[1] Until the 1950s, the CSM's activities were conducted by a volunteer staff headed by an executive secretary who usually held at least a part-time position with Berea College.

Helen Dingman, of Berea College's sociology department, served as part-time executive secretary and editor of ML&W until 1942.

The Ford Foundation transformed the CSM into a substantial organization with a $250,000 grant for community development and education in October 1962.

[5] Urban renewal and demographic changes scattered the Southern and Appalachian whites from Uptown,[6] and Stone withdrew his support.

A vote at Fontana approved a proposal to require the CSM board of directors to include 51 percent poor people within three years, and resolutions were passed in favor of a guaranteed annual income and opposing the Vietnam War.

Conservatives' fears were reinforced the next year at Lake Junaluska, when the meeting voted to oppose strip-mining for coal and took other controversial positions.

[9] A lean staff, often working for subsistence wages, managed to continue CSM activities for another decade and a half, continuing to publish ML&W, giving publicity and support to Black Lung Associations, welfare rights groups, mine health and safety programs, and miners' strikes.

The 1970-1989 materials, comprising 268 boxes, were organized and indexed with a grant from the National Historical Publications and Records Commission, with work completed and opened for research in 2006.