 County, North Carolina. For 200 years its people have fashioned a life for themselves out of the grudging hills. There's with the hands that had cleared the wilderness. Today they squeeze out a living gathering wild leaves. Decorative touches for a city florist which bring them $6 cash for two days work. They call any man an optimist who hopes to earn more than a thousand dollars a year and they are very few. They are a proud breed, resourceful, tough, independent. They have always been a patriotic people, sending sons to every war since the revolution but returning always to the hard life of the hills. More and more of the young people have gone away to find work in the fields and factories of another place, reluctantly leaving behind those too young and those too old to do more than keep their stubborn hopes alive and cling to the age-old faith. They are just a few of the many who've been left in the back waters of American life. Survivors of a simpler age. Their families scattered all the lessons and accomplishments of their yesterdays giving no guide on the path toward tomorrow. While they continued their usual way, asked no help and struggled along to keep them and theirs alive. But finally the time came when they decided that they'd carry the water long enough that their children had been denied too long. They began to hear about something called community action. People getting together to improve their lives through a chain of concern that reached out from their own valley all the way back to Washington. Saturday, May 13, 1967. To this valley, one of North Carolina's most distinguished citizens has come with a friend from Washington to witness what his hill country neighbors have accomplished. In less than two years, through this new idea of community action, they have built a water system, begun a handcraft industry and changed the pattern of education for themselves and their children. As is the custom when company comes, the children were presented first. They discovered that some of the dances were not native to the region, but all the children were. North Carolina's first Head Start graduates. It's been lovely. Look at that. It looks good. We usually use old scraps inside or cut. This has cotton in it, which made this quilt cost two dollars. And this is made from a poster. And we have so many that are getting the surface food. Now we're teaching them how to cook it here and have a plan. We're on balance. Are many on the surface food? Yes. Yes, we do have several. With the program, Community Action Program can provide transportation. How many, for example, come here? Start with just the RSN, all right? Right, wrong, right? You did very well with that. Pick out now and let me hear you real good now. All right? Dad, dad, dad, dad, dad, dad, dad, dad, dad. All right, good. Pearl, do you have your book open? Black. Black. Bless. Blink. Blink. Block. All right, just a little out of now. This one right here, Thelma? They were learning something more important, perhaps, than the language. Learning to believe that each one's effort was still important. That they could change their world. That opportunities still existed. And that other people knew and cared about what they had done. I think that it's wonderful that we can work together and plan together and build together and have the help that we're getting today. Because this is your day, you have created this water system by your own ingenuity with the labor of your own hands and with your own perseverance. We're very glad to have even a little part in helping you to make this dream come true. Well, thank you. We don't want to pull against each other, either. That's right. Which way? This way? This way right there. It is. All right, the water should be on. Oh, sir. Thank you. What a timeline of help. All right. You're not going to get anything to eat, Sarge. All right. You always say you ought to eat with the people, the local people, because they know what's the best. That's right. That's good. That's too pretty. Breaking bread together on the church ground placed a seal and a benediction on their accomplishments. For Billy Graham, it had been a day of revelation. For the people of this valley, it was something far more. We in the mountains of North Carolina are very rich. We're rich in the beauty of these mountains. We're rich in our faith. We have a faith in God. We've watched him work in our community. And today, we re-dedicate that faith in God and faith in country and faith in ourselves. No miracles were wrought here. Only the beginnings of change. What has taken place is a testament to the human spirit that reaches out and beyond these hills. I think that it's possible to be comparatively poor and be spiritually happy. But I believe that Christ teaches that we can have both. And he taught us that while we're to go out and proclaim the gospel on the one hand, we're also to go and give a cup of cold water in his name on the other hand. And in so doing, we are gaining reward in the future life. Dr. Billy Graham has spent this day in North Carolina checking the progress of the war on poverty with its director, Sergeant Shriver. Now at Dr. Graham's Mountain Home, they compare notes on their common concern. In the second place, they say to me, well, you know my father or my grandfather came over here and he got out of poverty by himself. He didn't need the government to help him. What is your idea? Shouldn't we be doing this at all? Is there some reason why the government should be doing it other than just to do good? It's true that your father and mine did work hard. But our world has changed a great deal since your father's day and my father's day. Now the Bible teaches that if a man is naturally lazy and idle and he gets drunk and spends his money on drinking and so forth that he doesn't deserve our help except to try to get him remotivated, reconverted, reborn and changed so that he'll work for himself. But if a man or a woman is poor and they can't help it, let's say it's a widow or perhaps the husband is left or I may not have a job opportunity in the area in which he lives, then first of all the church has a responsibility and until more recently the church has done nearly all of it at least in our Western culture. And secondly, the state has an obligation and I don't think anyone can read the Bible. In fact, I went through the Bible and chose oh, I would say about a hundred scriptures that indicate that we do have a moral and spiritual responsibility to help those that really are in need and we have thousands of people in this country in genuine need. And when people say this I think sometimes they have blinders on and they don't see the needs. Well, it's my Christian responsibility to think about such things. It's my duty as a citizen of this country to think about such things and not only to think about them but to do something about it. Now today, individual groups in our tremendous population can't do as much proportionately as they could a few years ago. It takes the action of government and that's one reason why I have supported the idea of the poverty program. Now I know that there have been many mistakes made. You can't start a thing like this as quickly as you've done it without making some mistakes. It couldn't be done perfectly. But at least the motivation has been morally right and religiously and spiritually and biblically right from my point of view. We've always said that the poor should be involved themselves in the administration and in the decision making process in this effort. We've said that because we believe that poor people want to be treated in a dignified way as an equal. That they don't want to be handed things or told to do things. They want to discuss what ought to be done and then do them voluntarily, you might say. And that it was essential to develop them as human beings to give them a significant role, even a powerful role in the decision making process. We feel that in a human enterprise like this one, the equal participation of everybody, including the poor, including the beneficiaries of the program, that that's desirable. How does that strike you? Well, you know, it's the same principle sometimes when we go abroad. I want to go out and give Bibles and even Testaments to everybody. But the local missionaries will say, no, don't do that. They won't appreciate it. You sell it for a very small amount. But if they buy it, they appreciate it far more. And I think the same principle is involved here, that people that build for themselves and take a pride in it, it's theirs. And I think that's what you're doing. What I've seen today and what we've seen today indicates that what you're doing is training people and you're giving people an opportunity to do for themselves. And this to me is a very important point that I don't think has yet been properly communicated to the people. And I think it's the most important point that can be communicated. Something that I think people have the wrong ideas in this country about the poverty program and the Office of Economic Opportunity as it's more formally called. And that is that the idea that it's sort of a handout that you're going around giving money to people and as soon as the money is spent, it's not going to do any good. And of course, the Bible teaches that this is wrong, that we should give motivation, that we should give people an opportunity. And this is what I found today is really what the poverty program is doing. And I was quite surprised and delighted that you're not going around handing out money. One of the things that people continually throw up at me is the statement in the Bible that Christ is supposed to have said that the poor will always be with you. And they say, well, since Christ said the poor are always going to be with you, what are you trying to eliminate poverty for? You can't eliminate a driver, they say. Christ said you're going to always have the poor. Well, Christ said that and I think that his prophecy is proven correctly. Here it is, the middle of the 20th century and we probably, if you take the whole world, have more real poor people today because of the population explosion than ever before in the history of the world. But he wasn't giving us a command. All of his commands were in the opposite direction. If you turn to the 25th chapter of Matthew, you'll find that Christ is saying that we're to go out and to help those that are in visit the prisoners, we're to feed those that are hungry, we're to give clothes to those that are naked. And he said, in doing so, you're taking care of me. In other words, when I as a Christian go out, I see Christ in these people. I go and try to help them because of Christ and his motivation. What do you say about the people who say, well, yes, I'm all in favor of helping good poor people, or they call it the deserving poor. But what I don't like is helping these people who are bummed and lazy, the undeserving poor. What justification is there for helping a man who's a drunk or an ex-convict? Why help him? Well, if they want to be completely selfish, they're spending it really for their own self-preservation. If you develop in this country a very strong, poor group, take all the humanitarian idealism out of it. Take all the religious motivation out of it. Just from self-preservation and the building of our own society for our own good, I would still want to help the poor. Because I don't think that we can build a great America and have one side of the street riding Cadillacs and the other without water, without food, without education. You know, all the indications are that about 99% of the American people say they believe in God. Now they may have strange ideas about God. They may not express it by going to church. But the vast majority of the American people, I think, do have a religious motivation. And many times we let selfishness dominate because the Bible teaches that all of us are sinners and, of course, sin in essence is selfishness. And it's only as this selfishness is eradicated. And we have people going out with this self-dedication. And one of the things that I've been greatly impressed in the poverty program, just like in the Peace Corps, is the dedication of these people working with you. I'm really tremendously moved and impressed. It's the same motivation that you find in the missionaries that go out and live out in the jungles and live out in foreign countries to try to spread the message in the work of Christ. Because we've built in the church, both Catholic, Protestant, Jewish, we have built hundreds of hospitals around the world. We've done this sort of thing, but we didn't have the resources that can be put at your disposal by the government. And this is why I stand back and say, hallelujah, get going.