Person

Michael Harrington

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Illustration of someone walking up stairs made up of the working class.

How the War on Poverty Stalled

The study of poverty has flourished in recent decades. Why haven’t the lives of the poor improved?
Eugene Debs Presidential Campaign flyer from 1912, featuring his running mate Emil Seidel.

“American Democratic Socialism” Has a Proud, Diverse, and Inspiring History

A sweeping new history weaves personal, intellectual, and spiritual narratives into a book that reminds us of the potential of the socialist movement.
Seymour Hersh, Henry Kissinger, and Hersh's newspaper article about the CIA scandal.

The CIA-in-Chile Scandal at 50

Documents show Henry Kissinger misled President Gerald Ford about clandestine U.S. efforts to undermine the elected government of Salvador Allende.
Steve Lawrence and Eydie Gormé.

Slouching Towards Tax Day

How did taxes become something we "do"?
Bayard Rustin speaks from the Lincoln Memorial during the March on Washington.

Bayard Rustin Showed the Promise and Pitfalls of Coalition Politics

Bayard Rustin tried to forge a mass coalition to deliver progressive change. His failure to do so in the 1960s tells us much about building one today.
A Coca-Cola billboard in Moscow in 1997.

Capitalism Triumphed in the Cold War, but Not by Making People Better Off

In the wake of economic crises, liberal democracies proved most adept at imposing austerity.
Eugene Debs delivering a speech in 1912.

An American History of the Socialist Idea

The American socialism movement's open participation in and with the broad democratic left benefits the socialist cause.
African Americans boarding an integrated bus, following the Supreme Court ruling ending the Montgomery bus boycott in 1956. The boycott inspired many US socialists to throw themselves wholeheartedly into the civil rights struggle.

Socialists Organized in the 1950s Civil Rights Movement

In 1950s America, the Cold War was raging, but socialists were playing key roles in the early civil rights movement.
RFK speaking at the Ambassador Hotel in LA, moments before he was shot on June 5, 1968.

How Robert F. Kennedy’s Assassination Derailed American Politics

The idealistic presidential candidate was on the verge of seizing control of the 1968 race just as Sirhan Sirhan’s bullet struck.
Hundreds of people watch RFK's funeral train pass by.

Inside RFK's Funeral Train: How His Final Journey Helped a Nation Grieve

The New York-to-Washington train had 21 cars, 700 passengers—and millions of trackside mourners.
Map of the Appalachian mountain range

The Making of Appalachian Mississippi

“Mississippi’s white Appalachians may have owned the earth, but they could never own the past.”

Bad Romance

The afterlife of Vivian Gornick's "The Romance of American Communism" shows that we bear the weight of dead generations—and sometimes living ones, too.

The Forgotten Failures of the Great Society

A review of "Great Society: A New History," by Amity Shlaes.

The Political Odyssey of Sean Wilentz

How one of America's original Bernie Bros became an outspoken critic of the left.
LBJ signing the Civil Rights Act of 1964.

What Everyone Gets Wrong About LBJ’s Great Society

It wasn't some radical left-wing pipedream. It was moderate; and it worked.