Interview with Jack Rivel, March 16, 1993

Interview Summary

This is a second interview with Jack Rivel, who served as the Appalachian Volunteers (AVs) first president. He describes the early AV projects and the reactions of the Office of Equal Opportunity (OEO), Council of the Southern Mountains (CSM), and the local community. Rivel discusses issue organizing, which he states originated with the mountaineers but turned many people including the OEO, the CSM, and the local power structure against the AVs. Rivel describes the involvement of the AVs with the local school boards. He states that at first the local school boards encouraged the AVs activities in the mountains, but when the AVs began supporting "unacceptable" candidates for the school boards, this encouragement disappeared.

Rivel also discusses the Council of the Southern Mountains (CSM), and maintains that the CSM was "behind the times" in the mountains. He views the CSM as a charity organization that wanted little to do with organizing. He discusses the AVs after their split from the CSM and their rejection of Community Action Technicians, who were not "radical" enough for the newly arrived AVs. Rivel describes the role of "outsiders" in the AVs who would participate in early projects when local students would not, and the suspicion of outsiders held by the mountaineers

Interview Keyword

anti-poverty organizations

Interview LC Subject

Appalachian Region Appalachian Region--Economic conditions Economic assistance Rivel, Jack Rivel, Jack--Interviews

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Interview Usage

Interviews may be reproduced with permission from Louie B. Nunn Center for Oral History, Special Collections, University of Kentucky Libraries.