George Wiley was a founder and executive director of the National Welfare Rights Organization, a grass-roots organization of people on welfare whose primary goal was economic improvement for the poor. Born February 26, 1931, Wiley graduated from the University of Rhode Island in 1953 with a degree in chemistry. He earned a Ph.D. from Cornell, served in the Army briefly, studied under a one-year fellowship at UCLA and then was hired as an assistant professor at the University of California at Berkeley. In 1960, he was named associate professor of chemistry at Syracuse University in New York and it was here that his involvement in social activism intensified.
At Syracuse, Wiley helped found a local chapter of the Congress of Racial Equality (CORE). He served on the National Action Council of national CORE, and in 1965 took a leave of absence from teaching to become CORE's associate national director under James Farmer. However just one year later, Farmer left CORE, and when Floyd McKissick was named as new director, Wiley also submitted his resignation.
At this time, Wiley also resigned his chemistry position at Syracuse and made the decision to stay in social activist work. He hoped to focus the attention of organizations of poor people on achieving economic reform through the federal government. After working briefly for the Citizens' Crusade Against Poverty and finding it unresponsive to his goal, Wiley founded the Poverty/Rights Action Center in Washington, D.C., in May, 1966. It was to serve as a communications center linking and stimulating the various local groups of poor people already in existence. However, the representatives of groups involved soon decided to form a national member-ship organization. In 1967, they established the National Welfare Rights Organization (NWRO) and appointed Wiley executive director.
NWRO became probably the largest poor people's membership organization in the country, claiming from 75 to 125 thousand members at its peak. It was an action organization which marched, demonstrated, and sat-in both locally and nationally. It stressed people's right to a decent living standard and emphasized that there is nothing shameful in being on welfare. Though the long-range goal of a guaranteed adequate income for all was a major part of the national program, local efforts were devoted primarily to achieving immediate economic benefits for members. Local chapters were almost completely autonomous, though the national office did try to focus activity on common themes such as obtaining credit from department stores, school clothing and school lunch campaigns, children's health care, forced work programs, and the various federal legislative bills of 1969-1972 designated the Family Assistance Plan (FAP). Opposition to FAP was the height of NWRO's activity as a national lobbyist as envisioned by Wiley in 1966, and FAP's defeat was often credited to NWRO.
In the final months of the FAP struggle, Wiley's role in NWRO was becoming increasingly dissatisfying to him. Conflict with NWRO President Beulah Sanders and a desire to initiate a more broadly based organization devoted to economic reform led to his decision to resign as executive director, effective January 31, 1973. Again working through the Poverty/ Rights Action Center (and the Misseduc Foundation, NWRO's tax-exempt funding arm), he founded the Movement for Economic Justice (MEJ). Aimed at everyone earning under $15,000 per year, MEJ focused on issues such as tax reform and national health insurance. The first several months primarily were spent researching and planning, with a membership drive planned for the fall of 1973.
On August 8, 1973, Wiley fell into the water of Chesapeake Bay while boating with his children, Daniel, 10, and Maya, 9, and drowned. Memorial services were held throughout the country and he was eulogized as a man who could inspire others to accomplish more on less than they had ever thought possible. The New York Times described him as “primarily an excellent organizer, a fundraiser, budget man and tactician.” A reformer rather than revolutionist, a Black man who wanted all races united behind economic change, and a man proficient at both careful reasoning and emotional haranguing, Wiley was credited with developing poor people as a political power in the United States.
