“A public problem … rather than a question of social welfare:” Ernest F. Hollings and the politics of hunger

Abstract

This essay examines South Carolina Senator Ernest F. Hollings’ anti-hunger advocacy. In 1969, Hollings conducted local “hunger tours” and called for vastly increased spending on the Food Stamp program. Although he stressed the importance of local involvement in anti-hunger initiatives, as had older southern supporters of agricultural anti-hunger programs, Hollings’ proposals were implicitly racially inclusive, and criticized the power of entrenched local economic elites. To persuade uninterested citizens, Hollings emphasized economic and anti-revolutionary rationales for supporting greater anti-hunger spending. Hollings’ anti-hunger activism heralded an increased responsiveness among many southern Democrats to minority voter interests in the late 1960s.