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The Chairman. We thank all of you for being here. This is to be 

 continued. 



Thank you very much. 



Our next panel is Ms. Vivian Lucas Wynn, director, United 

 Church of Christ Commission for Racial Justice's Office for Rural 

 Racial Justice, Rocky Mount, North Carolina, on behalf of the 

 Southern Rural Development Initiative; and Ms. Marcia Merry, ag- 

 ricultural editor, Executive Intelligence Review, Washington, D.C. 



STATEMENT OF VIVIAN LUCAS WYNN, DIRECTOR, UNITED 

 CHURCH OF CHRIST, COMMISSION FOR RACIAL JUSTICE'S 

 OFFICE, RURAL RACIAL JUSTICE, ON BEHALF OF THE SOUTH- 

 ERN RURAL DEVELOPMENT INITIATIVE; ACCOMPANIED BY 

 KATE McKEE, SELF-HELP DEVELOPMENT BANK AND DOLLIE 

 B. BURWELL, PRESIDENT, FRANKLIN CENTER, INC. 



Ms. Wynn. Thank you very much for the opportunity to speak 

 with you today. I am here on behalf of the Southern Rural Devel- 

 opment Initiative. Frankly, we represent 27 different organizations 

 which are community-based. This initiative is made up of funders 

 and organizations working together to try to bring about social and 

 economic change in poor and disenfranchised communities 

 throughout the rural South, a little bit different from some of the 

 people I have talked to today in that the organization is in the 

 process of trying to bring forth recommendations and hopefully 

 new policy which will have the cohesive and hopefully comprehen- 

 sive plan to suggest in terms of rural development. 



We have submitted to you a policy paper and it is in the blue 

 cover. We also submitted to you some major recommendations that 

 we would like for you to look at as short-term considerations. I 

 won't go through all of that, but I do want to say that this initia- 

 tive is made up of community economic development corporations, 

 funding organizations, and private and public philanthropy as well 

 as land-based institutions throughout the rural South. 



One of the things that is unique about this organization is that 

 we are trying to partnership to bring more resources into the 

 South. We are interested in the rural community throughout the 

 United States, but we find that within the 12-State area of the 

 rural South there is a disproportionate number of people who are 

 in poverty. 



For example, we have found that there are about 9.1 million poor 

 people living in the United States, but more than half of those 

 people live in the South, about 5 million out of that 9.1 million. 

 Out of the 242 rural counties which have been reported by USDA 

 as being the most persistent poverty-stricken counties in the 

 United States, 223 of those counties are in the rural South. As a 

 region of the United States, the South is 34 percent of the popula- 

 tion. However, we have a disproportionate number of poor people. 



We are submitting to you, hopefully, a plan which will address 

 the needs of poor people in the South and all over the United 

 States of America. Our mission is to call greater attention to the 

 critical needs in the southern region and to place rural develop- 

 ment issues on par with prevailing public and private philanthropy 

 that is seen in the urban areas. 



