Topic: Race & Social Justice

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Issues in Philanthropy

Funding a Social Movement: The Ford Foundation and Civil Rights, 1965-1970

A story recounting many accusations, from rigged elections to the meddling of big private money in grassroots organizing.

Issues in Philanthropy

The Fairy Godmothers of Women’s Studies

Moving scholarship by and about women from margin to center.

Race & Social Justice

Can Data Drive Social Change? Tackling School Segregation with Numbers

In the years before Brown v. Board, a philanthropic fund hoped research and data would turn the tide on attitudes toward segregation.

Elementary children of diverse ethnic backgrounds get ready to go inside their school, two hold hands
1960s

“Highest Standards”: Elite Philanthropy and Literary Black Voices during the Civil Rights Era

Against a backdrop of white, establishment concepts of literary excellence, one foundation struggled to appreciate Black voices.

1950s 1960s 1970s

Funding a Social Movement: The Ford Foundation and Civil Rights, 1965-1970

A story recounting many accusations, from rigged elections to the meddling of big private money in grassroots organizing.

1900s 1910s 1920s 1930s 1940s 1950s 1960s 1970s

Black Education and Rockefeller Philanthropy from the Jim Crow South to the Civil Rights Era

Applying a vast fortune to the American race problem, but with decades of false assumptions and well-intended approaches that fell short.

1970s

The Fairy Godmothers of Women’s Studies

Moving scholarship by and about women from margin to center.

1990s

In Brief: “Manels” Before #MeToo

A foundation’s early criticism of the all-male conference panel, before #nomoremanels

1950s

In Brief: The South African Institute of Race Relations

How did a US foundation manage to work under apartheid?

In Brief: The 1995 Beijing Women’s Conference

The global conversation about women’s issues takes a big step forward.

1960s 1970s

Programming for the People: Diversity in Early Public Television

Philanthropy helped carve out a public space for the expression of race, culture, and critical perspectives.

Black African American Boy Scout Leaders (Scoutmasters) pose for a photograph, sitting in rows with an American flag
1920s 1930s

Who Belongs in the Boy Scouts? Philanthropy’s Support for Black Scouting

A foundation struggled to make one of America’s oldest youth organizations more racially inclusive. But it only got so far under Jim Crow.

1950s 1960s

In Brief: James Baldwin’s Creative Writer’s Fellowship

How a foundation provided the final ingredient to an era-defining novel.