How to Remake America S8 | E9

Apr 8, 2026

John Witt, Yale law and history professor and author of The Radical Fund, explores the Garland Fund's role in supporting civil rights and labor movements. He traces landmark legal fights, labor education and interracial organizing. The conversation highlights how early philanthropic experiments seeded democratic and economic gains and what that history suggests for building solidarity today.

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INSIGHT

Small Foundation Seeding Big Democratic Change

The Garland Fund seeded long-term democratic reforms despite limited size by funding diverse experiments in labor, civil rights, and free speech.
Grants backed Brookwood Labor College, early ACLU cases, and groundwork that later aided Brown v. Board of Education.

ANECDOTE

Labor College Lineage To Civil Rights Leaders

Brookwood Labor College trained labor organizers and NAACP students, producing leaders like A.J. Muste who later inspired Martin Luther King.
Highlander Folk School's founder visited Brookwood before launching the school central to Southern civil rights.

INSIGHT

Industrial Democracy As A Path To Shared Prosperity

Sidney Hillman promoted industrial democracy: organizing workers by industry to bargain with large firms and capture mass-production gains for labor.
His ideas influenced New Deal policy and the Wagner Act through Brookwood College alumni.

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While the podcast team is taking a Radical Sabbatical, Kim is interviewing authors of the books that have had a big impact on her in the past two years.

Again we discuss the topic of wealth inequality and the accompanying concentration of political power. It is tempting to think that we live in an unprecedented era, and yet there are lessons to be learned from the past. Today, Kim talks to Professor John Witt of Yale Law School about his recent book, The Radical Fund. It is a fascinating story of The Garland Fund, established by Charles Garland in the early 1920s. The book takes us on a journey showing how the Garland Fund was able to lay the foundation for much less powerful groups in society to fight for their rights such as safe working conditions, free speech, and equal rights. And how those movements help drive the economic successes later in the 20th century. Kim and John discuss these lessons learned and how we can apply those lessons in our communities today.

Background on John Watt: John Witt is the Allen H. Duffy class of 1960 professor of law at Yale Law School and a professor in the Yale history department. He is the author of a number of books, including Lincoln’s Code, which was awarded the Bancroft Prize and was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize. His writing has appeared in The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, The Washington Post, The Atlantic, The Nation, and The New Republic, among other publications. He lives with his family in Connecticut where he tends an orchard, watches baseball, and fishes in the Long Island Sound.

Resources:

CHAPTERS:

(00:00) Introduction to the Radical Fund and Its Impact

(03:04) Historical Context of Civil Rights and Labor Movements

(06:12) The Role of the Foundation in Landmark Cases

(09:09) Sidney Hillman's Vision for Industrial Democracy

(12:04) The Evolution of Worker Participation in Capitalism

(15:07) Building Solidarity Across Demographics

(18:10) Lessons from History: The Importance of Unity

(21:05) James Weldon Johnson and the Quest for Democracy

(23:45) The Rise of W.E.B. Du Bois and the NAACP

(24:33) Collaboration Between Black Leaders and White Labor Unions

(26:02) The Power of Propaganda in Social Change

(30:24) The Role of Money and Foundations in Social Justice

(31:43) The Origins of the Garland Fund

(35:15) The Debate on Philanthropy and the 'Dead Hand' Problem

(37:27) Lessons from History: Economic Inequality and Social Change

(40:09) The Future of Democracy and Social Justice

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