Everybody's problem [electronic resource] : the war on poverty in eastern North Carolina / Karen M. Hawkins ; foreword by Stanley Harrold and Randall M. Miller.

Through her case study of Craven Operation Progress, Karen Hawkins challenges a number of assumptions regarding the Community Action Agencies (CAAs), central among them being that middle-class whites on CAA boards were either uninterested or unable to meet the needs of poor citizens and that biracial agreement and cooperation was essentially impossible. Drawing from untapped primary sources, Hawkins finds some successes in interracial cooperation. Hawkins contends that it was not only liberal action that led to economic and social change in Eastern North Carolina, but also moderate compromise and open mindedness.