ANN ARBOR — A new University of Michigan analysis challenges the conventional wisdom that President Lyndon Johnson’s War on Poverty failed.
In the decade after Johnson declared “unconditional war on poverty,” poverty rates plummeted to reach their historic low of about 11 percent in 1973. Poverty rates were 19 percent in 1964. (more…)
Jack Turner, UW assistant professor of political science, is the author of “Awakening to Race: Individualism and Social Consciousness in America,” published this month by University of Chicago Press. He answered a few questions about his book for UW Today.
What’s the central concept behind “Awakening to Race”?
The book addresses the challenge of racial justice by asking, “What does it mean to be a self-aware human being? What does it mean to be awake to reality?”
In part, it means confronting the worst aspects of ourselves and our lives. Being awake to reality in the United States means confronting the ways America’s history of slavery, Jim Crow and white supremacy still shapes the present — the opportunities we have or we lack, the confidence we have in ourselves or fail to have in others, the ways our chances for success are still color coded. (more…)
