News & Updates
Reflections on Race, Class and Cumulative Adversity
"The Other Side of Black Lives Matter"
December 14, 2015
Several decades ago I spoke with a grieving mother living in one of the poorest inner-city neighborhoods on Chicago’s South Side... more
William Julius Wilson: Ending Poverty Is Possible
September 13, 2012
...He's a professor at Harvard's Kennedy School of Government. His landmark work, "The Truly Disadvantaged, the Inner City, the Underclass, and Public Policy," focused on the factors that contribute to the cycle of poverty and the conference is going to take a look at that report 25 years later. And he is with us now... more
The Real Test of Welfare Reform Still Lies Ahead
July 13, 2001
A significant question remains: To what extent are these positive outcomes related to the extraordinary economic boom in the late 90's and into 2000? ... more
At 80, W.J. Wilson, scholar of race and class, looks ahead
December 29, 2015
"When President Clinton introduced me, he proceeded to talk about my book 'The Truly Disadvantaged,' and all these national scientists saw that the president not only read my book but could talk about it and had been influenced by it," he says. Clinton knew the book so well he even mentioned the page count, 187... more
A Conversation with Coates, Western, and Edin
The Neighborhood Effect
November 05, 2012
It's unlikely that Jacqueline had heard of William Julius Wilson, but the experiment that would change her life traces its intellectual roots in part to the Harvard sociologist's 1987 book, The Truly Disadvantaged. Wilson upended urban research with his ideas about how cities had transformed in the post-civil-rights period... more
The Future of Black Politics
January 9, 2012
The pursuit of economic justice, as Dawson suggests, requires multiracial cooperation. Accordingly, to strengthen the foundation for multiracial cooperation, we need to... more
