John Fabian Witt

If only there were a story about someone with $1 million giving it away . . . . #TheRadicalFund

Like someone with a $1M net worth giving away $1,090... mostly to themselves

How a band of visionaries and a million dollars upended America – in the 1920s, which had some remarkable similarities to our own era: Historian @johnfabianwitt.bsky.social explains – on @thenation.com podcast bit.ly/4ozD5dV

The 1920s had some striking things in common with our own ominous political world today—starting with "gates being shut after several decades of really extraordinary immigration the US"— @johnfabianwitt.bsky.social – on @thenation.com podcast bit.ly/4ozD5dV @simonbooks.bsky.social

In Detroit for the ASLH conference? I'm at the Fraser Center Wayne State at 4 pm this afternoon to talk about the archives that brought the story of #TheRadicalFund to life. @reutherlibrary.bsky.social labor.wayne.edu/event-flyers...

Mamdani’s Momentum, Plus “The Radical Fund” On Start Making Sense: Bhaskar Sunkara comments on the tasks facing New York City’s new socialist mayor, and historian John Fabian Witt talks about left politics in the 1920s.

Interesting and fun convo with @jonwiener.bsky.social and @thenation.com about resonances between the 2020s and the 1920s: www.thenation.com/podcast/arch...

Interview with John Fabian Witt, author of The Radical Fund: How a Band of Visionaries and a Million Dollars Upended America A recording from John Fabian Witt and Julian Zelizer's live video

Smart questions from @zelizer.bsky.social in this conversation earlier today. Did the right co-opt progressives’ most generative 20th c tactics? #TheRadicalFund

open.substack.com/pub/johnfabi...

I'm at the Warren Center @harvard.edu today at 4 pm in Robinson Hall's lower library to talk about The Radical Fund. Come on out. I promise good pictures!

Lookong back to look ahead—thoughtful and revelatory by @nickperkins.bsky.social on Mamdani and Walter Lippmann.
jacobin.com/2025/11/lunn...

Harlem Congressman Vito Marcantonio is Mamdani’s closing message—and practiced at the Garland Fund’s law firm. Of course. #TheRadicalFund is all around us. @zohrankmamdani.bsky.social

TOC, "Gerontocracy in America" (June 2026)
us.macmillan.com/books/978037...

Could a Garland Fund 2.0 Upend the United States Today? Editors’ Note: David Pozen continues HistPhil’s book forum on John Witt’s The Radical Fund: How a Band of Visionaries and a Million Dollars Upended America (Simon & Schuster, …

New HistPhil post: David Pozen continues our book forum on @johnfabianwitt.bsky.social' s The Radical Fund, questioning whether, given evolution in nonprofit law since the fund's heydey, it can serve as a model for contemporary philanthropy seeing to "upend America."

histphil.org/2025/11/03/c...

Two biggies: the famous Brown v. Board of Ed (1954) and the lesser-known but huge Steele v. Louisville & Nashville Railroad (1944). Also Moore v. Dempsey, Ossian Sweet, the Scottsboro Nine, Missouri ex rel Gaines, and more . . . .

Oh my, the 2020s bidding hard to look like the 1920s. First Billie Eilish, now Gatsby and the Roaring 20s at Mar-a-Lago #TheRadicalFund @simonandschuster.bsky.social

Radicalism (in its Latin sense at least?) is fast becoming a keyword for the age. @fotoole.bsky.social is lucid in the @nybooks.com www.nybooks.com/articles/202...

Patriots and Cosmopolitans — Harvard University Press Ranging widely from the founding era to Reconstruction, from the making of the modern state to its post-New Deal limits, John Fabian Witt illuminates the legal and constitutional foundations of Americ...

chapter 1 tried to bring an end to periodic Wilson rehabilitation efforts, once and for all. But the professor class loves the most professorial of the founders . . . . 🤷
www.hup.harvard.edu/books/978067...

Wilson is not your guy. A narcissist & a windbag! Philly lawyers rolled their eyes and called him "given to repellant learning." JQA called him "ridiculous." Not to mention his astonishing conflict of interest (and failed opinion) in Chisholm v. Georgia. Find another costume. 😘

Radical constitutional change is in the air; now Sai Prakash &
@casssunstein.bsky.social are in the mix with a fascinating account of social movements and elites. But what if elites are also a social movement to be explained? #TheRadicalFund
virginialawreview.org/articles/rad...

A new pod episode! Come for the nudist beach scenes from the 1920s—stay for fights over the material foundations of 20th-c liberalisms.

When the Tax Code (and Private Foundations) Nudged Americans Toward Nonviolence Editors’ Note: This post, from John Witt, inaugurates HistPhil’s book forum on Witt’s recently published The Radical Fund: How a Band of Visionaries and a Million Dollars Upended …

Over at HistPhil by @bensoskis.bsky.social a forum on The Radical Fund starts with an essay / post by yours truly on political nonviolence and the tax code, 2020s and 1920s. @simonandschuster.bsky.social histphil.org/2025/10/27/w...

Laura Weinrib @harvard.edu gets it better than I did! The Radical Fund's internal battles in the 1920s presaged New Deal-era fights over the power to decide in collective bargaining, in civil rights, and elsewhere. Power, not rights. @jackbalkin.bsky.social balkin.blogspot.com/2025/10/the-...

Now fists are flying! Larry Kramer at LSE says The Radical Fund is "beautifully written, deeply engrossing," and a "tour de force"--but also that it's "not really about the Garland Fund"! Has Larry seen to the secret soul of the book? balkin.blogspot.com/2025/10/wher...

My friend @marydudziak.bsky.social calls The Radical Fund a compelling salve for chaotic times—but has doubts! Is money the way out? balkin.blogspot.com/2025/10/what...

David Pozen @columbiauniversity.bsky.social offers a shot across the bow: does 21st c nonprofit tax law make a Garland Fund 2.0 impossible? balkin.blogspot.com/2025/10/coul...

A 1920s Roadmap for Today's Resistance | First Draft with Susan Demas and author John Fabian Witt Author and Yale Law Professor John Fabian Witt wanted distance from the chaos of the present, so he went back a century — and found its mirror image.

Yale Professor @johnfabianwitt.bsky.social went back a century and found our present

The Radical Fund tells the story of Charles Garland who refused his inheritance to see it fuel resistance

Subscribe free to watch First Draft with @sjdemas.bsky.social now

www.lincolnsquare.media/p/a-1920s-ro...

Looking forward to this one, in just a few minutes live on substack at 11!

Over at Balkinization @jackbalkin.bsky.social, my old dean at Columbia Law David Schizer sees the Garland Fund as a quintessential philanthropic incubator of new ideas. He also notes it was riddled with conflicts of interest. Flaw? Or secret sauce! balkin.blogspot.com/2025/10/less...

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… Gabfest Reads | The Radical Fund That Rewired American Progress | Political Gabfest

Talked with @emilybazelon on @Slate.com Gabfest Reads about The Radical Fund. Don't miss the turn to Lippmann near the end -- and the fund's prophetic insight that censorship is only a one piece of a free democratic discourse. @Simonandschuster.bsky.social www.youtube.com/watch?v=YdVk...

Oh wow, I hope you like it!

Read wise @jamalgreene.bsky.social on how to make change from the rubble of a failing state—and on an abiding question: “whether to pursue social change through corrupted existing institutions or whether to try, at great risk, to build new ones.” balkin.blogspot.com/2025/10/warl...