Gabfest Reads | The Radical Fund That Rewired American Progress

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4.4 • 2K Ratings

🗓️ 18 October 2025

⏱️ 33 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Emily Bazelon talks with Yale law professor John Witt about his new book The Radical Fund: How a Band of Visionaries and a Million Dollars Upended America. They explore the remarkable story of the Garland Fund—a small 1920s foundation that bankrolled early work by A. Philip Randolph, and others who would go on to shape the civil rights and labor movements. Witt traces how the fund connected race and class politics, supported the intellectual groundwork for Brown v. Board of Education, and anticipated today’s challenges around misinformation, inequality, and political disconnection. He and Bazelon also discuss what lessons progressives might take from this forgotten story of organizing during political exile. Tweet us your questions @SlateGabfest or email us at [email protected]. (Messages could be quoted by name unless the writer stipulates otherwise.) Podcast production by Nina Porzucki. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Transcript

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1:24.4	Hello and welcome to GabFest Reeds for the month of October 2025.
1:29.3	I'm Emily Bazelan, one of the hosts of Slate's political GabFest.
1:58.9	I'm Emily today with John Witt, who is a law professor at Yale and the author of the new book, The Radical Fund, How a Band of Visionaries and a Million Dollars Upended America.
1:59.8	Hey, John.
2:01.1	Hi, I'm Blake. I'm so glad you're here. I have been hearing about this America. Hey, John. Hi, I'm Blaine.
2:02.7	I'm so glad you're here.
2:09.3	I have been hearing about this book in bits and pieces along the way and so enjoyed reading it.
	...

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