About this episode

John Fabian Witt discusses his book on the Garland Fund and its impact on American democracy.

In this episode of Capital for Good , we speak with John Fabian Witt, the Allen H. Duffy Class of 1960 Professor of Law at Yale Law School, a professor of history at Yale, and one of the country's most distinguished legal historians. The author of numerous award-winning books, including American Contagions: Epidemics and the Law from Smallpox to COVID-19 and Lincoln's Code: The Laws of War in American History , Witt joins us to discuss his latest, The Radical Fund: How a Band of Visionaries and a Million Dollars Upended America (Simon & Schuster, 2025). We begin with the genesis — of the Garland Fund and Witt's interest in writing about it. He explains that most histories of the Brown v. Board of Education Supreme Court case include mention of a "funny little foundation" that gave early support to the NAACP, launching the legal campaign that would culminate in the desegregation landmark. Witt discovered, however, that Brown was "just the tip of the iceberg." The Garland Fund — named for the young idealist Charles Garland, who at twenty-one refused a million-dollar inheritance — in fact had its fingerprints on a sweeping range of progressive movements in the United States that…

People in this episode

Guest: John Fabian Witt

Topics covered

• legal history
• progressive movements
• American democracy
• funding and philanthropy
• social justice
• historical analysis

Keywords

• Garland Fund
• Brown v. Board of Education
• NAACP
• progressive movements
• legal history
• social justice
• Charles Garland

Mentioned in this episode

Organizations: Yale Law School, NAACP

Books & works: The Radical Fund: How a Band of Visionaries and a Million Dollars Upended America, American Contagions: Epidemics and the Law from Smallpox to COVID-19, Lincoln's Code: The Laws of War in American History

Places: America

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