thenation--2020-06-01--The Lost History of Southern Communism

The Lost History of Southern Communism

This is the firing line not simply for the emancipation of the American Negro but for the emancipation of the African Negro and the Negroes of the West Indies ; for the emancipation of the colored races ; and for the emancipation of the white slaves of modern capitalistic monopoly.
” W.E.B .
Du Bois delivered these lines before a large crowd in Columbia , S.C. , in the fall of 1946 .
The people gathered before him were neither strictly Marxist nor communist ; they were mostly members of the Southern Negro Youth Congress , which was founded in @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , and other disaffected groups across the South .
But no one in that audience was shocked by what he had to say .
For them , like Du Bois , breaking the back of Southern white supremacy required challenging and remaking the larger system of exploitative capitalism that had subjected black and white Southerners to centuries of injustice .
With the Congress of Industrial Organizations executing its Operation Dixie to organize industrial workers in the South that year and with African American veterans back from the war embarking on their own militant @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , Du Bois ’ s insistence that the South had become the center of a new battle for freedom was in no way far from the truth .
Part of the reason for this was that the struggle for civil rights and racial equality in the South had long been linked to activity in the economic sphere , where millions of white and black Southerners worked as sharecroppers and factory employees and in various low-wage jobs .
During the Depression , President Franklin D. Roosevelt called the region the “ nation ’ s @ @ @ @ @ @ @ and there had always been an undercurrent of Southern-based radicalism that sought wide-ranging change—not only civil and political rights but also economic and social ones .
To add to this , beginning in the 1930s , many of the leaders and organizers in the struggle against segregation and Jim Crow were members of the Communist Party or its fellow travelers .
From Harlem in New York City to Birmingham , Ala. , black and white Communists organized across racial and class lines throughout the Great Depression and World War II to fight fascism @ @ @ @ @ @ @ .
By the time the Southern Negro Youth Congress was organized , many involved in the burgeoning civil rights movement had been active in earlier Communist and Communist-affiliated groups .
Others who were radicalized by the trial of the Scottsboro Boys and the Angelo Herndon case were exposed to many radical economic ideas and felt a particular loyalty to the left , having witnessed in both trials the Communist Party backing lawyers to take up the cause of black civil and legal rights in the South .
So when Du Bois spoke before @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the mid-1940s , he was preaching to the choir , because an ever-growing number of radical Southerners already agreed with him that the struggle against white supremacy was a struggle against capitalism , too .
As Du Bois told them , the “ first and greatest…allies are the white working classes about you , ” which had also been exploited by wealthy capitalists interested in dividing the South ’ s working class .
Mary Stanton ’ s new book , Red , Black , White : The Alabama Communist Party , 1930–1950 , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ of one of the party ’ s most important sections : District 17 , a regional unit of the national party that was headquartered in industrial Birmingham and sought to coordinate efforts to organize white and black Southerners in Alabama , Tennessee , and Georgia .
During the Depression , World War II , and the early postwar years , the group was at the forefront of the struggle throughout the Deep South against police brutality , lynchings , and anti-free-speech laws .
In terms of the number of members , it often @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Allen , a Communist organizer who wrote the memoir Organizing in the Depression South , estimated that in 1931 the party had fewer than 500 members in Alabama , Tennessee , Georgia , the Carolinas , and Virginia .
By chronicling the party ’ s successful efforts to establish a foothold in Alabama during the 1930s and ’ 40s , Stanton shows us that Communist organizers adopted a variety of organizing tools and resources—including the International Labor Defense ( ILD ) , the American section of the Comintern ’ s legal arm—in order @ @ @ @ @ @ @ freedom in court .
Highlighting how these black and white Communists built a multiracial movement through a series of highly publicized trials , Stanton illuminates how Communists in Alabama and elsewhere in the United States used the law not only to bring international attention to the worst of Jim Crow segregation but also to build solidarity across race and class lines .
By doing the hard work of pursuing a legal strategy closely tied to a media strategy of publicizing numerous social injustices , Alabama Communists helped lay the foundation for the organized @ @ @ @ @ @ @ late 1940s and early ’ 50s .
Based primarily in Northern cities , the Communist Party started to plan its organizing campaign in the South in the early 1930s , a new view of the South as a key area of activism that Harry Haywood , a prominent black Communist based in Chicago , promulgated in The Communist in his 1933 essay “ The Struggle for the Leninist Position on the Negro Question in the United States.
” His 1948 book Negro Liberation insisted , among other things , that American radicals needed @ @ @ @ @ @ @ for black political and economic rights in the so-called Black Belt , the fertile land sweeping south from Virginia through the heart of the former Confederacy to Louisiana .
There “ a nation within a nation ” stood , and Communists , Haywood argued , could join in its struggle for self-determination—and by doing so build a base for revolution .
Haywood ’ s arguments made a profound impression on his fellow Communists , both black and white , in the North .
He first came across this idea while living in the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the autonomous republics within the USSR , which provided a model for what he desired for African Americans in the South .
The Depression only sharpened this insight .
Hoping to expand the party ’ s membership and reach in the rest of the United States , Haywood saw an opportunity to do just that by organizing the South .
However , as the Communist organizers arrived in different Southern cities , they found that they had to make changes on the fly to the idea Haywood promoted .
As Stanton tells us @ @ @ @ @ @ @ miners , and industrial workers they encountered did not want to opt out of the system but rather to opt into it : They wanted “ to participate in the nation ’ s prosperity , to claim constitutional guarantees , and to assume a rightful place in society.
” This discovery left a profound mark on early Communist organizers and shaped much of the work they did in the South and in the North as well .
Instead of focusing on an all-out revolution against Jim Crow ’ s entrenched segregation , they @ @ @ @ @ @ @ economic , political , and legal rights .
Rather than a violent overthrow of the system , they mostly attempted to use various means of protest to win major victories on behalf of social and political reform .
Nationally , the Communists accepted this Popular Front approach , seeking to pursue social justice in all of its manifestations , and the experience of the Alabama Communists played an important role in shaping this evolution in American Communist thinking and in helping the party , as its vanguard , test the applications of this @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , after all , made up a considerable part of District 17 .
The threats these activists and their allies faced were stark .
Even at the height of its popularity during the Great Depression , it was risky being a member of the Communist Party anywhere in the country , and organizing for civil rights and economic reform in Alabama was an even more dangerous prospect .
District 17 became ground zero for the new reformism that ran through the party .
Communists there could become active in both civil rights and @ @ @ @ @ @ @ to black and white Southerners alike , form trade unions , and provide them with legal defense .
As a result , they were a constant target of harassment and beatings , so much so that Stanton compares District 17 to “ a firehouse—in a perennial state of emergency , running on adrenalin.
” Stanton begins Red , Black , White with the infamous Scottsboro Boys trial .
In 1931 , nine young African American men were accused by two white women of raping them while they rode on a train traveling through @ @ @ @ @ @ @ initially reluctant to take the case , so the ILD rushed to the Scottsboro Boys ’ defense .
The case soon rocketed to international prominence , primarily because of the unrelenting efforts of local Communist activists and the ILD ’ s skillful use of publicity .
Eventually , the state gave posthumous pardons to several of the young men—Ozie Powell , Haywood Patterson , Charlie Weems , Andy Wright .
The achievements of the ILD helped the Communist Party build some support among African Americans across the country , and Stanton traces how @ @ @ @ @ @ @ of District 17 used it to fuel activist campaigns throughout the Deep South .
Even with the ILD ’ s organizing , however , the Birmingham organizers struggled to craft a party structure that was able to withstand the heat of the anti-communism and anti-black racism that pervaded Alabama ’ s political system in the 1930s and ’ 40s .
The party organization that had been developed in the North proved important in supporting the party ’ s efforts in the South .
Faced with laws explicitly designed to crack down on radical @ @ @ @ @ @ @ to defend the organizers and helped publicize their cases .
But District 17 often found that it had to innovate its own tactics : investigating the lynchings and other murders of African Americans in the state , organizing local sharecropper unions and a reading group , and enlisting sympathetic local lawyers .
The Inner Life of American Communism Stanton also discusses District 17 ’ s attempts to investigate police brutality in cities like Memphis in the 1930s .
The hostility that the Communist organizers faced was attributable to their radical stance on racial @ @ @ @ @ @ @ to organize Southern workers .
They were operating in a one-party system that constantly monitored and suppressed all forms of radical organizing , and the ghosts of the past haunted their work .
In 1919 in Elaine , Ark.
, radicals were victims of the Red Summer racial pogrom sparked by attempts to organize black sharecroppers .
The struggles of union workers in Gastonia , N.C. , in 1929 and the collapse of the textile workers ’ strike in 1934 likewise showed how hostile Southern authorities were to any labor organizing , and @ @ @ @ @ @ @ a variety of tactics untested in the North .
Often stretched thin trying to help out wherever they could , they ended up having to live in a state of what Stanton calls “ mind-numbing fear , ” but they nonetheless persevered and helped thousands in the American South make their desires for freedom known across the world .
While offering us a close view of local organizing , Stanton never loses sight of the larger story of American communism .
She also situates District 17 ’ s activism within a larger history @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Deep South that helped plant the seeds for the civil rights movement of the 1950s and ’ 60s .
The members of District 17 and the people they served recognized that theirs was but a local phase of a much broader worldwide struggle against not just fascism but all forms of imperialist and racist domination .
Du Bois was not alone in making the connections between local struggles against Jim Crow and international struggles against capitalism .
Black Southerners defended Ethiopia after it was invaded by Italy in 1935 and journeyed to Spain @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the Spanish Civil War .
They all saw their fight as the same one , against the same enemy , on multiple fronts .
As Stanton shows near the end of the book , the forces of reaction in the South were aware of this larger struggle , too , even as their attempts to crush the Communists and drive back interracial organizing became more successful in the postwar years , when Northerners and Southerners alike targeted labor and socialist organizers across the country , essentially forcing the left underground .
The Second @ @ @ @ @ @ @ 50s dealt some severe blows , but the Communist Party left a legacy of grassroots organizing and agitation that would become part of the broader civil rights movement of the 1950s and ’ 60s .
Other books have covered at least a portion of this terrain before .
Robin D.G .
Kelley ’ s landmark Hammer and Hoe : Alabama Communists During the Great Depression is the best-known work on the party ’ s operations in Alabama in this period .
Glenda Gilmore ’ s Defying Dixie , John Egerton ’ s Speak @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Sullivan ’ s Days of Hope also note that the fight against Jim Crow did not begin with the Supreme Court ’ s decision in Brown v. Board of Education .
Taken together , these books tell a rich story that is often neglected or minimized in the mainstream narratives of Southern history .
By excavating the roots of civil rights activism in the South that reach back to the 1930s , they remind us that the struggle for political and civil rights there was almost always twinned with the struggle for economic @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Communists played in the civil rights movement of the postwar years is often suppressed or glossed over , if mentioned at all .
Red , Black , White prompts us to remember a different Southern past , and Stanton shows us the more practical and down-to-earth nature of Communist organizing in the South as well .
The party ’ s activists arrived in the region with an ideological view of class struggle but adapted their tactics and strategy after listening to people on the ground .
“ Pessimism of the intellect but optimism @ @ @ @ @ @ @ phrase coined by the Italian Marxist Antonio Gramsci , but it could just as easily have been uttered by Alabama ’ s Communists , both those from the South and those who traveled there to help organize it .
These Communists risked nearly everything , and they did so knowing full well that their ideals might never be realized in their lifetimes .
But they nonetheless persisted .
Whether trying to save someone from lynching or struggling to organize workers in a Birmingham steel plant , it was , for nearly all of @ @ @ @ @ @ @ death .

This article appears in the June 15/22, 2020 issue.
“This is the firing line not simply for the emancipation of the American Negro but for the emancipation of the African Negro and the Negroes of the West Indies; for the emancipation of the colored races; and for the emancipation of the white slaves of modern capitalistic monopoly.” W.E.B. Du Bois delivered these lines before a large crowd in Columbia, S.C., in the fall of 1946. The people gathered before him were neither strictly Marxist nor communist; they were mostly members of the Southern Negro Youth Congress, which was founded in 1937 to organize young people, workers, and other disaffected groups across the South. But no one in that audience was shocked by what he had to say. For them, like Du Bois, breaking the back of Southern white supremacy required challenging and remaking the larger system of exploitative capitalism that had subjected black and white Southerners to centuries of injustice. With the Congress of Industrial Organizations executing its Operation Dixie to organize industrial workers in the South that year and with African American veterans back from the war embarking on their own militant and heroic struggle for human rights there, Du Bois’s insistence that the South had become the center of a new battle for freedom was in no way far from the truth. Books in Review Red, Black, White: The Alabama Communist Party, 1930–1950 By Mary Stanton Buy this book
Part of the reason for this was that the struggle for civil rights and racial equality in the South had long been linked to activity in the economic sphere, where millions of white and black Southerners worked as sharecroppers and factory employees and in various low-wage jobs. During the Depression, President Franklin D. Roosevelt called the region the “nation’s No. 1 economic problem,” and there had always been an undercurrent of Southern-based radicalism that sought wide-ranging change—not only civil and political rights but also economic and social ones.
To add to this, beginning in the 1930s, many of the leaders and organizers in the struggle against segregation and Jim Crow were members of the Communist Party or its fellow travelers. From Harlem in New York City to Birmingham, Ala., black and white Communists organized across racial and class lines throughout the Great Depression and World War II to fight fascism abroad and hunger and racism at home. By the time the Southern Negro Youth Congress was organized, many involved in the burgeoning civil rights movement had been active in earlier Communist and Communist-affiliated groups. Others who were radicalized by the trial of the Scottsboro Boys and the Angelo Herndon case were exposed to many radical economic ideas and felt a particular loyalty to the left, having witnessed in both trials the Communist Party backing lawyers to take up the cause of black civil and legal rights in the South.
So when Du Bois spoke before a crowd of young black activists in the mid-1940s, he was preaching to the choir, because an ever-growing number of radical Southerners already agreed with him that the struggle against white supremacy was a struggle against capitalism, too. As Du Bois told them, the “first and greatest…allies are the white working classes about you,” which had also been exploited by wealthy capitalists interested in dividing the South’s working class.
Mary Stanton’s new book, Red, Black, White: The Alabama Communist Party, 1930–1950, helps recover this history through the story of one of the party’s most important sections: District 17, a regional unit of the national party that was headquartered in industrial Birmingham and sought to coordinate efforts to organize white and black Southerners in Alabama, Tennessee, and Georgia. During the Depression, World War II, and the early postwar years, the group was at the forefront of the struggle throughout the Deep South against police brutality, lynchings, and anti-free-speech laws. In terms of the number of members, it often punched above its weight: James S. Allen, a Communist organizer who wrote the memoir Organizing in the Depression South, estimated that in 1931 the party had fewer than 500 members in Alabama, Tennessee, Georgia, the Carolinas, and Virginia. By chronicling the party’s successful efforts to establish a foothold in Alabama during the 1930s and ’40s, Stanton shows us that Communist organizers adopted a variety of organizing tools and resources—including the International Labor Defense (ILD), the American section of the Comintern’s legal arm—in order to win black Americans their rights and freedom in court. Highlighting how these black and white Communists built a multiracial movement through a series of highly publicized trials, Stanton illuminates how Communists in Alabama and elsewhere in the United States used the law not only to bring international attention to the worst of Jim Crow segregation but also to build solidarity across race and class lines. By doing the hard work of pursuing a legal strategy closely tied to a media strategy of publicizing numerous social injustices, Alabama Communists helped lay the foundation for the organized civil rights movement that emerged in the late 1940s and early ’50s. Popular "swipe left below to view more authors"Swipe → The Evisceration of a Public University The Evisceration of a Public University Lisa M. Corrigan The Patronizing Moralism of David Brooks The Patronizing Moralism of David Brooks Chris Lehmann “The Blind Side” Was Always Trash “The Blind Side” Was Always Trash Dave Zirin How the “Brooks Brothers Riot” Set the Stage for Insurrection How the “Brooks Brothers Riot” Set the Stage for Insurrection Chris Lehmann Popular "swipe left below to view more authors"Swipe → The Evisceration of a Public University The Evisceration of a Public University Lisa M. Corrigan The Patronizing Moralism of David Brooks The Patronizing Moralism of David Brooks Chris Lehmann “The Blind Side” Was Always Trash “The Blind Side” Was Always Trash Dave Zirin How the “Brooks Brothers Riot” Set the Stage for Insurrection How the “Brooks Brothers Riot” Set the Stage for Insurrection Chris Lehmann
Based primarily in Northern cities, the Communist Party started to plan its organizing campaign in the South in the early 1930s, a new view of the South as a key area of activism that Harry Haywood, a prominent black Communist based in Chicago, promulgated in The Communist in his 1933 essay “The Struggle for the Leninist Position on the Negro Question in the United States.” His 1948 book Negro Liberation insisted, among other things, that American radicals needed to turn their attention to the fight for black political and economic rights in the so-called Black Belt, the fertile land sweeping south from Virginia through the heart of the former Confederacy to Louisiana. There “a nation within a nation” stood, and Communists, Haywood argued, could join in its struggle for self-determination—and by doing so build a base for revolution.
Haywood’s arguments made a profound impression on his fellow Communists, both black and white, in the North. He first came across this idea while living in the Soviet Union during the 1920s and seeing the autonomous republics within the USSR, which provided a model for what he desired for African Americans in the South. The Depression only sharpened this insight. Hoping to expand the party’s membership and reach in the rest of the United States, Haywood saw an opportunity to do just that by organizing the South. Current Issue View our current issue
However, as the Communist organizers arrived in different Southern cities, they found that they had to make changes on the fly to the idea Haywood promoted. As Stanton tells us, many of the black sharecroppers, miners, and industrial workers they encountered did not want to opt out of the system but rather to opt into it: They wanted “to participate in the nation’s prosperity, to claim constitutional guarantees, and to assume a rightful place in society.” This discovery left a profound mark on early Communist organizers and shaped much of the work they did in the South and in the North as well. Instead of focusing on an all-out revolution against Jim Crow’s entrenched segregation, they sought to help black Americans win their economic, political, and legal rights. Rather than a violent overthrow of the system, they mostly attempted to use various means of protest to win major victories on behalf of social and political reform.
Nationally, the Communists accepted this Popular Front approach, seeking to pursue social justice in all of its manifestations, and the experience of the Alabama Communists played an important role in shaping this evolution in American Communist thinking and in helping the party, as its vanguard, test the applications of this new approach. The Alabama Communist Party, after all, made up a considerable part of District 17. The threats these activists and their allies faced were stark. Even at the height of its popularity during the Great Depression, it was risky being a member of the Communist Party anywhere in the country, and organizing for civil rights and economic reform in Alabama was an even more dangerous prospect. District 17 became ground zero for the new reformism that ran through the party. Communists there could become active in both civil rights and labor organizing; they could reach out to black and white Southerners alike, form trade unions, and provide them with legal defense. As a result, they were a constant target of harassment and beatings, so much so that Stanton compares District 17 to “a firehouse—in a perennial state of emergency, running on adrenalin.”
Stanton begins Red, Black, White with the infamous Scottsboro Boys trial. In 1931, nine young African American men were accused by two white women of raping them while they rode on a train traveling through Tennessee and Alabama. The NAACP was initially reluctant to take the case, so the ILD rushed to the Scottsboro Boys’ defense. The case soon rocketed to international prominence, primarily because of the unrelenting efforts of local Communist activists and the ILD’s skillful use of publicity. Eventually, the state gave posthumous pardons to several of the young men—Ozie Powell, Haywood Patterson, Charlie Weems, Andy Wright.
The achievements of the ILD helped the Communist Party build some support among African Americans across the country, and Stanton traces how Communist organizers in Birmingham and the rest of District 17 used it to fuel activist campaigns throughout the Deep South. Even with the ILD’s organizing, however, the Birmingham organizers struggled to craft a party structure that was able to withstand the heat of the anti-communism and anti-black racism that pervaded Alabama’s political system in the 1930s and ’40s. The party organization that had been developed in the North proved important in supporting the party’s efforts in the South. Faced with laws explicitly designed to crack down on radical organizing, the national party sent lawyers to defend the organizers and helped publicize their cases. But District 17 often found that it had to innovate its own tactics: investigating the lynchings and other murders of African Americans in the state, organizing local sharecropper unions and a reading group, and enlisting sympathetic local lawyers. Related Article The Inner Life of American Communism Corey Robin
Stanton also discusses District 17’s attempts to investigate police brutality in cities like Memphis in the 1930s. The hostility that the Communist organizers faced was attributable to their radical stance on racial equality as well as to their attempts to organize Southern workers. They were operating in a one-party system that constantly monitored and suppressed all forms of radical organizing, and the ghosts of the past haunted their work. In 1919 in Elaine, Ark., radicals were victims of the Red Summer racial pogrom sparked by attempts to organize black sharecroppers.
The struggles of union workers in Gastonia, N.C., in 1929 and the collapse of the textile workers’ strike in 1934 likewise showed how hostile Southern authorities were to any labor organizing, and many Communists there were forced to try a variety of tactics untested in the North. Often stretched thin trying to help out wherever they could, they ended up having to live in a state of what Stanton calls “mind-numbing fear,” but they nonetheless persevered and helped thousands in the American South make their desires for freedom known across the world.
While offering us a close view of local organizing, Stanton never loses sight of the larger story of American communism. She also situates District 17’s activism within a larger history of radical activism and protest in the Deep South that helped plant the seeds for the civil rights movement of the 1950s and ’60s. The members of District 17 and the people they served recognized that theirs was but a local phase of a much broader worldwide struggle against not just fascism but all forms of imperialist and racist domination. Du Bois was not alone in making the connections between local struggles against Jim Crow and international struggles against capitalism. Black Southerners defended Ethiopia after it was invaded by Italy in 1935 and journeyed to Spain to fight Franco’s forces in the Spanish Civil War. They all saw their fight as the same one, against the same enemy, on multiple fronts.
As Stanton shows near the end of the book, the forces of reaction in the South were aware of this larger struggle, too, even as their attempts to crush the Communists and drive back interracial organizing became more successful in the postwar years, when Northerners and Southerners alike targeted labor and socialist organizers across the country, essentially forcing the left underground. The Second Red Scare of the 1940s and ’50s dealt some severe blows, but the Communist Party left a legacy of grassroots organizing and agitation that would become part of the broader civil rights movement of the 1950s and ’60s.
Other books have covered at least a portion of this terrain before. Robin D.G. Kelley’s landmark Hammer and Hoe: Alabama Communists During the Great Depression is the best-known work on the party’s operations in Alabama in this period. Glenda Gilmore’s Defying Dixie, John Egerton’s Speak Now Against the Day, and Patricia Sullivan’s Days of Hope also note that the fight against Jim Crow did not begin with the Supreme Court’s decision in Brown v. Board of Education. Taken together, these books tell a rich story that is often neglected or minimized in the mainstream narratives of Southern history. By excavating the roots of civil rights activism in the South that reach back to the 1930s, they remind us that the struggle for political and civil rights there was almost always twinned with the struggle for economic and social rights.
The role that Communists played in the civil rights movement of the postwar years is often suppressed or glossed over, if mentioned at all. Red, Black, White prompts us to remember a different Southern past, and Stanton shows us the more practical and down-to-earth nature of Communist organizing in the South as well. The party’s activists arrived in the region with an ideological view of class struggle but adapted their tactics and strategy after listening to people on the ground. “Pessimism of the intellect but optimism of the will” is the memorable phrase coined by the Italian Marxist Antonio Gramsci, but it could just as easily have been uttered by Alabama’s Communists, both those from the South and those who traveled there to help organize it. These Communists risked nearly everything, and they did so knowing full well that their ideals might never be realized in their lifetimes. But they nonetheless persisted. Whether trying to save someone from lynching or struggling to organize workers in a Birmingham steel plant, it was, for nearly all of them, a matter of life or death.


thenation--2020-06-01--New Beginnings: Time to Think Big!

New Beginnings: Time to Think Big!

This should be a start-from-scratch moment .
The pandemic is not just a health crisis .
It has made clear what Nation readers already know : A tiny elite in the US siphons off the wealth while most people struggle from paycheck to paycheck .
Since mid-March , America ’ s billionaires have increased their combined net worth by $ 434 billion—even as nearly 40 million workers have lost their jobs and some 100,000 people here have died from Covid-19 .
The dead are disproportionately black , Latinx , and Native .
This isn ’ t surprising ; this is @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Nation contributing writer Zoë Carpenter argues in this issue , “ While Covid-19 is novel , its impact at the community level was predictable.
” With this crisis , working people can see the fragility and cruelty inherent in our systems of health care , housing , and employment in the US .
But it is up to the left to translate this collective outrage into the building blocks of a more just society .
Nation contributing editor Mike Davis starts our “ Time to Think Big ” special issue with news of @ @ @ @ @ @ @ for profits or endanger family members , rank-and-file workers have rebelled on a scale not seen since the early 1970s.
” From bus drivers in Detroit and poultry workers in Georgia to fast food workers in Chicago and nurses across the country , we ’ re seeing “ not just the stirrings of revolt , ” he writes , “ but an ever-broadening insurgency led from the grass roots.
” The populist anger is there , ripe for political transformation , notes Nation strikes correspondent Jane McAlevey .
She argues that the left @ @ @ @ @ @ @ government spending—and that means taxing the rich .
In order to deliver a Green New Deal , Medicare for All , and tuition-free college education , progressives need to build a mass movement targeted at eliminating austerity politics .
Meanwhile , The Nation ’ s justice correspondent ( and humorist ) , Elie Mystal , questions why Americans have “ remained tied to an Industrial Revolution idea of workers showing up to the giant widget place so an overseer can motivate them to produce profits.
” The bonus of radically changing this paradigm @ @ @ @ @ @ @ at 7 in New York City , the US epicenter of Covid-19 , residents bang pots and applaud to thank essential workers , including nurses , child care providers , and home health aides .
But as Nation contributing writer Bryce Covert explains , “ Just because we ’ re finally calling care workers heroes doesn ’ t mean we ’ re willing to pay them more.
” So what will it take ?
Covert reports on organizing efforts to demand that society finally value their labor .
Essential workers would surely benefit @ @ @ @ @ @ @ remains “ paralyzed , ” longtime labor activist Bill Fletcher Jr. writes .
He criticizes large trade unions for protecting their own shrinking fiefs , just when an inclusive workers ’ movement is needed most .
Right now , labor isn ’ t getting much support from the Democratic Party .
According to national affairs correspondent John Nichols , “ Democrats once dreamed the biggest dreams : of thwarting the politics of hatred and…achieving economic and social and racial justice and peace and prosperity.
” Today , however , they ’ re a @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , and marginal corrections to capitalism .
He argues that if the party is to transform America , it must embrace the vision of a bolder , more expansive New Deal championed by Franklin Roosevelt ’ s popular vice president Henry Wallace .
Finally , Julian Brave NoiseCat interprets another , far older American legacy .
He writes that “ us Natives , ” having survived pandemics and so much else , are a “ postapocalyptic people ” who “ have something to lend to a broader humanity that now faces its own @ @ @ @ @ @ @ and climate change.
” Indian Country is NoiseCat ’ s model for emerging from this cataclysm with the full knowledge of who you are , where you ’ re from , and what you stand for .

EDITOR’S NOTE: The Nation believes that helping readers stay informed about the impact of the coronavirus crisis is a form of public service. For that reason, this article, and all of our coronavirus coverage, is now free. Please subscribe to support our writers and staff, and stay healthy.
This article appears in the June 15/22, 2020 issue.
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This should be a start-from-scratch moment. The pandemic is not just a health crisis. It has made clear what Nation readers already know: A tiny elite in the US siphons off the wealth while most people struggle from paycheck to paycheck. Since mid-March, America’s billionaires have increased their combined net worth by $434 billion—even as nearly 40 million workers have lost their jobs and some 100,000 people here have died from Covid-19. The dead are disproportionately black, Latinx, and Native. This isn’t surprising; this is how tragedies go in America. As Nation contributing writer Zoë Carpenter argues in this issue, “While Covid-19 is novel, its impact at the community level was predictable.”
With this crisis, working people can see the fragility and cruelty inherent in our systems of health care, housing, and employment in the US. But it is up to the left to translate this collective outrage into the building blocks of a more just society.
Nation contributing editor Mike Davis starts our “Time to Think Big” special issue with news of worker-led uprisings: “Refusing to die for profits or endanger family members, rank-and-file workers have rebelled on a scale not seen since the early 1970s.” From bus drivers in Detroit and poultry workers in Georgia to fast food workers in Chicago and nurses across the country, we’re seeing “not just the stirrings of revolt,” he writes, “but an ever-broadening insurgency led from the grass roots.”
The populist anger is there, ripe for political transformation, notes Nation strikes correspondent Jane McAlevey. She argues that the left’s big ideas will require massive government spending—and that means taxing the rich. In order to deliver a Green New Deal, Medicare for All, and tuition-free college education, progressives need to build a mass movement targeted at eliminating austerity politics.
Meanwhile, The Nation’s justice correspondent (and humorist), Elie Mystal, questions why Americans have “remained tied to an Industrial Revolution idea of workers showing up to the giant widget place so an overseer can motivate them to produce profits.” The bonus of radically changing this paradigm: no more commuting.
Every evening at 7 in New York City, the US epicenter of Covid-19, residents bang pots and applaud to thank essential workers, including nurses, child care providers, and home health aides. But as Nation contributing writer Bryce Covert explains, “Just because we’re finally calling care workers heroes doesn’t mean we’re willing to pay them more.” So what will it take? Covert reports on organizing efforts to demand that society finally value their labor.
Essential workers would surely benefit from strong unions, yet organized labor remains “paralyzed,” longtime labor activist Bill Fletcher Jr. writes. He criticizes large trade unions for protecting their own shrinking fiefs, just when an inclusive workers’ movement is needed most.
Right now, labor isn’t getting much support from the Democratic Party. According to national affairs correspondent John Nichols, “Democrats once dreamed the biggest dreams: of thwarting the politics of hatred and…achieving economic and social and racial justice and peace and prosperity.” Today, however, they’re a party of tax credits, means testing, and marginal corrections to capitalism. He argues that if the party is to transform America, it must embrace the vision of a bolder, more expansive New Deal championed by Franklin Roosevelt’s popular vice president Henry Wallace.
Finally, Julian Brave NoiseCat interprets another, far older American legacy. He writes that “us Natives,” having survived pandemics and so much else, are a “postapocalyptic people” who “have something to lend to a broader humanity that now faces its own existential crises in the form of disease and climate change.” Indian Country is NoiseCat’s model for emerging from this cataclysm with the full knowledge of who you are, where you’re from, and what you stand for.


thenation--2020-06-01--Will Covid-19 Be a Turning Point in the Fight Against Racial Disparities in Health Care?

Jason Hargrove was driving a bus through the West Side of Detroit when one of his passengers began to cough , failing to cover her mouth .
It was March 21 , and Covid-19 was spreading through cities across the United States .
Hargrove was rattled .
“ Hey , look , ” he said in a Facebook Live video taken on his lunch break , which quickly racked up tens of thousands of views .
“ This coronavirus shit is for real , and we [ are ] out here as public workers doing our jobs , trying to @ @ @ @ @ @ @ of our families… .
That shit was uncalled for .
I feel violated.
” 1 A few days later , he developed a fever and told his wife , Desha Johnson-Hargrove , he felt “ kind of off.
” Soon after , he was sick enough that she took him to a hospital .
He was sent home with orders to self-quarantine .
He kept getting sicker .
When his fingertips turned blue , she took him back to the hospital .
The staffers sent him home again .
“ They said that @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , ” she later told a journalist .
By March 29 , he was struggling to breathe , and she took him to the hospital a third time .
She never saw him alive again .
It was only when she called to check on him that she learned her husband was dead.2 Hargrove ’ s death underscored the hazards that blue-collar essential workers face from the virus .
In Detroit and across America , those workers are disproportionately people of color .
Elder Leslie Mathews , a Detroit resident and an organizer @ @ @ @ @ @ @ checkered effect as people began to self-isolate in March .
“ White people working in these upscale type of [ jobs ] , they begin to disappear .
And the black and brown people are the frontline workers.
” Rumors had spread that black people couldn ’ t contract the virus , and when better information came out , “ it was literally too late .
It hit like an atomic bomb .
It just came out of nowhere .
And then next thing you know , hundreds of people are sick.
” @ @ @ @ @ @ @ have died from Covid-19 in Michigan so far were black , though they make up only 14 percent of the state ’ s population .
Nationally , one analysis found that black Americans have died from the virus at 2.4 times the rate of white Americans , and Hispanic and Native Americans have been infected at elevated rates in a number of states .
Mathews has lost friends and relatives to Covid-19 , including her ex-husband , who died after being discharged from a hospital .
“ He seems like he ’ s @ @ @ @ @ @ @ dead within a week , ” she said .
“ And then the next week his mother died .
I ’ m looking at my Facebook , and every time you scroll , ‘ Rest in peace .
Rest in peace .
Rest in peace.
’ ” She estimated that at least 10 of her high school friends have died in recent weeks .
“ I ’ m used to being a person who can help people , guide people through the loss of their loved ones and mourn .
This Covid-19 literally @ @ @ @ @ @ @ 4 As the pandemic spread , states and the federal government were slow to release demographic data showing who was getting sick and who was dying .
Once the racial disparities became indisputable , public officials across the political spectrum declared the statistics unacceptable .
“ They ’ re very nasty numbers .
Terrible numbers , ” President Trump said at an April 7 press conference .
But what are they willing to do to change them ?
5 Many public health experts are hopeful that the vast scale of the crisis will @ @ @ @ @ @ @ inequities , which have been persistent and well documented in America for well over a century .
Dr. Clyde W. Yancy of Northwestern University ’ s Feinberg School of Medicine recently described this as “ a moment of ethical reckoning.
” “ There is a sense that this is getting more media attention than other disparities , and I ’ m hoping that when all is said and done , there is special attention and funding and resources paid to these issues , ” said Uché Blackstock , an emergency physician in New @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the consulting practice Advancing Health Equity.6 But as states begin reopening businesses and relaxing social distancing guidelines , there is still nothing resembling a coordinated effort to address the pandemic , much less its disparate impact .
“ I think that people have become very numb to black communities suffering , ” Blackstock said in late April .
“ What can we do right now , structurally , to mitigate the effect of this dangerous virus ?
I haven ’ t heard that .
I haven ’ t heard a solutions piece.
” @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , civil rights groups and organizers like Mathews are working to get immediate relief to vulnerable communities while pressing elected officials to center racial equity in their policy responses to the pandemic .
“ People are angry , ” said Mathews , who has been leading virtual town halls with Detroit residents .
“ I believe that there is a great awakening now.
” 8 While Covid-19 is novel , its impact at the community level was predictable : Whether from infection , chronic disease , or natural disasters , people of color @ @ @ @ @ @ @ .
The idea of Covid-19 as “ the great equalizer ” was not only an inaccurate assumption but also a damaging one .
Taking a colorblind approach to the virus meant that public officials missed early opportunities to blunt its lopsided impact.9 The most obvious missed opportunity was in not making testing widely available , especially in vulnerable communities .
Initially , testing was limited to people who had traveled to countries where the virus was prevalent , including China and Iran , or who had been in close contact with someone who @ @ @ @ @ @ @ was very clear to me from the outset that that excluded certain patients , and those were mostly black patients in the neighborhoods that I work in , ” said Blackstock , who practices in central Brooklyn.10 New Beginnings : Time to Think Big !
More in this series Most states are not reporting demographic data for testing , but in Illinois , which does , black residents received fewer than 10 percent of Covid-19 tests as of May 22 , though they accounted for 30 percent of deaths and 17 percent of @ @ @ @ @ @ @ analysis by Drexel University epidemiologist Usama Bilal found that people living in higher-income zip codes were tested at almost six times the rate that residents of poorer areas were .
Ala Stanford , a pediatric surgeon , grew so frustrated by the limited diagnostics in the city that she and other volunteers formed the Black Doctors Covid-19 Consortium , which has offered free testing in church parking lots and people ’ s homes.11 Under pressure , some state and city officials , including in New York City and Florida ’ s Broward County @ @ @ @ @ @ @ neighborhoods .
In Detroit , officials opened a drive-through site on state fairgrounds .
But more than a third of Detroit residents don ’ t have a car , presenting another hurdle , which the city tried to navigate by signing up taxi companies to give $ 2 rides to the site.12 In addition to testing and demographic data , a priority for many grassroots groups has been reducing the number of people in jails , prisons , and immigration detention centers , where access to soap , other cleaning supplies , and @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the ACLU , African Americans make up more than half the prison population in several states with big racial gaps in their rates of Covid-related infections , including Michigan , Illinois , and Louisiana .
Again , the response has been scattershot : While many local governments have reduced the number of people in jail by 25 percent or more , according to the Prison Policy Initiative , state prisons have released “ almost no one.
” The organization ’ s Emily Widra and Peter Wagner write , “ For the most part @ @ @ @ @ @ @ simplest and least controversial steps , like refusing admissions for technical violations of probation and parole rules , and to release those that are already in confinement for those same technical violations.
” Meanwhile , more than 1,100 detainees in Immigration and Customs Enforcement custody have tested positive for Covid-19—almost half of those who have been tested.13 Workplace protections are another area where political leaders could do more to mitigate the spread of the virus .
“ The idea that we don ’ t have guaranteed wages , [ universal ] hazard pay… @ @ @ @ @ @ @ sure that workers have safe conditions—none of that stuff is in place to protect those that are most susceptible to this virus and are the least able to access health care , ” said Dr. Sharrelle Barber , a social epidemiologist at Drexel University and a coordinator of the Poor People ’ s Campaign ’ s newly formed Covid-19 Health Justice Advisory Committee .
Nearly one-fourth of civilian workers in the United States have no paid sick days , and while the federal coronavirus response package passed in March provided two weeks of @ @ @ @ @ @ @ companies with more than 500 people or fewer than 50 are exempt , a loophole that leaves out millions of workers .
“ Almost all around , we ’ ve left communities to fend for themselves , ” Barber said .
“ It ’ s been just really frustrating , really infuriating , to watch the level of neglect we ’ re seeing.
” 14 With no coordination or strategy happening at the federal level , various states and cities have set up task forces to study and propose responses to the asymmetrical @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the formation of a Racial Equity Rapid Response Team in early April in partnership with West Side United , aiming to “ bring a hyper local public health strategy to targeted communities.
” Michigan and Louisiana have established statewide task forces .
At the federal level , Senator Kamala Harris introduced a bill that would require the Department of Health and Human Services to create a racial and ethnic disparities task force.15 It ’ s unclear whether these expert panels will have an impact .
“ The primary function of this task force @ @ @ @ @ @ @ long , protracted process of deliberation and study , dwelling on how we got here , ” New York City Public Advocate Jumaane Williams said in response to the formation of a city task force .
“ Ultimately , we need results , not a report , ” Andre Perry , a fellow at the Brookings Institution , told me .
“ I get invited to racial equity task forces all the time , and while I love doing research , research is not needed in this area .
Checks cut to black @ @ @ @ @ @ @ needed.
” 16 The drivers of racial health disparities are well documented .
People of color are more likely than whites to live in segregated neighborhoods with more pollution , unsafe housing , and limited access to health care , nutritious foods , and economic opportunity .
Those and other social and environmental factors can lead to poor health outcomes , including higher rates of chronic conditions like diabetes and hypertension , which have been associated with Covid-19 deaths .
“ A pandemic is in some ways about the pathogen but in so @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the environment , ” said Dr. Abdul El-Sayed , a former executive director of the Detroit Health Department .
“ Detroit , as an environment , is a place that has been beating up on the host—predominantly black and low-income folks in the city—for a really , really long time.
” 17 What We Know About the Covid-19 Race Gap Inside an Urgent Mission to Protect the Homeless From Coronavirus Health Care Workers Are Facing Burdens That Put Everyone at Risk Compounding these environmental factors is bias within the medical system .
Numerous @ @ @ @ @ @ @ care than white patients .
Although it ’ s difficult to say whether bias is a factor in individual cases , there are many stories of people like Hargrove who were turned away from hospitals multiple times , only to die later .
( Hospitals have generally denied accusations of bias regarding Covid-19 patients , pointing instead to capacity issues that required them to admit only the severest cases . )
18 There ’ s evidence that systemic racism affects health in more subtle ways , too .
In the 1990s , Arline @ @ @ @ @ @ @ of Michigan School of Public Health , coined the term “ weathering ” to describe the way that discrimination wears away at the body , leading to early onset of chronic disease and other poor health outcomes , even as people move up the economic ladder .
“ There ’ s this accelerated biological aging that ’ s caused by chronic exposure to stressors and high-effort coping with stressors [ from ] living in a structurally racist system , ” she explained .
She said this may be one of the reasons Covid-19 @ @ @ @ @ @ @ .
Historically , though , policy interventions to address racial disparities have focused on changing individual behaviors .
Geronimus and others argue that what ’ s needed are structural changes aimed at rooting out discrimination and bias.19 Recently , some local governments have started to acknowledge the link between discrimination and poor health .
Last year Milwaukee became the one the first cities in the United States to declare racism a public health crisis .
Milwaukee is one of the country ’ s most segregated metro areas : Wisconsin ’ s mortality rate @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the states , and Milwaukee has one of the most-incarcerated zip codes in the country .
The point of the resolution was to make racial equity a core element of all decision-making , and it may have contributed to the fact that Milwaukee was more transparent than other locales about data showing disproportionate deaths early in the pandemic.20 Dr. Dierdre Cooper Owens , a historian of medicine at the University of Nebraska–Lincoln , has argued that the federal government should issue a similar declaration in response to Covid-19 .
She argues that racism @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Prevention ’ s criteria for declaring a public health threat : It puts a significant burden on society , it disproportionately affects part of the population , current measures to address it are inadequate , and a coordinated , broad approach is necessary in response .
“ Most white Americans do not like to have conversations around racism , ” Cooper Owens told me .
“ We have to be able to root it out at its source and just call a thing a thing.
” 21 As cities and states develop their @ @ @ @ @ @ @ groups are trying to make sure that they don ’ t reinforce existing inequities .
“ When people are dying , we default to speed and efficiency , but efficiency and speed and doing what we used to do result in black and brown people getting left out , ” said the Brooking Institution ’ s Perry .
That ’ s what happened after Hurricane Katrina , according to Ashley Shelton , who previously worked on disaster recovery and now leads the Power Coalition , an alliance of more than 20 community groups @ @ @ @ @ @ @ people of color were disenfranchised ” from federal aid after Katrina , she said , and so far , the federal response to the pandemic has followed a familiar pattern , with economic aid flowing to the customers of big banks and to larger businesses .
In April the Power Coalition released a Roadmap for Recovery , with specific policy recommendations for racial and economic equity at the state and local levels .
As a state commission determines how to spend $ 1.8 billion in federal relief , Shelton and her coalition will @ @ @ @ @ @ @ their policy priorities .
She ’ s facing a challenging political landscape in Louisiana .
When we spoke , she was at the state capitol , where just a few days earlier , a bill to expand paid sick leave died in committee on a party-line vote.22 Although much of the grassroots energy is at the state and local level , Shelton described the federal government as a necessary “ engine ” for recovery .
Several other people emphasized this point , including Sharrelle Barber .
“ Marginalized folks , black folks , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , even in the midst of a pandemic , to do what ’ s necessary , ” she said , referring to the mutual aid networks and other groups that have taken matters into their own hands .
But “ there ’ s still so much need that needs to be addressed that can only be addressed by the power structures that actually created the inequity in the first place.
” 23 When I asked Elder Mathews what her community in Detroit needed most , she put it simply : “ I think @ @ @ @ @ @ @ real plan.
” 24

EDITOR’S NOTE: The Nation believes that helping readers stay informed about the impact of the coronavirus crisis is a form of public service. For that reason, this article, and all of our coronavirus coverage, is now free. Please subscribe to support our writers and staff, and stay healthy.
This article appears in the June 15/22, 2020 issue.
Jason Hargrove was driving a bus through the West Side of Detroit when one of his passengers began to cough, failing to cover her mouth. It was March 21, and Covid-19 was spreading through cities across the United States. Hargrove was rattled. “Hey, look,” he said in a Facebook Live video taken on his lunch break, which quickly racked up tens of thousands of views. “This coronavirus shit is for real, and we [are] out here as public workers doing our jobs, trying to make an honest living to take care of our families…. That shit was uncalled for. I feel violated.”1
A few days later, he developed a fever and told his wife, Desha Johnson-Hargrove, he felt “kind of off.” Soon after, he was sick enough that she took him to a hospital. He was sent home with orders to self-quarantine. He kept getting sicker. When his fingertips turned blue, she took him back to the hospital. The staffers sent him home again. “They said that there was no reason to do anything,” she later told a journalist. By March 29, he was struggling to breathe, and she took him to the hospital a third time. She never saw him alive again. It was only when she called to check on him that she learned her husband was dead.2
Hargrove’s death underscored the hazards that blue-collar essential workers face from the virus. In Detroit and across America, those workers are disproportionately people of color. Elder Leslie Mathews, a Detroit resident and an organizer with Michigan United, remembers seeing a checkered effect as people began to self-isolate in March. “White people working in these upscale type of [jobs], they begin to disappear. And the black and brown people are the frontline workers.” Rumors had spread that black people couldn’t contract the virus, and when better information came out, “it was literally too late. It hit like an atomic bomb. It just came out of nowhere. And then next thing you know, hundreds of people are sick.”3
Forty percent of the people who have died from Covid-19 in Michigan so far were black, though they make up only 14 percent of the state’s population. Nationally, one analysis found that black Americans have died from the virus at 2.4 times the rate of white Americans, and Hispanic and Native Americans have been infected at elevated rates in a number of states. Mathews has lost friends and relatives to Covid-19, including her ex-husband, who died after being discharged from a hospital. “He seems like he’s doing well, and he’s dead within a week,” she said. “And then the next week his mother died. I’m looking at my Facebook, and every time you scroll, ‘Rest in peace. Rest in peace. Rest in peace.’” She estimated that at least 10 of her high school friends have died in recent weeks. “I’m used to being a person who can help people, guide people through the loss of their loved ones and mourn. This Covid-19 literally has snatched all of that away.”4 Popular "swipe left below to view more authors"Swipe → The Evisceration of a Public University The Evisceration of a Public University Lisa M. Corrigan The Patronizing Moralism of David Brooks The Patronizing Moralism of David Brooks Chris Lehmann “The Blind Side” Was Always Trash “The Blind Side” Was Always Trash Dave Zirin How the “Brooks Brothers Riot” Set the Stage for Insurrection How the “Brooks Brothers Riot” Set the Stage for Insurrection Chris Lehmann Popular "swipe left below to view more authors"Swipe → The Evisceration of a Public University The Evisceration of a Public University Lisa M. Corrigan The Patronizing Moralism of David Brooks The Patronizing Moralism of David Brooks Chris Lehmann “The Blind Side” Was Always Trash “The Blind Side” Was Always Trash Dave Zirin How the “Brooks Brothers Riot” Set the Stage for Insurrection How the “Brooks Brothers Riot” Set the Stage for Insurrection Chris Lehmann
As the pandemic spread, states and the federal government were slow to release demographic data showing who was getting sick and who was dying. Once the racial disparities became indisputable, public officials across the political spectrum declared the statistics unacceptable. “They’re very nasty numbers. Terrible numbers,” President Trump said at an April 7 press conference. But what are they willing to do to change them?5 Current Issue View our current issue
Many public health experts are hopeful that the vast scale of the crisis will prompt meaningful political action to counter health inequities, which have been persistent and well documented in America for well over a century. Dr. Clyde W. Yancy of Northwestern University’s Feinberg School of Medicine recently described this as “a moment of ethical reckoning.” “There is a sense that this is getting more media attention than other disparities, and I’m hoping that when all is said and done, there is special attention and funding and resources paid to these issues,” said Dr. Uché Blackstock, an emergency physician in New York and the founder and CEO of the consulting practice Advancing Health Equity.6
But as states begin reopening businesses and relaxing social distancing guidelines, there is still nothing resembling a coordinated effort to address the pandemic, much less its disparate impact. “I think that people have become very numb to black communities suffering,” Blackstock said in late April. “What can we do right now, structurally, to mitigate the effect of this dangerous virus? I haven’t heard that. I haven’t heard a solutions piece.”7
Recognizing the urgency of the moment, civil rights groups and organizers like Mathews are working to get immediate relief to vulnerable communities while pressing elected officials to center racial equity in their policy responses to the pandemic. “People are angry,” said Mathews, who has been leading virtual town halls with Detroit residents. “I believe that there is a great awakening now.”8
Targeted response: Under pressure, city officials in New York added testing sites in predominantly black neighborhoods, including in Harlem. (Anthony Behar / Sipa USA / Sipa via AP)
While Covid-19 is novel, its impact at the community level was predictable: Whether from infection, chronic disease, or natural disasters, people of color and the poor tend to suffer disproportionately. The idea of Covid-19 as “the great equalizer” was not only an inaccurate assumption but also a damaging one. Taking a colorblind approach to the virus meant that public officials missed early opportunities to blunt its lopsided impact.9
The most obvious missed opportunity was in not making testing widely available, especially in vulnerable communities. Initially, testing was limited to people who had traveled to countries where the virus was prevalent, including China and Iran, or who had been in close contact with someone who’d tested positive. “It was very clear to me from the outset that that excluded certain patients, and those were mostly black patients in the neighborhoods that I work in,” said Blackstock, who practices in central Brooklyn.10 Time to Think Big Amid Partisan Politicking, Revelations on a Covid Origins Article Jimmy Tobias It’s Not “Unreasonable” to Want to Change Our Rotten Health Care System Gregg Gonsalves Covid Has Left Deep Wounds in America’s Rural Communities Anne N. Sosin
Most states are not reporting demographic data for testing, but in Illinois, which does, black residents received fewer than 10 percent of Covid-19 tests as of May 22, though they accounted for 30 percent of deaths and 17 percent of confirmed cases. In Philadelphia, an analysis by Drexel University epidemiologist Usama Bilal found that people living in higher-income zip codes were tested at almost six times the rate that residents of poorer areas were. Ala Stanford, a pediatric surgeon, grew so frustrated by the limited diagnostics in the city that she and other volunteers formed the Black Doctors Covid-19 Consortium, which has offered free testing in church parking lots and people’s homes.11
Under pressure, some state and city officials, including in New York City and Florida’s Broward County, added testing sites in predominantly black neighborhoods. In Detroit, officials opened a drive-through site on state fairgrounds. But more than a third of Detroit residents don’t have a car, presenting another hurdle, which the city tried to navigate by signing up taxi companies to give $2 rides to the site.12
In addition to testing and demographic data, a priority for many grassroots groups has been reducing the number of people in jails, prisons, and immigration detention centers, where access to soap, other cleaning supplies, and health care is limited. According to the ACLU, African Americans make up more than half the prison population in several states with big racial gaps in their rates of Covid-related infections, including Michigan, Illinois, and Louisiana. Again, the response has been scattershot: While many local governments have reduced the number of people in jail by 25 percent or more, according to the Prison Policy Initiative, state prisons have released “almost no one.” The organization’s Emily Widra and Peter Wagner write, “For the most part, states are not even taking the simplest and least controversial steps, like refusing admissions for technical violations of probation and parole rules, and to release those that are already in confinement for those same technical violations.” Meanwhile, more than 1,100 detainees in Immigration and Customs Enforcement custody have tested positive for Covid-19—almost half of those who have been tested.13
Workplace protections are another area where political leaders could do more to mitigate the spread of the virus. “The idea that we don’t have guaranteed wages, [universal] hazard pay…[stronger] OSHA regulations to make sure that workers have safe conditions—none of that stuff is in place to protect those that are most susceptible to this virus and are the least able to access health care,” said Dr. Sharrelle Barber, a social epidemiologist at Drexel University and a coordinator of the Poor People’s Campaign’s newly formed Covid-19 Health Justice Advisory Committee. Nearly one-fourth of civilian workers in the United States have no paid sick days, and while the federal coronavirus response package passed in March provided two weeks of paid sick leave for some employees, companies with more than 500 people or fewer than 50 are exempt, a loophole that leaves out millions of workers. “Almost all around, we’ve left communities to fend for themselves,” Barber said. “It’s been just really frustrating, really infuriating, to watch the level of neglect we’re seeing.”14
On the front lines: People of color are disproportionately represented among workers who can’t work from home, making them more vulnerable to the coronavirus. (Alexi Rosenfeld / Getty Images)
With no coordination or strategy happening at the federal level, various states and cities have set up task forces to study and propose responses to the asymmetrical impact of the pandemic. Chicago announced the formation of a Racial Equity Rapid Response Team in early April in partnership with West Side United, aiming to “bring a hyper local public health strategy to targeted communities.” Michigan and Louisiana have established statewide task forces. At the federal level, Senator Kamala Harris introduced a bill that would require the Department of Health and Human Services to create a racial and ethnic disparities task force.15
It’s unclear whether these expert panels will have an impact. “The primary function of this task force cannot be to engage in a long, protracted process of deliberation and study, dwelling on how we got here,” New York City Public Advocate Jumaane Williams said in response to the formation of a city task force. “Ultimately, we need results, not a report.” Andre Perry, a fellow at the Brookings Institution, told me, “I get invited to racial equity task forces all the time, and while I love doing research, research is not needed in this area. Checks cut to black and brown people are what’s needed.”16
The drivers of racial health disparities are well documented. People of color are more likely than whites to live in segregated neighborhoods with more pollution, unsafe housing, and limited access to health care, nutritious foods, and economic opportunity. Those and other social and environmental factors can lead to poor health outcomes, including higher rates of chronic conditions like diabetes and hypertension, which have been associated with Covid-19 deaths. “A pandemic is in some ways about the pathogen but in so many more ways about the host and the environment,” said Dr. Abdul El-Sayed, a former executive director of the Detroit Health Department. “Detroit, as an environment, is a place that has been beating up on the host—predominantly black and low-income folks in the city—for a really, really long time.”17 More From Zoë Carpenter The Past 2 Years Have Left Portland Reeling. What Kind of Recovery Comes Next? October 5, 2021 Sexual Assault in the Military Is Still Going Unchecked. Will Congress Finally Act? July 27, 2021 Extreme Heat in Portland Is an ‘Acute Disaster on Chronic Disaster’ June 30, 2021
Compounding these environmental factors is bias within the medical system. Numerous studies show that black patients receive worse care than white patients. Although it’s difficult to say whether bias is a factor in individual cases, there are many stories of people like Hargrove who were turned away from hospitals multiple times, only to die later. (Hospitals have generally denied accusations of bias regarding Covid-19 patients, pointing instead to capacity issues that required them to admit only the severest cases.)18
There’s evidence that systemic racism affects health in more subtle ways, too. In the 1990s, Arline Geronimus, a professor at the University of Michigan School of Public Health, coined the term “weathering” to describe the way that discrimination wears away at the body, leading to early onset of chronic disease and other poor health outcomes, even as people move up the economic ladder. “There’s this accelerated biological aging that’s caused by chronic exposure to stressors and high-effort coping with stressors [from] living in a structurally racist system,” she explained. She said this may be one of the reasons Covid-19 is hitting communities of color particularly hard. Historically, though, policy interventions to address racial disparities have focused on changing individual behaviors. Geronimus and others argue that what’s needed are structural changes aimed at rooting out discrimination and bias.19
Recently, some local governments have started to acknowledge the link between discrimination and poor health. Last year Milwaukee became the one the first cities in the United States to declare racism a public health crisis. Milwaukee is one of the country’s most segregated metro areas: Wisconsin’s mortality rate for black infants is the highest among the states, and Milwaukee has one of the most-incarcerated zip codes in the country. The point of the resolution was to make racial equity a core element of all decision-making, and it may have contributed to the fact that Milwaukee was more transparent than other locales about data showing disproportionate deaths early in the pandemic.20
Dr. Dierdre Cooper Owens, a historian of medicine at the University of Nebraska–Lincoln, has argued that the federal government should issue a similar declaration in response to Covid-19. She argues that racism meets the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s criteria for declaring a public health threat: It puts a significant burden on society, it disproportionately affects part of the population, current measures to address it are inadequate, and a coordinated, broad approach is necessary in response. “Most white Americans do not like to have conversations around racism,” Cooper Owens told me. “We have to be able to root it out at its source and just call a thing a thing.”21
As cities and states develop their pandemic response and recovery plans, advocacy groups are trying to make sure that they don’t reinforce existing inequities. “When people are dying, we default to speed and efficiency, but efficiency and speed and doing what we used to do result in black and brown people getting left out,” said the Brooking Institution’s Perry. That’s what happened after Hurricane Katrina, according to Ashley Shelton, who previously worked on disaster recovery and now leads the Power Coalition, an alliance of more than 20 community groups in Louisiana. “A lot of people of color were disenfranchised” from federal aid after Katrina, she said, and so far, the federal response to the pandemic has followed a familiar pattern, with economic aid flowing to the customers of big banks and to larger businesses. In April the Power Coalition released a Roadmap for Recovery, with specific policy recommendations for racial and economic equity at the state and local levels. As a state commission determines how to spend $1.8 billion in federal relief, Shelton and her coalition will be following the money and advocating for their policy priorities. She’s facing a challenging political landscape in Louisiana. When we spoke, she was at the state capitol, where just a few days earlier, a bill to expand paid sick leave died in committee on a party-line vote.22
Although much of the grassroots energy is at the state and local level, Shelton described the federal government as a necessary “engine” for recovery. Several other people emphasized this point, including Sharrelle Barber. “Marginalized folks, black folks, poor folks have always had to fight, even in the midst of a pandemic, to do what’s necessary,” she said, referring to the mutual aid networks and other groups that have taken matters into their own hands. But “there’s still so much need that needs to be addressed that can only be addressed by the power structures that actually created the inequity in the first place.”23
When I asked Elder Mathews what her community in Detroit needed most, she put it simply: “I think what they needed was the truth—and a real plan.”24


thenation--2020-06-01--Germany’s Homeless Face Down the Coronavirus

The Nation and Magnum Foundation are partnering on a visual chronicle of untold stories as the coronavirus continues to spread across the United States and the rest of the world—read more from The Invisible Front Line.—The Editors Berlin—Working as a photojournalist , I am usually at my home in Berlin for only part of the year—the rest of the time I ’ m in far-flung countries , documenting life on the ground for German and other publications .
In March , as the coronavirus began making devastating inroads in Europe , I was on assignment in Iraq—I caught the last @ @ @ @ @ @ @ were put in place .
Now , like all my neighbors , I ’ m stuck here in the former East Berlin neighborhood of Friedrichshain .
As I shelter in place , my local surroundings have become a new place to explore .
I ’ ve been living in my current apartment since December .
It ’ s in a cheap neighborhood , situated in a ring of high , concrete housing blocks .
A stone ’ s throw away is an old , abandoned doner kebab factory , where a group of @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , some of them for many years .
As the German economy ground to a halt , these people were left without any stable income or any help from the authorities to get through this crisis .
So I , along with my roommate who works in an emergency shelter for women , reached out to the people living in the factory , asking them what they needed to weather this crisis , how we could help .
We ended up opening our bathroom to two of the women living in the factory @ @ @ @ @ @ @ challenges facing them right now .
There are an estimated 6,000–10,000 homeless people living in Berlin , a figure that has risen steadily in recent years .
The assistance offered by the government and nonprofits can ’ t accommodate the diverse and long-term needs of this community , and shelters with Internet access , washrooms , and access to medical care are hard to come by—even more so for those with disabilities , mental illness , and pets .
While Berlin is better positioned than other Eastern European cities to serve homeless populations @ @ @ @ @ @ @ done to combat the actual root causes of homelessness .
And while the city reckons with the coronavirus , services are either on hold or severely reduced .
The shelter my roommate works at , for example , is typically open only in winter , and was housing only the women who had already been staying there in the week before the coronavirus outbreak—it ’ s now closed .
Centers for distributing food and providing showers are largely closed , and , amid a pandemic in which cleanliness is crucially important , there @ @ @ @ @ @ @ where the homeless can wash themselves .
Benjamin , one of the men living in the factory , told me , “ For us homeless people , the most important thing is to wash .
Right now we need places where we can take a shower.
” Like in other cities , many homeless people here earn their money by collecting bottles : In Germany you can receive 25 cents per plastic bottle and 15 for glass at a supermarket .
But with the parks and plazas empty of their usual crowds , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ .
There is no money for food , let alone alcohol and drugs .
With many homeless people suffering from alcohol or drug dependencies , this sudden cut-off can be life-threatening .
Berlin is a city that prides itself on a sense of civic solidarity , but Covid-19 has frayed that self-identity—anxiety about the virus has led to many complaints to authorities about homeless people .
The people living in the factory felt this acutely , telling me that they were being treated like lepers , or worse , ignored—invisible .
Just last @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the kebab factory was cleared out : The police came and told everyone to leave .
Some have gone on to an open-air camp in Marzahn , far from the city center , others are making do on the streets .
As Benjamin told me , the coronavirus has upended the fragile life they had built in the factory : “ I want the old world back .
”

Johanna-Maria Fritz, The Nation, Magnum Foundation

The Nation and Magnum Foundation are partnering on a visual chronicle of untold stories as the coronavirus continues to spread across the United States and the rest of the world—read more from The Invisible Front Line.—The Editors
Berlin—Working as a photojournalist, I am usually at my home in Berlin for only part of the year—the rest of the time I’m in far-flung countries, documenting life on the ground for German and other publications. In March, as the coronavirus began making devastating inroads in Europe, I was on assignment in Iraq—I caught the last plane out of Erbil before travel restrictions were put in place. Now, like all my neighbors, I’m stuck here in the former East Berlin neighborhood of Friedrichshain. As I shelter in place, my local surroundings have become a new place to explore.
I’ve been living in my current apartment since December. It’s in a cheap neighborhood, situated in a ring of high, concrete housing blocks. A stone’s throw away is an old, abandoned doner kebab factory, where a group of people without traditional housing have been living, some of them for many years. As the German economy ground to a halt, these people were left without any stable income or any help from the authorities to get through this crisis. So I, along with my roommate who works in an emergency shelter for women, reached out to the people living in the factory, asking them what they needed to weather this crisis, how we could help. We ended up opening our bathroom to two of the women living in the factory, and learned a lot about the challenges facing these people right now.
There are an estimated 6,000–10,000 homeless people living in Berlin, a figure that has risen steadily in recent years. The assistance offered by the government and nonprofits can’t accommodate the diverse and long-term needs of this community, and shelters with Internet access, washrooms, and access to medical care are hard to come by—even more so for those with disabilities, mental illness, and pets.
While Berlin is better positioned than other Eastern European cities to serve homeless populations, there’s not enough being done to combat the actual root causes of homelessness. And while the city reckons with the coronavirus, services are either on hold or severely reduced. The shelter where my roommate works, for example, is typically open only in winter, and was housing only the women who had already been staying there in the week before the coronavirus outbreak—it’s now closed. Centers for distributing food and providing showers are largely closed, and, amid a pandemic in which cleanliness is crucially important, there are only two places in the city where the homeless can wash themselves. Benjamin, one of the men living in the factory, told me, “For us homeless people, the most important thing is to wash. Right now we need places where we can take a shower.”
Like in other cities, many homeless people here earn their money by collecting bottles: In Germany you can receive 25 cents per plastic bottle and 15 for glass at a supermarket. But with the parks and plazas empty of their usual crowds, there are no bottles to be found. There is no money for food, let alone alcohol and drugs. With many homeless people suffering from alcohol or drug dependencies, this sudden cutoff can be life-threatening.
Berlin is a city that prides itself on a sense of civic solidarity, but Covid-19 has frayed that self-identity—anxiety about the virus has led to many complaints to authorities about homeless people. The people living in the factory felt this acutely, telling me that they were being treated like lepers, or worse, ignored—invisible. Just last week, after years of occupancy, the kebab factory was cleared out: The police came and told everyone to leave. Some have gone on to an open-air camp in Marzahn, far from the city center, others are making do on the streets. As Benjamin told me, the coronavirus has upended the fragile life they had built in the factory: “I want the old world back.”