But there is some important context that's being left out of this discussion, as, you know, is very predictable in America today, foremost that this was a response to the popular movements of the time that were just about, you know, clambering on the gates, demanding real change. And, you know, a good case could be made that the war on poverty were actually concessions to subvert or to appease the masses. What are your thoughts about that?

FORD: Well, of course they were concessions. We don't get these kinds of programs unless we agitate. Often we don't get the kind of programs and response that we ask for, but the kind of response that state thinks will quiet us down. And so we had a mix of those kinds of programs during the '60s in what is broadly called the war on poverty.

And I think we ought to make a distinction between programs like Medicare and Medicaid and some very targeted programs that were designed to tamp down feelings and tempers in the ghetto. And those were the kinds of programs that we saw, that were quite visible on the streets--the new storefront community operations that were subsidized by the government or by cooperating philanthropic organizations or by intermediate kinds of groups like the Urban League. And so you saw a kind of established storefront politics appear on the city streets of many, especially, big northern cities. And these were designed to do what you were directly addressing, and that is appease the young folks on the streets, get them--the idea was to get them involved in responsible community activities that would deal with basic social ills in the community, not for them to become highly political and agitators, that the appeasement was designed to keep them from becoming wildcards in the community.

NOOR: And take us to today under the Obama administration, the first African-American president of the United States. How would you evaluate his policies on addressing poverty?

FORD: He does not address poverty, not with government direct intervention. All of his proposals for jobs actually are bundles of tax incentives, ways of luring businessmen to do that which they do not want to do, which is to invest in factories, to invest in the kind of enterprises that would lead to a generally higher living standard, invest in anything that would require the larger compensation to workers. So President Obama has a totally privatized approach.

If we compare it to what--look in hindsight to the gargantuan efforts of the '60s, it's no approach whatsoever. During this period of the '60s, the state was really experimenting as it confronted a people who were concerned not just about the bread-and-butter issues of life, but much more intensely about the meaning of self-determination. In fact, it was a turn that people were discovering. And they were trying to figure out, well, what does that mean in terms of my relationship to my community and my community's relationship to the larger society and the state? And so they experimented during the '60s to divert or appease this rising tide of black independent political thought.