Using one of the most outrageous scandals in modern American political history as a case study - the Housing and Urban Development Scandal (HUD) of the 1980s and 1990s which saw political officials steal billions in federal funding set aside for low-income housing residents – Professor Leah Wright Rigueur told the complex story of the transformation of Black politics and the astonishing racial politics of presidential administrations that have paved the way for patterns of political misconduct that have continued into the present.
Leah Wright Rigueur is an Associate Professor of Public Policy at the Harvard Kennedy School of Government and the Harry S. Truman Associate Professor of American History at Brandeis University.
Dr Imaobong Umoren is Assistant Professor at the Department of International History at LSE.
This event was part of the 'Race and Gender in US Politics in Historical and Contemporary Perspective' –seminar series organized by the LSE United States Centre and it was held on 5 March 2020.
Image credit: David Everett Strickler on Unsplash