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Featured Ideas Festival Scholars include Lashon Amado, María Teresa Kumar, Michael McAfee, and Eshauna Smith. Fueling today’s highly charged political environment is the growing sense that opportunity is elusive and inequality is rising because our national economic policies unfairly disadvantage the middle class. Millions of Americans believe they’re pawns in a game they can’t win—a sentiment familiar to generations of men and women living in poor urban and rural communities. But as discontent grows across racial, ethnic, socioeconomic, and educational lines, and becomes the pervading sentiment of many Americans, the hunt for solutions becomes more urgent. Join us for a conversation with some of the country’s savviest national and local social entrepreneurs, policy leaders, community activists, and critical thinkers to discuss the challenges and learn more about the innovative solutions they are deploying in communities across the United States.
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