poverty

Black Mothers Bet on Themselves and Changed Las Vegas—Can Their Ideas Still Change America?

by Annelise Orleck

A courageous and politically imaginative group of women challenged the most powerful interests in Las Vegas to win better public aid and build an organization for community service and empowerment. A historian explains who they were, how she came to tell their story, and what it means today.

Annelise Orleck on "Storming Caesar's Palace" and the Lessons of the Welfare Rights Movement

by Michan Connor

A leading historian of poor people's activism joins HNN for a discussion of the new edition of her acclaimed book on the Las Vegas Welfare Rights movement, which is the basis for a documentary now streaming on PBS. 

Looking for King's Legacy? Try Guaranteed Income Programs

Thanks in part to a push from Johnnie Tillmon of the National Welfare Rights Association, MLK championed abolishing poverty by guaranteeing a basic income. 

Why Do We Neglect MLK's Dream of a World Freed from Poverty?

by Jeffrey Nall

The modern veneration of Martin Luther King ignores the last incomplete mission of his life – the demand for economic justice and an end to poverty. 

The Losers of the Ukraine War? The Global Poor

by Rajan Menon

Refugee crises, inflation in the developed world, and constricted access to both credit and grain exports in the developing world are all likely consequences of the Ukraine invasion that will fall on the world's poor. 

Honoring Dr. King's Other, More Challenging Dream, 55 Years Later

King's famous Riverside Church speech on April 4, 1967 marked the leader's decisive opposition to the war in Vietnam and reflected his moral clarity and willingness to take unpopular positions in the pursuit of justice by calling out racism, capitalism and militarism as three intertwined evils. 

Reducing Child Poverty Is a No-Brainer even Without Brain Science

by Mical Raz

Reducing child poverty is a good in itself; justifying policies to reduce poverty in terms of improvements in measures of cognition or IQ scores makes such programs vulnerable to backlash and risks validating racist and eugenicist arguments about race and intelligence.

Abortion isn't a "Choice" without Racial Justice

by Sara Matthiesen

The recent failure of the broad social spending initiatives of Build Back Better and the impending judicial overthrow of Roe are connected, and signal the need for a movement for reproductive freedom that goes beyond "choice" to address systemic inequalities. 

Bronx Fire Shows the Perils and Politics of Home Heating

by Rebecca Wright

Landlords and tenants have long fought over the benefits and costs of heat, with municipal codes serving as the referee. This month's deadly fire shows the consequences of regulatory neglect.

Fannie Lou Hamer's Leadership Shows We Can't Separate Civil Rights and Economic Justice

by Keisha N. Blain

The author of a new biography of the Mississippi Freedom Democrat argues that Hamer's legacy shows that inequality erodes both civil rights and democracy. 

You are Only as Good as Your Sources

by Bobby Cervantes

Can researchers reexamine the boundary between journalism and historiography while maintaining the integrity of both? A researcher with a background in both explains how. 

Event: A War on Global Poverty: The Lost Promise of Redistribution and the Rise of Microcredit with Joanne Meyerowitz (5/17)

Joanne Meyerowitz gives historical perspective on the rise of microcredit aimed at women as a model of international development aid as part of the National History Center's Washington History Seminar. Join on Zoom on May 17. 

“The Greatest Purveyor of Violence in the World”

by Liz Theoharis

Martin Luther King's 1967 Riverside Church address pointed out that the cause nonviolent civil rights struggle required him to challenge the US government to end militarism. Today, the pandemic shows that an ethos of nonviolence must include an active approach to end suffering through global cooperation. 

The United States Is Picking Up Where The Great Society Left Off

by John Stoehr

Comparing the recent COVID relief bill to the 2009 bailout of the subprime crisis shows a rapid turn away from the Republican and New Democratic consensus that social welfare assistance must be tied to work and limited to people who are "deserving."

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. 

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. 

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.

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. 

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. 

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.