Democratic presidential hopeful John Edwards plans to visit southwest Virginia during a three-day swing through areas beset by poverty.

Edwards' "Road to One America" tour will take him through New Orleans, Memphis, Cleveland, Pittsburgh and eight other cities and eight states. It begins on July 16, and he'll wrap up in southwest Virginia, then Whitesburg and Prestonsburg in Kentucky.

The former North Carolina senator and 2004 vice presidential candidate said the makeup of the poor has changed in the past 40 years to include a wide range of ages and a variety of ethnic and regional backgrounds.

Edwards also plans to visit towns hit by the loss of manufacturing jobs and cities with suburban poverty.

President Lyndon Johnson declared the war on poverty in 1964 from eastern Kentucky's coal country, the same territory that would draw Robert F. Kennedy for a two-day caravan tour in 1968, a month before announcing he would run for president.