Above: Participants in the fourth annual Workshop on Political Economy.
Now in its fourth year, the Hoover Institution Library & Archives’ Workshop on Political Economy brings together scholars from across the globe to study the history of economic thought using the archives of such notable thinkers as Karl Popper, Milton Friedman, and F.A. Hayek. This year the workshop welcomed Leah Wright Rigueur, Assistant Professor of Public Policy at Harvard University and author of The Loneliness of the Black Republican: Pragmatic Politics and the Pursuit of Power (2015), who presented a keynote address on June 28th. Rigueur is an author, historian, speaker, and an expert in race and politics, U.S. political and social history, and African American politics and history. She holds a Ph.D. in History from Princeton University and a B.A. in History from Dartmouth College. At the Harvard Kennedy School, Rigueur teaches courses on race, politics, and policy in the United States, political revolutions, and civil rights and social justice movements. She also leads Race and American Politics, a multidisciplinary series of seminars dedicated to the most pressing political and social issues related to race in the United States, including presidential politics, mass incarceration, immigration, economic justice, and voting rights.
During her talk, Rigueur discussed her award-winning book The Loneliness of the Black Republican: Pragmatic Politics and the Pursuit of Power, which offers a critical examination of the tense relationship that exists between African Americans and the GOP. Providing an analysis of black voting behavior and opinion over more than half a century, Rigueur’s book explores the ideas and actions of African American activists, politicians, officials, and intellectuals that worked with and within the Republican Party.
