Domestic Peace Corps

Domastic Version of the Peace Corps

When President Kennedy last year suggested extending the Peace Corps idea to provide for comparable voluntary service within the United States, the proposal evoked a widespread favorable response. Peace Corps operations abroad had proved strikingly successful;1 it seemed reasonable to suppose that substantial benefits would accrue from similar activities on the domestic front. Expectations that volunteers for home service would be forthcoming were reinforced by the reactions of a group of Peace Corps volunteers to the experience of training for overseas duty in a slum section of New York City. The corpsmen were shocked to discover such wretched conditions of life in their own country, and some said they would volunteer for service in a domestic peace corps if ...