This is part one of our grant project “Will We Ever Learn?: The Struggle for Equality One Group at a Time.”
Partial support for this project comes from Mass Humanities, State-Based Affiliate of the National Endowment for the Humanities. The Mass Humanities grant is part of their initiative - Crisis, Community, and Civic Culture.
American history is punctuated by social, economic and political crises giving rise to collective action – sometimes progressive, other times reactionary, sometimes peaceful and other times violent.
Collective action has often led our nation through crisis to a period of recovery and relative stability. With that in mind, we look at why all equality is not created equal. Why do women, blacks, gays and many other minorities have to go it alone in their fight for equality – when it could come down to the issue of human rights. All…being created equal.
In this hour, we address the topic of equality. How do we define it? What makes us equal? How does it differ from diversity. To discuss these questions, we welcome two distinguished guests.
Alexander Keyssar is the Matthew W. Stirling Jr. Professor of History and Social Policy at Harvard University and Paul Finkelman is the John Hope Franklin Visiting Professor of American Legal History at Duke University and the President William McKinley Distinguished Professor of Law and Public Policy and Senior Fellow at the Government Law Center at Albany Law.
