LBJ Archives - Public Seminar

History

How the War on Global Poverty Failed

As economic programs and policies shifted from the nation to the individual, United States development experts made political allies at home but failed the world

August 25, 2021 • by Joanne Meyerowitz

_____ In 1976, Michael Harrington traveled to India, Kenya, and Tanzania to bear witness to global poverty. A prolific author with a prophetic bent, Harrington had risen to fame in 1962 with The Other America, a book that stunned readers with its searing exposé of poverty in the United States, caught ...

Just a year after Representative Lewis’s death, the rights for which he fought are under greater threat than they have been since 1965

_____ A year ago last week, Georgia Representative John Lewis passed away from pancreatic cancer at 80 years old. As a young adult, Lewis was a “troublemaker,” breaking the laws of his state: the laws upholding racial segregation. He organized voting registration drives and in 1960 was one of the thirteen ...