U.S. Federal Judge Joe Billy McDade spoke at the graduation of the Peoria Park District’s Elite program recently and called for establishment of a student CCC program like one implemented as part of the New Deal during the administration of President Franklin Delano Roosevelt to help the United States recover from the Great Depression.

With COVID-19, global climate change and racial injustice, America has years of recovery ahead. Reprinted here is an abbreviated section of Judge McDade’s speech:

In 1933, in the midst of the Great Depression, families were suffering for lack of work among the young men in our country, and one of the most successful New Deal programs of President Franklin D. Roosevelt was the Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC), which was designed to provide jobs.

Sources written at the time claimed an individual’s enrollment in the program led to improved physical condition, heightened morale and increased employability. During the nine years of the CCC, three million young people were put through the program.

CCC was a voluntary public work relief program that operated from 1933 to 1942 for unemployed, unmarried men ages 18 to 25 that provided manual labor jobs related to the conservation and development of natural resources in rural lands owned by federal, state and local governments.

This idea was first implemented in 1932 in New York during the governorship of Franklin Roosevelt to use young men from the list of unemployed to improve our existing reforestation areas. This was a time when breadlines were common and Americans were starving, depressive conditions existed with all its attendant civic disruption and crime. In its first year alone, 25,000 unemployed New Yorkers between the ages of 18 and 25 were active in its paid conservation work program.

In exchange for their labor, CCC workers were provided with shelter, clothing and food, together with a wage of $30 per month, $25 of which had to be sent home to their families.

Who can dispute the existence of the same type of depression era conditions on Peoria’s Southside today, with its significant signs of impoverishment, including chronic unemployment, educational deficits, crime, family disruptions, physical and mental health concerns, and all the other symptoms associated with a depressed economy?

We do not need to wait for the state or federal government to have the imagination and commitment to sponsor programs to revitalize our older, seminal neighborhoods such as the Southside of Peoria, which used to be the most vibrant and dynamic part of the city housing the ambitious, hardworking men and women seeking to make a better life for their family. Through their efforts, they thrived, had an exciting entertainment, religious and cultural life which over time allowed each succeeding generation to prosper more and move their families out of the crowded river valley and onto the bluffs. I doubt if there is any third or fourth generation Peorian whose family roots were not planted on the Southside. They were the ones who made Pabst Blue Ribbon’s beer, Hiram Walker’s whiskey, enjoyed the Proctor Center and the entertainment venues of Vaudeville, the blues joints and saloons and Peoria’s parks and other recreational facilities.

Many Peoria residents have grandparents who most likely lived on the Southside, who surely have fond memories of Peoria in their younger days, memories which can and should be duplicated by us, if only we begin to imagine what can be done to revitalize the now-decaying areas of our beautiful city where it all began.

Surely the Peoria area can envision a small, modest public works replica of the CCC to change the culture of this important area of our city and give it a renewed sense of hope and opportunity for resurrection as our historical birthplace.