A War on Poverty Subtly Linked to Race "Clinton understood that welfare had become a racially stigmatized program," said Theda Skocpol, a political scientist at Harvard University who studies programs for the poor. "He ended the most controversial aspects of welfare, but at the same time, he built up supports for working families. And he certainly did see this as an effort to quiet racial disputes about social supports for the vulnerable." Citing initiatives from urban tax breaks to college scholarships, Hugh B. Price, president of the National Urban League, put it this way: "He has attempted to do things that have been of enormous benefit to communities of color, without labeling them that way. The idea was that you could build a stronger consensus for public policies that were cast in race-neutral terms." http://www.nytimes.com/2000/12/26/politics/26CLIN.html?pagewanted=all