How to Remake America S8 | E9

Radical Candor: Communication at Work

Radical Candor

Careers, Relationships, Society & Culture, Business

4.7 • 740 Ratings

🗓️ 8 April 2026

⏱️ 45 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

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 Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Transcript

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0:00.0	Hello, everybody, and welcome to the Radical Sabatical Podcast, where I, Kim Scott,
0:11.7	am talking to the authors of the books I love. And one of the books that I love so, so much,
0:19.3	is The Radical Fund, written by John Witt. And with me today is
0:25.1	John Witt. Thank you so much for writing this book, John. You're welcome, Kim. I didn't do it for
0:33.0	you in particular, but I'm so glad to hear that you appreciate it. The thing, there are many things I love about this book, but one of the things that left me
0:42.5	with a sense of optimism is how similar, and in fact, much worse things were in the 20s and 30s,
0:50.2	and somehow people found a way to muddle through and to create a better world. So that's what I
0:58.5	love. What prompted you to write this book? What love prompted you to write it? It always is love
1:05.3	that prompts you to write a book. It does. It's not money. That's for sure. Well, sure. And so for me, I feel like my lifetime, I've born in like 72.
1:17.5	I feel like I watched the aspirations of an era of a civil rights movement and a labor movement that when I was born had accomplished things that just a generation
1:29.8	before were unthinkable.
1:31.6	Yeah.
1:32.1	And my lifetime has been watching those things on the ropes in playing defense and stumbling.
1:41.8	And this book is about a foundation that started a long time ago, the 1920s, a
1:47.1	century ago. And what they did was they put in, they set in motion the kinds of things that
1:52.2	formed the ideals of my childhood that have been, you know, in retreat ever since. And so this
1:57.4	foundation launched Brown against Board of Education, you know, the most important and famous 20th century Supreme Court case and also won a case that many of my students, I teach here at Yale Law School, many of my students are disillusioned about.
2:12.4	You know, it did not desegregate America.
2:16.2	Yeah.
2:16.8	It did in some dimensions, but we have tons of segregated.
2:21.1	And you see, you see the point. And so I wanted to get at the, at the origins of this project
2:27.2	that meant so much to me growing up and that I, you know, like so many other Americans,
	...

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