GLC Book Talk: David Blight in conversation with Rev. Dr. William J. Barber II

Book Talk: 5:00 - 6:00pm | Luce Hall Auditorium
Reception and book sale: 6:00 - 7:00pm | Luce Hall Common Room

IN-PERSON EVENT WITH REMOTE VIEWING OPTION

David W. Blight in conversation with Rev. Dr. William J. Barber II about: “White Poverty: How Exposing Myths About Race and Class Can Reconstruct American Democracy” (Liveright, 2024)

Sponsored by the Gilder Lehrman Center for the Study of Slavery, Resistance, and Abolition, the MacMillan Center at Yale University; and the Center for Public Theology and Public Policy at Yale Divinity School

Co-sponsors: Greater New Haven NAACP and The Campaign School at Yale

One of the most pernicious and persistent myths in the United States is the association of Black skin with poverty. Though there are forty million more poor white people than Black people, most Americans, both Republicans and Democrats, continue to think of poverty—along with issues like welfare, unemployment, and food stamps—as solely a Black problem. What are the historical causes and political consequences that result from this myth?

The Reverend Dr. William J. Barber II, a leading advocate for the rights of the poor and the “closest person we have to Dr. King” (Cornel West), addresses these questions in “White Poverty.” Analyzing what has changed since the 1930s, when the face of American poverty was white, Barber, along with Jonathan Wilson-Hartgrove, addresses white poverty as a hugely neglected subject that just might provide the key to mitigating racism and bringing together tens of millions of working class and impoverished Americans.

Barber writes about the lies that prevent us from seeing the pain of poor white families who have been offered little more than their “whiteness” and angry social media posts to sustain them in an economy where the costs of housing, healthcare, and education have skyrocketed while wages have stagnated for all but the very rich. Braiding poignant autobiographical recollections with astute historical analysis, “White Poverty” contends that tens of millions of America’s poorest earners, the majority of whom don’t vote, have much in common, thus providing us with one of the most empathetic and visionary approaches to American poverty in decades.