Presidents:

1960-1962 Pat Peiser
1962-1964 Anita Marcus*
1964-1966 Selma Ross*
1966-1968 Edna Flaxman*
1968-1970 Jeanne Fagadau

* of blessed memory

1960 marked the beginning of the Section’s first community-wide project: Operation Lift (Literacy Instruction for Texas). The challenge of the proposal was for NCJW to provide the organization to recruit volunteer teachers and students, and to establish a community-wide system of teaching centers. The Dallas Morning News accepted our challenge to promote this cause-of trying to reach the persons with functional illiteracy. For six months, three times each week The Dallas Morning News ran half and quarter page ads, with coupons for teachers’ and students’ registrations. WFAA and KERA agreed to run a television teaching series as a public service at 6:00 a.m. and 4:00 p.m., five days each week. The project became a citywide effort. Classes began on June 5, 1961, with 250 volunteers, 150 from NCJW, 175 volunteer teachers and served 600 students during the first year. Today, LIFT continues to serve over 500 students each year. NCJW received the very first Dallas Times Herald Club of the Year Award, and NCJW’s first major award for Operation LIFT in 1961.

The celebration of the 50th birthday of Section featured a renowned CBS television journalist, David Schoenbrun. He cancelled his scheduled appearance to us having been ordered to Washington D.C. to cover the federal role in the confrontational entry of the first African-American student to the University of Mississippi. Schoenbrun spoke to a ballroom of members and community leaders via a private radio hook-up, no mean feat in the pre-computer era.

Section’s response to the black day of November 22, 1963, was to lead in the reform of welfare and health services for children and youth in Dallas County. A convention center filled with community leaders, elected officials and professionals in helping services watched a dramatized presentation of the conclusions of a youth study, revealing the hardships of inadequate welfare, education, and the dismal record in health services to children.

Section addressed the looming battle in public education and race at Southern Methodist University with a successful, community-wide School for Community Action, “Equal Opportunity for Youth,” which focused on the inequality of children who start behind and fall behind. After -school tutoring in West Dallas was the project, and in later years, full participation of volunteers in schools and ongoing advocacy. An office was established with a part-time professional staff. Senior citizen projects were added and another follow-up project of recruiting students for social work professions. Section increased its influential involvement in public affairs, focusing more on advocacy to state government.

The School for Community Action, called “Women on the Move,” was held for 450 people, representing thirty volunteer organizations and including eighteen women “in poverty” with incomes of less that $3,000 a year. The forum was co-sponsored by the Community Council of Greater Dallas and Dallas County Community Action Committee (“War on Poverty”). The project “Operation Ready” was established. NCJW volunteers wrote simple booklets in English and Spanish to educate low-income families on employment, saving and buying, and distributed them in the Dallas public schools. A Social Service Directory was published for the benefit of those in need of welfare services and for the use of the thirty participating organizations.

National’s 75th year in 1967-68 was commemorated with another school for Community Action, “Spotlight on the Family.” Section supported the need of a Graduate School of Social Work for the Dallas-Ft. Worth area. This eventually resulted in the Graduate School of Social Work at the University of Texas at Arlington. We also told of the need for social worker at the Dallas jail (which eventually became a reality) and the establishment of a Dallas Human Relations Commission.

NCJW was involved in the” War On Poverty”, a national initiative to help those on the poverty level, and held a major workshop dedicated to helping Section members understand the true plight of those immersed in poverty. Section also worked politically on behalf of saving the War on Poverty office in Dallas. The major effort, with the longest-term benefits, was the launching of the first School Volunteer Program in the city of Dallas and in Texas. Prior to that time, volunteers were not utilized to help youngsters with academics. The program started at one small school in west Dallas, and was replicated throughout the city and later the state. Untold thousands of children are still benefiting from Section’s School Volunteer pilot project.