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.