poverty 
-
SOURCE: New York Times
2/13/2021
The Way Out of America’s Zero-Sum Thinking on Race and Wealth
by Heather McGhee
White resentment is a key political factor in America's stingy public sector; post-WWII support for social welfare, government intervention in the economy, and public investment receded after the civil rights movement demanded "jobs and freedom" for all. It's time to replace zero-sum thinking with a concept of social solidarity.
-
SOURCE: TomDispatch
2/16/2021
Whose Rights Matter in Pandemic America?
by Liz Theoharis
In Cold War America, political movements that challenged the oppression of poverty were suppressed in favor of the formal ideal of civil rights. A leader of the revived Poor People's Campaign first envisioned by MLK before his death says that history must be addressed and undone.
-
2/14/2021
Heed the Cornerman's Cry
by Mike McQuillan
The failure to heed the warnings of the Kerner Commission in 1968 – of a society divided by racism and inequality – has led to ongoing suffering and a politics of resentment over an ethic of mutual care.
-
SOURCE: TomDispatch
12/13/2020
Pandemic Lessons for the Rest of Us, Or: Vaccine Thinking Applied to All of American Life
by Liz Theoharis
The quick and much-welcomed development of a coronavirus vaccine is highlighting what Martin Luther King, Jr. observed in 1967: that American abandonment amid abundance is a question of political choice, not the society's capacity to create humane solutions to large problems.
-
SOURCE: The New Yorker
11/9/2020
Voting Trump Out Is Not Enough
by Keeanga-Yamahtta Taylor
The results of the 2020 election show that the Democratic Party will fail unless it is willing to abandon a futile effort to woo Republicans to the center and embrace popular policies that meet the needs of Democratic constituents.
-
SOURCE: The Baffler
11/10/2020
The Prosperity Hoax
A 2020 report on global poverty suggests that the problem is getting worse, directly attacking the methodologies the World Bank has used for decades to justify global capitalism as an anti-poverty program.
-
SOURCE: Made By History at The Washington Post
9/8/2020
Covid-19 Has Exposed The Consequences Of Decades Of Bad Public Housing Policy
by Gillet Gardner Rosenblith
Poor and economically precarious Americans are at risk of eviction in the COVID-19 crisis because American policymakers have spent decades rejecting a public role in providing decent housing outside of the market system.
-
SOURCE: The Nation
8/25/2020
Scholars of Poverty and Inequality Face Their Own Racial Reckoning
by Nicole Sussner Rodgers and Deadric T. Williams
Social scientists have long entertained the theory that persistent Black poverty results from in-group cultural deficiency. Now the field of poverty studies faces a growing rebellion of scholars who call this victim-blaming.
-
SOURCE: NPR
6/9/2020
What A 1968 Report Tells Us About The Persistence Of Racial Inequality
The dire economic inequalities between black and white Americans documented by the Kerner Commission's report have not vanished.
-
SOURCE: TomDispatch
6/4/2020
Organizing the Rich or the Poor?
by Liz Theoharis
Instead of looking to national leaders or the rich, a 1968 incident should remind us to recognize the need to organize the political power of the poor for self-determination.
-
SOURCE: CityLab
5/26/2020
Poor Neighborhoods Are Only Getting Poorer
What new research shows is that number of poor neighborhoods in metropolitan areas has actually doubled from 1980 — and most existing low-income areas only fell deeper into poverty.
-
5/10/2020
What to do about COVID? Start by Listening to People
by Rachel F. Seidman
An oral historian of medical care in the South observes that the current crisis shows weaknesses in the fabric of society that would have long been obvious to policymakers if they were more inclined to listen to ordinary people.
-
4/26/2020
Minorities, Native Peoples, the Poor, and Infectious Diseases from Columbus to Coronavirus
by Walter G. Moss
Good history requires empathy and imagination. So too does understanding how the coronavirus affects not just us or our family and friends, but also other people, including all the less advantaged, whether in the USA or abroad.
-
SOURCE: TomDispatch
4/21/2020
Inequality and the Coronavirus
by Liz Theoharis
Here’s the simple truth of twenty-first-century America: all of us live in a time and in an economic system that values our lives relative to our ability to produce profits for the rich or in the context of the wealth we possess.
-
SOURCE: Daily Beast
3/25/2020
‘East Lake Meadows’ Reveals the Heartbreaking Reality of America’s Public-Housing Crisis
The Ken Burns-produced PBS documentary “East Lake Meadows: A Public Housing Story” examines our public-housing nightmare through the lens of a storied Atlanta housing project.
-
SOURCE: The Nation
3/15/2020
Prayer Will Not Stop the Coronavirus
by The Rev. Dr. William J. Barber II and Jonathan Wilson-Hartgrove
America is not in trouble because people are not praying; we face an exacerbated public health crisis because this administration has spent more time preying on the most vulnerable than lifting all people.
-
1/19/20
Four Speeches by Dr. King That Can Still Guide Us Today
by Alan Singer
Martin Luther King, Jr. challenged the war in Vietnam, U.S. imperialism, and laws that victimized working people and the poor, not just racial discrimination.
-
SOURCE: Origins
December
Review: A Gospel for the Poor: Global Social Christianity and the Latin American Evangelical Left
by Amanda Lawson
In his book, historian David C. Kirkpatrick explores the development of the understudied—and by many accounts, unacknowledged—Latin American Evangelical Left.
-
SOURCE: The Conversation
5/9/19
Misery and memory in Glendora, Mississippi: How poverty is reshaping the story of Emmett Till’s murder
by Dave Tell
As Till’s story has been passed down through the generations and taken up by a range of memorials, its plot has been shaped by forces like poverty as much as by fidelity to historical fact.
-
SOURCE: Atlanta Journal-Constitution
1/11/19
Historian Keri Leigh Merritt On Poverty and Privilege
And how our personal lives often intersect with our scholarly work.
News
- The Deficit Hawks That Make Moderate Democrats Cower
- The Muddled History of Anti-Asian Violence
- Massive Investment in Social Studies and Civics Education Proposed to Address Eroding Trust in Democratic Institutions
- Lightning Strikes Twice: Another Lost Jacob Lawrence Surfaces
- Former Procter and Gamble CEO: America and the World Need History Majors
- Part of Being a Domestic Goddess in 17th-Century Europe Was Making Medicines
- How Dr. Seuss Responded to Critics Who Called Out His Racism
- Discovery Of Schoolhouse For Black Children Now Offers A History Lesson
- People Longing for Movie Theaters During the 1918 Flu Pandemic Feels Very Familiar in 2021
- How Did "Bipartisanship" Become a Goal In Itself? (Podcast)