Racial Discrimination Archives

1920s

Fever Foundation: The Rockefeller Foundation’s Malaria Fever Therapy Program & Ethics of Experimentation (1931-1940)

“My body was shaking uncontrollably, my teeth were chattering,” remembered Nathan Leopold. “You think from moment to moment that your head is going to split, and you wish to gosh it would!”Nathan Freudenthal Leopold, Life Plus 99 Years (Greenwood Press, 1974), 321. Describing the viciousness of the malaria with which he was purposely infected in…

1900s 1910s 1920s 1930s 1940s 1950s

“Without Distinction of Race, Sex, or Creed”: The General Education Board, 1903-1964

In the early 20th century, the General Education Board was devoted to the cause of improving education throughout the United States, without distinction of race, sex, or creed.

A “Constructive and Important Failure”: A Foundation Funds Job Training in the 1970s and 1980s

Prompted by Reagan-era budget cuts, a new program serving low-income single parents receiving public aid failed to meet its constituents’ needs.

Timeline: A Century of American Philanthropy’s Engagement with Race and Racism

Delving into a century of philanthropic engagement with race, from Reconstruction to the Civil Rights era.

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.

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.

1960s 1970s

Ted Watkins and the Rockefeller Foundation: An Unlikely Partnership

How a charismatic community activist from Watts challenged a foundation’s civil rights strategy through a jobs training program.

A room full of African-American students attending a lecture in 1955 as part of the United Negro Collection fund.