Change Comes Knocking

The Story of the North Carolina Fund

Change Comes Knocking: The Story of the North Carolina Fund is a documentary about one of the earliest and most innovative initiatives in the 1960s “War on Poverty.” With the creation of the Fund, Governor Terry Sanford along with George Esser and the rest of the Fund’s staff and board provided an example of what could be done within communities if they were given the resources to experiment and to look for local economic development opportunities from within.

Change Comes Knocking presents a snapshot of the creation of the Fund, one of the first bi-racial antipoverty organizations in the South. The history of the Fund encompasses 5 years of innovative and experimental actions, which also proved to be quite politically controversial. The NC Fund encouraged communities across the state to create local agencies called Community Action Programs (CAPS), whose agendas would have to include input from low income people. The Fund gave a voice to people who had been disenfranchised, and in turn empowered them to make substantial changes in their lives and communities. The empowerment of local poor people was one of the greatest goals of the NC Fund but what they hadn’t foreseen that it would threaten the establishment, and people who were comfortable with the status quo.

Change Comes Knocking: The Story of the North Carolina Fund is a production of Video Dialog Inc. For more information feel free to contact Producer Rebecca Cerese at rcerese@gmail.com or by phone at (919) 824-0811.