley's appearance at a 1970s NOW meeting in which he discussed his welfare philosophy. (25:45-26:54)... Tillmon was hesitant to be described as a "leader" for her efforts in organizing ANC Mothers Anonymous and welfare rights organizations. She prefers the description of "advocator." The interview ends when her 1972 statement, "women's liberation is a necessity for poor women" is being discussed. End of tape. *** File: wmjtillmon15.mp3 (0:00-3:50)... Tillmon talks about her published statement: "women's liberation is a necessity for poor women." She maintains that she made this statement more than twenty years ago and it was not made from a feminist perspective. She probably meant to say that all women are the same regardless of their economic status and that women should not view each other in terms of "haves" and "have nots." (3:50-12:46)... Tillmon discusses her presentation at the Crusade Against Poverty conference in Washington, DC in April 1966. Along with several others, she was nominated to attend this conference during a community group meeting chaired by Dr. Alfred Cannon. In discussing the conference, she talks about Sargent Shriver being booed off the stage. She recalls that the last words of her presentation were, "when the poverty program is over, the rich will be rich, the poor will be poor, and I will still get a welfare check." Her statement received national coverage and was featured in Jet Magazine and on a national television program. It was at this conference that Ed Day and George Wiley first noticed her. After the conference, she met Etta Horn of the Welfare Alliance Group and several other women who were interested in her activities in the Watts area. (12:46-14:46)... When Tillmon returned to Watts after attending the Crusade Against Poverty, she went to work on a political campaign for a senatorial candidate. One day, when she was at campaign headquarters she was visited by Day who had organized the Poverty Rights Action Center with George Wiley. At the time, she was not interested in his efforts or the reasons for visiting her. (14:46-24:04)... Tillmon believes that the countywide movement was organized after she appeared on the Lomax Show. Tim Sampson and Woody Coleman approached her for assistance in organizing a group of women in central Los Angeles; however, she did not want to be involved in groups that were not organized by welfare recipients themselves. Sampson and Coleman scheduled a meeting at USC to organize a Los Angeles County Welfare Rights Organization. When Tillmon learned about the meeting, she and a group and of ANC Mothers showed up unexpectedly [and crashed the conference]. By the end of the conference, she was nominated to attend a Chicago conference organized by Day and Wiley. End of tape. *** File: wmjtillmon16.mp3 (0:00-8:25)... Tillmon describes an injury she suffered just prior to the June 30, 1966 march in Los Angeles in support of the "cross the nation march." The Los Angeles County Welfare Rights Organization sponsored the march in Los Angeles and women from ANC Mothers Anonymous participated. Discussing the issue of her leadership, Tillmon notes that she did not want the women in the group to be dependent on her the way many groups in other states were dependent on their organizers. After 1967, her involvement with ANC Mothers subsided because she was traveling across the country and the group was able to maintain itself while she was gone. (8:25-18:51)... Tillmon discusses the 1966 Chicago conference organized by Ed Day and George Wiley. Although the chronology is unclear, Tillmon details what she believed took place at this conference, where nineteen states were represented. The women at the conference looked to her for guidance because of her experience organizing ANC Mothers Anonymous. The conference outcome was the decision to form a national welfare rights organization, which was to include both welfare recipients and families living below the poverty line. The organization took on the name "National Welfare Rights Organization" after tit was formed in Alameda County. [Editor's note: this is discussed in detail in interview 1.] A second meeting was scheduled for December 1966 in Pittsburgh. (18:51-29:37)... The December 1966 meeting of the National Welfare Rights Organization laid the groundwork for the February 1967 conference held in Washington, DC. where Tillmon was elected as the temporary chair of the organization. Tillmon believes that the February conference included women from nineteen states, most of whom had already organized citywide welfare rights programs in their states. Congressman Gus Hawkins funded Tillmon's trip to the conference. George Wiley and Ed Day organized the conference and expected only 120 participants. However, more than 300 hundred people attended the conference. Tillmon was nominated as the chair for the conference, which was a daunting task given the number of complaints she fielded from the participants. The interview ends just as she is discussing the end of the conference and a complaint from a participant that the conference was "lousy." End of tape. *** File: wmjtillmon17.mp3 (0:00-4:16)... Tillmon talks about her trip to the Capitol Building with a select group of people. She walked there via an underground tunnel, recalling that it was in February 1967 and it was snowing that night. She thought the group accomplished something because the press followed them and there were people that were exchanging phone numbers and showing interest. (4:16-4:43)... Asked if the National Coordinating Committee (NCC) was formed that night or if she was just the chair, Tillmon notes that she was elected as a temporary chairperson for that evenings' meeting but in August, 1967 was elected the chair of the NCC. (4:43-12:20)... Between the meeting in August and the meeting in February, Tillmon was elected President of the California Welfare Rights Organization in December 1966. There were a lot of people organized statewide who came from groups organizing around the poverty programs in the state, as well as ANC mothers. Tillmon recalls wearing a trench coat over her suit and being told to take her coat off so she would look good when her name was called at the meeting in the church. She did and at the meeting the people started nominating positions and Tillmon ended up the President of the California Welfare Rights Organization. Tillmon says she tried to do the best she could and she says that she never asked to be President. (12:20-16:43)... The California Welfare Rights Organization came out of the meetings from the Federation of the Poor. The East LA group was formed by Tillmon in 1968. Funding for the meeting to form the California Welfare Rights Organization came from the Catholic Church, via Tim Sampson. However, Tim raised his own money to travel. (16:43-18:56)... The California Organization was a mixed group, of both recipients and workers in the poverty program. Tillmon notes that most of the organizations were like this. (18:56-22:53)... By the time the meeting occurred in February Tillmon had already formed the California Welfare Rights Organization, which is older than the National Organization. Tillmon was elected temporary chair coming out of the February meeting, with another election to follow at a convention where officers would be formally elected. The convention was to address bread and butter issues. Tillmon emphasized training for people to get better jobs to support their children and have better child care. It was important to women who had young children and who wanted to get further education. (22:53-27:11)... Tillmon describes a 1967 conference she attended with George Wiley in Maryland. The conference talked about aiding people with children, noting that France was the only country that did this. But France was hoping that people would have more children, and it did not work. [Editor's note: this was an attempt by France to build up the population following WWII] Tillmon believes that in the US people don't have babies for money and she cannot believe that a woman would carry of nine months and deal with a baby to get money. End of tape.
- SUBJECT BIO - Johnnie Tillmon began her work as a leading activist for poor women in 1963, when she helped to found ANC Mothers Anonymous of Watts, the first grass roots welfare mothers organization in the country. She played key roles in the later formation of both the California Welfare Rights Organization (CRWO) and the National Welfare Rights Organization (NWRO), and eventually became executive director of NWRO. The eldest of three children, Tillmon was born in Scott, Arkansas. Her family were sharecroppers and she recalls picking cotton when she was only seven years old. She moved in with her aunt in Little Rock in order to attend high school, and during the war worked the night shift in a local munitions factory and attended school by day. At war's end, she quit high school and went to work in a laundry, where she engaged in her first organizing experience. Tillmon continued to work in that non-segregated laundry for fifteen years until moving to California, by which time she was the single parent of six children. Trying to deal with her daughter's truancy, she decided to remain at home to supervise her children and applied for public assistance. She mobilized other women in the Nickerson Gardens Housing Project and after an initial meeting, they organized the ANC Mothers Anonymous of Watts. Several years later, she was elected to the newly formed LA County Welfare Rights Organization and then to the presidency of the CWRO. In 1967, she was elected to the NWRO. In 1971, Tillmon moved to Washington, DC to become Associate Director of NWRO and following George Wiley's resignation in 1972 , she became Executive Director. This is also the year that she published her now famous article in Ms, "Welfare is a Woman's Issue." When NWRO closed its doors in 1974, Tillmon returned to Los Angeles, were she resumed her local community organizing. She remained active in the Watts community and continued to respond to phone queries from welfare recipients until 1991, when diabetes caused her health to fail. Although we had every intention of completing her oral history after the interviewer's return from Palestine in the summer of 1991, Tillmon's health problem resulted in continued postponements. Ultimately, it became clear that we would not be able to complete the oral history. As a result, the coverage of Tillmon's post-1972 life and activities is barely covered. [Note: the Tillmon entry in the Notable American Women v.5 includes a bibliography related to Tillmon and NWRO.] INTERVIEW DESCRIPTION - This is the fourth of five interviews with Johnnie Tillmon, the third in the 1991 oral history recorded with her in the living room of her small, compact home of the Watts/Willowbrook neighborhood of south Los Angeles. The warm relationship established with the narrator was strengthened by the political discussions that we held both before and after the recording session. TOPICS - political views; attitude towards women, welfare, and work; organization and leadership of NWROs in Boston and Virginia; George Wiley; relationship between male organizers and women welfare recipients;1972 Ms article; Alfred Cannon; Crusade Against Poverty conference, Washington, DC; Ed Day; George Wiley; Tim Sampson; Woody Coleman; organizational meeting of Los Angeles County Welfare Rights Organization;health; June 30, 1966 march in Los Angeles; ANC Mothers Anonymous; 1966 Chicago conference and formation of the NWRO; NWRO conferences;1967 formation of National Coordinating Council (NCC); chair of NCC; presidency of CWRO; Federation of Poor and formation CWRO; Tim Sampson; welfare mothers' issues; and attending conferences with George Wiley;
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