Showing results by author "Keri Leigh Merritt" in All Categories

With the rising global demand for cotton - and thus, slaves - in the 1840s and 1850s, the need for white laborers in the American South was drastically reduced, creating a large underclass who were unemployed or underemployed. These poor whites could not compete - for jobs or living wages - with profitable slave labor. Though impoverished whites were never subjected to the daily violence and degrading humiliations of racial slavery, they did suffer tangible socioeconomic consequences as a result of living in a slave society.

Merrittocracy is a show about how to make America a better place. Interviewing scholars, politicians, artists, and activists, Keri Leigh Merritt gets to the heart of what this country needs to join the ranks of other developed nations. From criminal justice reform and affordable housing to job guarantees and multicultural organizing, Merrittocracy helps lay the groundwork for a more prosperous future for every American.