Nicholas Kristof & Sheryl WuDunn

Co-Pulitzer Prize winners discuss their book, Tightrope: Americans Reaching for Hope on January 16, 2020, at Congregation Emanu El, Houston, Texas.

SHORT: Historically, where did U.S. go wrong while other leading countries invested in healthcare, education, and social supports? 1970s Nixon southern strategy lured away white working-class voters, stopped trajectory of Canada and Europe. (2:14)

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SHORT: Paramount lesson: Get back into escalator business. 1945 to early 1970s economic growth was robust and inclusive. Huge public physical and human investments in interstate highways and state colleges. More room at table for civil rights. (3:22)

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SHORT: Reasons for hope. U.S. may be ready for big steps. Apparent that model of cutting taxes and investment in human capital has failed. Red states introducing social supports. Never before has there been so much evidence for reliable solutions. (6:06)

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Q&A: Where U.S. went wrong, presidential candidates, working-class for Trump, Denmark McDonald’s $20/hr, huge public investments in human capital, country ready for big steps. (35:16)

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Introduction of Nicholas Kristof and Sheryl WuDunn by Progressive Forum president, Randall Morton. (3:04)

Background

Popular New York Times op-ed columnist Nicholas Kristof and his spouse and co-author, Sheryl WuDunn, presented their new book, Tightrope: Americans Reaching for Hope, a deeply personal plea – told through the lives of real Americans – to address the crisis in working-class America while focusing on solutions to mend a half century of governmental failure. While the book ranges widely from the Dakotas, to Oklahoma, to New York, it features Kristof’s friends in rural Yamhill, Oregon, where he grew up, a formerly prosperous area devastated by the disappearance of blue-collar jobs. A quarter of the children on Kristof’s old school bus died in adulthood from drugs, alcohol, suicide, or reckless accidents. 

In 1990, Kristof and DuWunn became the first married couple to win a Pulitzer Prize for their coverage of China’s pro-democracy movement and Tiananment Square protests. Kristof won a second Pulitzer Prize in 2006 for his columns on the conflict and genocide in Darfur, Sudan.

Kristof previously served as a correspondent in Los Angeles, Hong Kong, Beijing, and Tokyo, as well as editor of the Times Sunday edition. He is a regular commentator on CNN and a pioneer using online media, with about 3 million followers on social media. On a Rhodes Scholarship, he earned a law degree at Oxford University with first-class honors after graduating Phi Beta Kappa from Harvard College.

WuDunn also served as a foreign correspondent for the Times in Beijing and Tokyo. She is currently a senior managing director at Mid-Market Securities, a boutique investment banking firm in New York. She has served as a commentator on China and global affairs on Bloomberg TV, NPR, The Colbert Report, and Charlie Rose.She has lectured at the International Monetary Fund, the World Bank, and the Council on Foreign Relations, as well as Yale’s Jackson Institute for Global Affairs. She is a graduate of Cornell University, Harvard Business School, and Princeton’s Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs. Newsweek named her to their list of “150 Women Who Shake the World.”

 
Thanks to videographer: Ruben Duran
 
For citing this website as a source: ProgressiveForumHouston.org
 
Thanks to Nicholas Kristof and Sheryl WuDunn for permission to post the video of the Q&A on this page. We welcome visitors to share this exciting educational material.