War on Poverty — Bunk History

Lyndon Johnson campaigning in Illinois in 1964, the year he declared ‘war on poverty;’ Johnson signing an autograph for an elderly woman.

The War on Poverty: Was It Lost?

Four changes are especially important when we try to measure changes in the poverty rate since 1964.

by Christopher Jencks via New York Review of Books on March 18, 2015

Richard Nixon giving a press conference.

The Playbook for Stopping Trump From Shuttering Agencies

Presidents can't shutter an agency Congress created by statute. Only Congress has this power.

by Ryan LaRochelle via Made By History on February 12, 2025

Lyndon B. Johnson and Lady Bird Johnson visit the Fletcher family in Inez, Kentucky, in 1964.

Who’s to Blame for White Poverty?

Dismantling it requires getting the story right.

by Elizabeth Catte via Boston Review on September 5, 2024

Children in a Head Start classroom look out a window at others in the playground.

America Already Knows How to Address Child Poverty

The history of Head Start shows that child poverty is a choice.

by Michelle Bezark via Made By History on October 5, 2023

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?

by Kim Phillips-Fein via The New Republic on August 28, 2023

A Coal miner, his wife and two of their children in Bertha Hill, West Virginia, September 1938.

How Black Folks Have Built Resilient Spaces for Themselves in US Mountains

Did you know that there was a hidden utopia of formerly enslaved people located in the mountains of Appalachia?

by Cameron Oglesby via Earth In Color on February 1, 2023

Architectural drawing of Boston Harbor from above.

Who Profits?

How nonprofits went from essential service providers to vehicles for programs shaped and approved by capital.

by Justin H. Vassallo via The Baffler on July 25, 2022

Lyndon Johnson and Robert McNamara in a Cabinet meeting.

Juxtaposing Liberal Nationalism and International Politics: Lyndon Johnson on Vietnam War

How and why did Johnson consider American military involvement in Vietnam a worthwhile cause that would benefit American interests and American lives?

by Zachary Clary via Journal of the History of Ideas Blog on April 4, 2022

Newark protesters and National Guard

A Warning Ignored

America did exactly what the Kerner Commission on the urban riots of the mid-1960s advised against, and fifty years later reaped the consequences it predicted.

by Jelani Cobb via New York Review of Books on July 29, 2021

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.”

by Justin Randolph via Southern Cultures on May 14, 2021

photo of Otto Kerner with quote: "freedom for every citizen to live and work according to his capacities and not his color"

We Were Warned About a Divided America 50 Years Ago. We Ignored the Signs

As in the 1960s, the nation today stands at a turning point.

by Elizabeth Hinton via Washington Post on March 16, 2021

Not So Great

Reflections on the problems with progressives’ central principle that activist government is the only mechanism able to solve a modern society’s problems.

by William Voegeli via The New Criterion on February 27, 2020

The Forgotten Failures of the Great Society

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

by Fred Siegel via National Review on January 9, 2020

Hahnemann University Hospital in Philadelphia

How the Rise of Urban Nonprofits Has Exacerbated Poverty

While "meds and eds" have powered urban economies, they haven't been the gateway out of poverty that many hoped.

by Claire Dunning via Made By History on September 24, 2019

Appalachian Women Fought for Workers Long Before They Fought for Jobs

Two new books recount the leading role women have played in Appalachian social justice movements.

by Heather Duncan via Scalawag on March 25, 2019

Printing food stamps.

Why American Policy is Leaving Millions Hungry

Instead of trying to eliminate hunger, we continue to talk about personal responsibility.

by Rachel Louise Moran via Made By History on August 7, 2018

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.

by Joshua Zeitz via Politico Magazine on January 28, 2018

States With Large Black Populations Are Stingier With Government Benefits

States with homogenous populations spend more on the safety net than those with higher shares of minorities.

by Alana Semuels via The Atlantic on June 6, 2017

From "War on Crime" to War on the Black Community

The enduring impact of President Johnson’s Crime Commission.

by Elizabeth Hinton via Boston Review on June 21, 2016

Was 1960's Liberalism the Cause of Today's Overincarceration Crisis?

Today, nearly 2.2 million Americans are behind bars. Can contemporary mass incarceration's roots be traced to LBJ's Great Society?

by Lauren-Brooke Eisen via The National Book Review on June 4, 2016

Demonstrators at a Black Lives Matter rally.

Fifty Years Ago, the Government Said Black Lives Matter

The conclusions of the 1968 Kerner Report portrayed race relations like no other report in history.

by Julian E. Zelizer via Boston Review on May 5, 2016

Clara Newton at her home outside Baltimore, holding a picture of her son Odell, who has been in prison for 41 years for a crime he committed when he was 16. State officials have recommended Odell for release three times since 1992, but he has not been freed. August 4, 2015.

The Black Family in the Age of Mass Incarceration

Politicians are suddenly eager to disown failed policies on American prisons, but they have failed to reckon with the history.

by Ta-Nehisi Coates via The Atlantic on September 15, 2015

Tents at Resurrection City, 1968.

A Place for the Poor: Resurrection City

In 1968, impoverished Americans flocked to DC to live out MLK's final dream: economic equality for all.

by Jenna Goff via Boundary Stones on July 14, 2015

Folk singer Tom Glazer performs in July 1965 for nearly 400 children enrolled in Head Start centers at Saratoga Square Park in Brooklyn, N.Y. (AP)

Evaluating the Success of the Great Society

Lyndon B. Johnson's visionary set of legislation turns 50 years old.

via Washington Post on May 17, 2014

Kamala Harris

The Democrats’ “Opportunity” Pitch Is a Dead End

The meritocratic pitch was emblematic of Democrats’ long march away from working-class voters.

by Lily Geismer via Jacobin on December 11, 2024

View of mountains on the horizon

Who Owns the Mountains?

Hurricane Helene has revived urgent questions about the politics of land — and tourism — in Appalachia.

by Olivia Paschal via New York Review of Books on November 3, 2024

Carver Junior High School in Tulsa, Oklahoma.

How to Keep a School Open

Two Carvers and the fight for fair desegregation.

by Jeremy Lee Wolin via The Metropole on September 17, 2024

Lyndon B. Johnson speaking with a U.S. soldier in Vietnam in 1966.

The Cost of Overcorrecting on Lyndon Johnson and Vietnam

For years, LBJ was reviled for Vietnam. Then the historical tables turned in his direction. But they turned a little too far.

by Fredrik Logevall, Julian E. Zelizer via The New Republic on December 2, 2023

Photo of a homeless person sleeping on the street wrapped in a blanket on top of cardboard.

A Blueprint From History for Tackling Homelessness

During the New Deal, the U.S. knew that economic recovery depended upon housing.

by Jonathan van Harmelen via Made By History on November 2, 2023

A man and a dog walk among blighted buildings in the Bronx.

The Persistence of American Poverty

“We could afford to end poverty,” Matthew Desmond tells us. That we don’t is a choice.

by Marcia Chatelain via The Nation on August 21, 2023

brought to you by

© Bunk History