Researchers from the Field Foundation, who were commissioned to conduct a study on the impact of hunger on the rural poor in the United States, presented their preliminary findings in 1967. In a debriefing with the chair of the U.S. Senate Subcommittee on Manpower, Employment and Poverty about visits to Alabama, Mississippi, and Appalachia, doctors who were involved in the Field Foundation study reported that conditions in the South had become a national disaster and were akin to “third world” malnutrition, particularly for Black children.
One doctor who was part of the Field Foundation research team mentioned that, before the study, he was told that there was a conspiracy to eliminate Black people in the South. Although initially skeptical about this rumor, he said that he came to believe it after visiting families who were not eligible for the Food Stamp Program because they could not afford to buy food stamp coupons, a prerequisite to participating in the program.
At the time, Florida was among the states without any county participating in food stamps. Still, it would be two more years before any county in Florida rolled out a food stamp program.