Sargent Shriver Video Transcript
Video duration: 2 minutes, 10 seconds
[Music]
On-screen image: U.S. Department of Labor and Job Corps logos
On-screen text: In 2003, Sargent Shriver talked about his experience creating Job Corps for a documentary entitled "Job Corps, 40 years of Success." What follows are excerpts from that documentary.
Narrator: The War on Poverty would need a tireless general, a man with compassion and the ability to get things done. LBJ tapped Sargent Shriver, the man who had started the Peace Corps with his brother-in-law John F. Kennedy.
Sargent Shriver, Director of the Office of Economic Opportunity: I had the task of trying to create a program that would be helpful to the people who were poor or unemployed.
Scott Stossel, Author of "Sarge: The Life and Times of Sargent Shriver": Sargent Shriver was, in a lot of ways, born for the job of running the War on Poverty.
Mark Shriver, V.P. Managing Director of Save the Children, U.S. Programs: Growing up, my father was very firmly in the camp that you did not give a handout but you gave people the skills so they could pull themselves out of it, and that's what the Job Corps is about.
Narrator: Shriver began the daunting task of creating the program from scratch. He reached out to politicians, the business community, and academics.
Sargent Shriver: I got five or seven guys who were rather imaginative and young, and I thought, very thoughtful and experienced. And we had bull sessions. And then we started talking about what might be good to do. It was like a totally new enterprise. It was so new that nobody knew what was going to happen next.
Narrator: Forty years ago, a group of men set about on a bold experiment, determined to help the poor improve their own lives.
Hector Treste, 1990 Job Corps Graduate: It pretty much taught me what I was capable of doing.
Cedar Cox, 1999 Job Corps Graduate: It's where my feet hit solid ground and where I was able to leap from.
Stephanie Underwood, 2004 Job Corps Graduate: It made me a better person to realize what I'm actually worth.
Sargent Shriver: I'm really happy because everything came out so well.
On-screen text: Sargent Shriver's legacy lives on today in the more than 2.6 million young people who have been served by the program since 1964. Job Corps thanks Mr. Shriver for his faith in this program, and for his deep commitment to providing at-risk young people with the skills they need to succeed at work... and in life.
On-screen image: U.S. Department of Labor and Job Corps logos
[Music]
Return to top of page
Page last updated:
Wednesday, April 18, 2012