Polly Greenberg, advocate of the poor, dies

Polly Greenberg, an author and child development specialist who was instrumental in creating one of the earliest Head Start programs in Mississippi during President Lyndon B. Johnson's "war on poverty," died Dec. 27 at the Washington Home hospice. She was 81 and a District of Columbia resident.

The cause was heart complications, said a granddaughter, Rosi Greenberg.

Polly Greenberg was education director and one of three founders of the Child Development Group of Mississippi, a grassroots community action group that launched the state's Head Start program in 1965.

Head Start was a part of Johnson's Great Society agenda -- a series of domestic, anti-poverty social programs that aimed to improve the living conditions of poor people.

The project in Mississippi, which predominantly served poor, black preschool children, had at its height more than $5 million in grant funding and an enrollment of more than 10,000 children.