Lessons from Sargent Shriver
Paper presented at the California Poverty Conference, 2006, by Rita
McLennon,
Executive Director, Sargent
Shriver National
Center on Poverty Law
Introduction
“I can think of no American alive today who has touched more lives for the better than Sargent Shriver.”—Bill Moyers
Before Dr. Paul Farmer began his great work in Haiti and before Bono went to Africa and long before Bill Gates and his wife made the cover of Time magazine and even before Jimmy Carter became a kind of global saint in his presidential afterlife, Sargent Shriver showed that a single citizen can make a difference in the world. These great citizen activists of our own day demand the greatest respect. But they each in their own way are taking up only a part of the legacy of Sargent Shriver.
It was Sargent Shriver who began a half century ago to live out both in and out of government a new idea of global citizenship. The new idea was that a single citizen could be as important as any institution. A single citizen could relieve misery as Dr. Farmer does and campaign against global poverty as Bono does and push for democracy as a human right as Jimmy Carter does. But Shriver did all those things—and he did them long before the rest of us did. He took on all these roles in a single life.
In some ways, as celebrated as he was in his own day, it has really taken the rest of us a long time to catch up with Shriver. And especially in the breadth of his vision of what a global citizen can be and do, we still have not caught up with him. Perhaps Sargent Shriver was born fifty years too soon. But if that is so, then we are very fortunate. If he had not been born fifty years too soon, we would not be where we are today in the fight against injustice in the world.
Where is he still ahead of us?
Sargent Shriver’s conception of a global citizen was a very American one, rooted in the 1950s as much as the 1960s. It was the global citizen as salesman. He sold the idea of service, and he got young people to serve with a big smile, with a handshake, with a wonderful American type of optimism. He didn’t just pitch public service—he knew how to get a sale. People signed up, right on the dotted line, and went off to Turkey, or India, or West Virginia, places they never dreamed they might go. In giving him the Medal of Freedom in 1994, President Bill Clinton said, “Sargent Shriver has awakened millions of Americans to the responsibilities of service, the possibilities of change, and the sheer joy of making the effort.”
President Clinton could have also said: “As one salesman admiring another, I know just how good he was.”
Shriver’s Legacy
In some ways, even before Bill Gates, who is merely a philanthropist, Sargent Shriver was a global businessman. Think of the Peace Corps, Head Start, Job Corps, VISTA, and legal services for the poor as “businesses,” or as one big family business, which the rest of us as his heirs help sustain and run today. Shriver pioneered the idea of a single citizen as an institution. But history shows that it was his style to leave behind not just one but many institutions.
Perhaps it is not his salesmanship but his entrepreneurship where we have yet to catch up with him. Yes, all the great activists of today show some of the Shriver entrepreneurship. That is his signature mark on activism.
We also think of him as distinctively American. What is more American than his belief and confidence in the goodness of ordinary people? It’s this belief that made him “believe” he could sell us on his ideal of service.
But though American and entrepreneurial by instinct, he had an intellectual depth and complexity that even some of his admirers miss. History will show him as a great humanitarian who gave structure and clarity to a generation of young American patriots committed to making their mark in history, evolving democracy to its next level, and advancing their country’s promise of social and economic justice. Both idealist and pragmatist, Shriver challenged Americans to apply commonsense and active strategies to promote the ideals of a just and humane society.
What drew Shriver to his activism was his identity as a Catholic. Without the social encyclicals and the Catholic social gospel, it is hard to understand what motivated Sargent Shriver. His Catholic identity also helped him conceive of his commitment as a very American Democrat as a halfway house to a different and more cosmopolitan and Catholic civic ideal.
Shriver came to his sense of justice and commitment to service largely from the basic teachings of his Church. His Catholic way of looking at the world came not just from his parents and his friends but also from theologians like Pierre Teilhard de Chardin, the visionary French Jesuit. Although Shriver does not proselytize and abhors the self-righteous, he has tried to build the Kingdom of God by working in the world. Indeed, he may have been Teilhard de Chardin’s greatest pupil. For as Teilhard de Chardin believed, so Shriver believes that “to work is to pray.”
As a young man, Shriver was also moved by the work of Dorothy Day, founder of the Catholic Worker movement. Later in life he came to know Thomas Merton, the Trappist monk and—paradoxically for a Trappist monk—activist and essayist. With encouragement from Merton’s writings, Shriver began to seek out dialogue with other faiths to promote change through nonviolence. And of course Vatican II pushed him into an even deeper commitment.
At the very moment that Shriver was swept up by his leadership of the Peace Corps, Pope John XXIII published his encyclical Pacem in Terris. Published in April 1963, this letter to all Catholics speaks to the disorder of the postmodern age and speaks out for liberty of conscience, the rights of minorities, freedom of the press, the values of democratic society, and, most of all, the interdependence of nations and the pressing need for strong global peace-making institutions. It encourages us to see the political order as a forum for fulfilling God’s greatness in guiding a well-ordered society, recognizing human dignity based on human beings’ right to life, bodily integrity, and the basic necessities for subsistence and economic security. Significantly John XXIII’s widely read letter imposes individual duties that extend beyond acknowledging others’ human rights. John XXIII says: “[I]n order to imbue civilization with sound principles and enliven it with the spirit of the gospel, it is not enough to be illumined with the gift of Faith and enkindled with the desire of forwarding a good cause. For this end it is necessary to take an active part in the various organizations and influence them from within.” This is the Catholic teaching that Shriver teaches us.
“The politics of death is bureaucracy, routine, rules, status quo. The politics of life is personal initiative, creativity, flair, dash, a little daring. The politics of death is calculation, prudence, measured gestures; the politics of life is experience, spontaneity, grace, directness. The politics of death is fear of youth. The politics of life is to trust the young to their own experiences.”—Sargent Shriver
Central to the Shriver legacy is the culture of service—the notion that American ideals and social progress can be advanced through service careers and volunteer activism. Even at the age of 88, he felt an urge to serve! All of Sargent Shriver’s programs, government and nongovernment, engage citizens in positive action to improve the circumstances in the world around them. Family members report that, before he became ill, the most common question he asked his own children and other young people was, “So, what are you going to do to change the world?” It was a real question, challenging people to consider it seriously, and he listened hard to the answers. It was always a question about the future: it was not about what might have been done in the past. With his question, Shriver was demanding a focus and vision for the future.
The development of the Peace Corps in the early 1960s in the Kennedy administration was Shriver’s first great act on the national stage. Presidential candidate John Kennedy, Shriver’s brother-in-law, developed the idea in speeches on the campaign trail in 1960 as a way of attacking the stuffed-shirt diplomacy of the sitting Republican administration. He contended that America was crippled in the Cold War, losing the battle for influence in the developing world to the Soviets due to the U.S. foreign service and its “ill-chosen, ill-equipped, and ill-briefed” ambassadors, who usually did not even speak the language of the country to which they were posted. “There is enough know-how and enough knowledgeable people to help [developing] nations help themselves,” Kennedy said. “I therefore propose that our inadequate efforts in this area be supplemented by a ‘Peace Corps’ of talented young [people] able to serve their country in this fashion for three years.”
Shriver put his own political ambitions in Illinois on hold to launch the Peace Corps for Kennedy. His monumental struggle with the U.S. Congress to keep it free of both Cold War politics and business-as-usual bureaucracy in Washington taught him lessons about the importance of keeping people-to-people initiatives at arm’s length from politicians. His notion of showing America’s best intentions through no-strings-attached assistance may seem naïve in today’s fearful international environment, but any regular world traveler will tell you that when people get to know Americans, they usually like them. Of course, even in the 1960s, American military action was ongoing and extensive, but the innovation of Peace Corps work and Shriver’s determination to keep it independent of the Agency for International Development and the CIA may have advanced international awareness as well as American policy goals further at a fraction of the price.
Shriver’s Peace Corps recruiting trips to American college campuses were legion. His animated talks drew huge crowds of students and energized the idealism and hope that young Americans sought to counter the growing fear and military confrontation at the dawn of the nuclear age. He harnessed youthful idealism and engaged the willingness to experiment that young adults hold. The Peace Corps, a small fledgling program of humanitarian and development assistance, quickly became a central theme of the young president’s New Frontier. President Kennedy was hugely popular in the recently decolonized world, and young Americans clamored to get involved. The idea that showcasing idealistic and humanistic motivations would promote interest in American ideals of freedom and democracy in the Third World proved true and impressed even jaded international observers. And there was another benefit: upon their return from Peace Corps stints, volunteers described the experience as life transforming, and many continue to work on international and national aid as well as charitable efforts. Service changes people’s mind-set about what is possible and what is important.
“The fact is we’re doing things that affect the poor who have never been affected before. We’re giving a voice to people who have never been heard before. And when that happens, that means action. That means controversy. That means excitement and that means criticism. But why get discouraged? In fact, I think it’s encouraging.”—Sargent Shriver
In the War on Poverty, like a good general, Shriver attacked poverty from its many sources: early education, jobs and job training, justice, health, and community action. He saw each element of the War on Poverty as essential and worked to make the most of the meager resources he was given. He saw as key to its success the involvement of those most affected by its programs—people living in poverty. Shriver recruited low-income mothers as helpers in Head Start’s unique early learning curriculum, he directed young attorneys flocking to his Legal Services for the Poor to “serve” not “help” their clients, and young college graduates were trained to involve people from the communities they were serving through the VISTA program. The Community Action agencies worked with thousands of volunteer associations and neighborhood groups in America’s cities, and, while some controversies developed, Shriver recognized that democratic action and service activity could upset the status quo arrangements. Coming out of the locked-down, conservative 1950s, the times were ripe for shaking things loose a bit, and Shriver saw community organizing with a service orientation as a way to do that.
Shriver viewed nonviolent controversy as a bridge to understanding. His plans have always been comprehensive, built on as much information and as many perspectives as could be gathered. He was unyielding in working toward the ultimate goal of overcoming poverty but flexible enough to maneuver through political, diplomatic, and financial barriers. He sought the advice and expertise of others in order to grasp the scope of the problem. He was firmly committed to respecting others’ opinions and knowledge on matters. He tried to understand his adversaries’ point of view not only for the purpose of outwitting them –but, more important, for the purpose of finding common ground. Shriver is known for his inclusiveness. He demanded that people speak their mind, even when they disagreed with him. In the end, Shriver fully accepted his responsibility with strength and conviction and made his decisions. Sometimes his decisions were brilliant; sometimes, less so. But, whatever praise or criticism he received, Shriver never faltered in his commitment to peace and justice.
Shriver is an exhilarating man full of love and laughter and hope—hope based on the power of will. Because of his faith and political philosophies, Shriver is a genuine optimist. Born out of that optimism is a tremendous trust in people. He honored optimism by appealing to the willingness of Americans, young and old, to engage in selfless acts—acts animated by the purest of motivations, acts of caring and service.
One of Shriver’s greatest and most endearing attributes (and some have experienced it to be one of his greatest failings) is his enthusiasm in taking on the impossible or, as he sees it, taking on challenges. He commonly led organizational meetings by thanking everyone for all they had been doing and telling them how extraordinary and special they were. Pausing only for a moment, he then pointedly asked questions and made seemingly unrealistic demands to get more done. One former Peace Corps volunteer wrote, “The major memories I have of my first year in the Peace Corps are intertwined with the memories I have of Sargent Shriver. He was the ever-present jolt that pushed us onward to learn more and teach more and just DO more. He ‘infected’ us with his ever present gaiety, enthusiasm and energy. He almost DARED us to do the impossible!” (Sally Lewis Bishop, Thailand, Group II, 1962–1964.)
“I’m working on the final chapters of my autobiography, and the most exciting chapter to write, for me, is the last. It’s exciting to write because I’m getting to talk about the future…about the world that we, as Americans, can help change for the better. During the 21st century, more than at any other time in history, we can capitalize on our spirit and resources to lead an initiative to eradicate poverty¾the worst failure of the world.”—Sargent Shriver, 2002
Shriver, until his illness, was hands-on. Thirty-five years after launching the War on
Poverty, for example, he continued to contribute to its success. He helped raise funds for the programs as
federal funds diminished, he called together leaders in the legal field to
strategize on strengthening the legal services program and expanding pro bono
work within private law firms, he was accessible when volunteers sought his
advice, and, as always, he reached out regularly through letters to encourage
the ordinary people still involved in the many programs he launched forty years
earlier.
Looking Forward
“I am convinced that if, in the future, our country is to meet the unparalleled opportunity to win friends and advance the cause of peace and freedom, thousands of additional Americans will have to step forward and say ‘I will serve.’”—Sargent Shriver
Pope John Paul II once wrote about the structures of evil. He was referring to some economic institutions that exploit the poor and worsen poverty. But institutions can also be structures of grace. That’s especially true of the institutions which Sargent Shriver set up. They are institutions of grace. All of us concerned with advancing justice, not just the poor, have been and still are the recipients of that grace. We have been, and still are, graced by Sarge’s presence in the world but also by Sarge’s presence in the institutions he launched. That’s why it’s so important to protect these structures of grace, make sure they continue on, and add new ones as needed.
As we look forward in meeting the challenge of promoting a world of values and human solidarity through peace and justice:
- We
must work to keep the issues of poverty, injustice, and peace in the
public’s eye and work to establish them as state and national priorities. We can
announce a renewal of our commitment to a “Shriver-style culture of
service” emphasizing the talents of individuals, the importance of
collaboration, the need for understanding and tolerance, and the value of
social action based on educated and responsible strategic planning. We can
work to broaden public policy and systemic change where necessary to
promote opportunities for peace and social and economic justice.
“I am so proud that so many over the years have stayed
the course and so many new and energetic young people have joined the effort to
shape the United States’ role in this world as a leader for justice and human
dignity.”—Sargent
Shriver
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