Southern Conference Educational Fund

The Southern Conference for Human Welfare (SCHW) was formally organized in Birmingham, Alabama in the fall of 1938. It was inspired by the findings of the National Emergency Council's Report on Economic Conditions in the South and by the philosophies of the Southern Policy Conference, a group of Southern intellectuals. Its structure was based on representation from the thirteen Southern states (non-Southerners were welcomed as non-voting members) and the District of Columbia and New York (the latter existing for fund-raising purposes only). Motivated by Franklin Delano Roosevelt's famous statement: "It is my conviction that the South presents right now the Nation's No. 1 economic problem-the Nation's problem, not merely the South's," the conference participants set about their task.

Its declared purpose was the perpetuation of Roosevelt's New Deal program and philosophy for the South. To this end it worked actively for removal of all obstacles to freedom of the ballot, for the abolition of discrimination against Southern industry, for protection of the rights of labor and of racial and religious minorities, and for the extension of Federal aid to farmers and to education. Hampered constantly by lack of funds, the Conference grew slowly. Its State Committees did not appear in viable form until 1944, and some of these were cut off in their formative stages by accusations of Communist domination of the Conference, and its investigation by the House Committee for Un-American Activities in 1947. Further weakened by internal disputes, the SCHW was transmuted in 1948 into the Southern Conference Educational Fund. The SCHW was the most significant attempt by Southerners, up to that time, to introduce a far-reaching agenda of improvement to their native land. It would long be remembered, not for what it achieved, but for what it aspired to and what it attempted.