attention to the high unemployment rate among minorities, which they believed to be underreported by the Department. The Committee had particularly sharp criticism for the Department of Agriculture, which they said had done little to address the crisis of hunger and malnutrition in the United States—and in fact neglected to use available funds to feed the starving and malnourished. They called for food stamps, school lunches, and distribution programs, which would be staffed by some of those who needed jobs. They also criticized the favoritism showed for corporate farming and demanded protection for poor small farmers. Secretary Orville Freeman was reportedly dismissive, and downplayed his Department's responsibility for the subsidies to corporate agribusiness. The Office of Economic Opportunity was intended specifically to assist poor people. A contingent of the Committee, led by Andrew Young, made the case that the OEO had failed in its responsibility and failed to authentically involve poor people in its decision making. Young led a delegation the next day to the Department of Health, Education, and Welfare. A statement read by Lafayette highlighted duality and hypocrisy within the American medical system: "We come to ask why a rich nation with the most advanced medical knowledge in the world can develop artificial organs yet cannot provide inoculations against disease to many of its poorest children." The Committee also presented a long list of specific demands surrounding health care, which mostly involved expanding the medical system to make it more accessible to the poor (while creating jobs in the process). Walter Fauntroy read a separate statement about education, which called for increased minority control of education through policies that "permit poor black, brown, and white children to express their own worth and dignity as human beings, as well as the extent to which instruction, teaching materials, and the total learning process stresses the contributions and the common humanity of minority groups." The delegation called for democratic control over schools and curricula, transparency of school budgets, affirmative action in HEW's own hiring practices, and real progress on desegregation. Finally, they made similar demands for democracy and dignity in the administration of welfare. At the Department of Housing and Urban Development, the Committee demanded low-incoming housing and enforcement of laws against housing discrimination. In particular they outlined a work program that would allow poor people to construct and rehabilitate housing. They also demanded Chicago participation in housing policy and greater