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Terri Langston

Senior Editor, The Globalist

Terri Langston is Senior Editor at The Globalist. Throughout her career, which she primarily spent as a program officer and foundation executive in the U.S. non-profit sector, Terri has focused on economic justice issues and bringing about social change.

The focus of her work was on tackling social and political inequities. Issues of particular interest have included equitable access to health care, poverty, gun control, women’s rights, worker rights, democratic rights and rural America.

From 1987 to 2010, Ms. Langston worked as senior program officer for health reform and as director of programs at the Public Welfare Foundation in Washington, D.C. In that capacity, she pioneered a movement to align a broad variety of U.S. foundations in support of consumer advocacy on health reform, primarily on the state, but also on the national level.

Subsequently, she served as a consultant to organizations such as the Open Society Foundations, the National Committee for Responsive Philanthropy, the Washington Regional Association of Grantmakers and the National Council on the Aging.

In 1993, Ms. Langston was among the early funders to support the efforts of the Vietnam Veterans of America Foundation (VVAF) in its International Campaign to Ban Landmines, to persuade countries to sign a treaty eradicating the use of antipersonnel landmines — an effort for which VVAF received the 1997 Nobel Peace Prize.

Throughout the 1990s, her program work at Public Welfare Foundation also included support for the legal advocacy work and the public educational work of the Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence.

In 2008, Ms. Langston received the Terrence Kennan Leadership Award in Health Philanthropy, conferred annually by Grantmakers in Health to an individual whose work is distinguished by leadership, innovation and achievement.

Ms. Langston holds a Ph.D. in comparative literature from Emory University in Atlanta, Georgia, and was a Fulbright Scholar at the University of Bonn, Germany, in 1981-1982. During her time in Germany, she was also engaged in emergency supplies to Poland to Poland during the martial law period.

She wrote her Ph.D. dissertation on Paul Celan, one of the major German-language poets of the post-World War II era.

Articles by Terri Langston

Germany and the Battle Over Political Correctness

Today’s world, today’s challenges and today’s politics cry out for media commentators to make careful distinctions.

February 24, 2022

Smash Burgers, Onions and Climate Change

A Depression-era meal for more environmental-minded times? A hamburger treat from Oklahoma City to get more out of less hits Berlin.

January 22, 2022

The Merkel-Obama Riddle — Or: What Makes Leaders Hesitate?

Examining the parallels in the political style and performance of Angela Merkel and Barack Obama, the past decade’s transatlantic power couple.

December 4, 2021

The U.S. Supreme Court: Now a Roman Catholic Institution?

Conservative Supreme Court Justices are making unaccountable and undemocratic decisions, much like the Vatican Congregation of the Doctrine of the Faith.

May 6, 2021

Of Borders and Metaphors

How the U.S. handles the U.S.-Mexican border will say much about its character as a nation.

April 17, 2021

Alexei Navalny: The Freest Man in the World

The recurring question of what freedom means in the political and the everyday world.

February 10, 2021

Lindsey Graham: The Shifting “Rectitude” of US Male Politicians

Until just now, a Trump loyalist, Lindsey Graham -- the political chameleon -- changes yet again as a new political season is upon Washington.

January 9, 2021

South Carolina and Georgia: A Contemporary Tale of Two Southern States

“Nothin’ could be finer” than to see Georgia flip yet again.

November 26, 2020

The US and the Coddling of Donald Trump

Is this really the time to “humor” the outgoing U.S. President by allowing him slowly to come to terms with reality -- like a little boy?

November 15, 2020

Kamala Harris and the Evolution of the Birds: Worldwide Lessons

How evolution over millions of years has created sovereign female birds and equally sovereign human females.

November 8, 2020

US: A “Y2K” Election in 2020? Seriously

Not to make light of the epochal challenge to deny Donald Trump a second term, but U.S. society has successfully risen to doomsday challenges before.

October 24, 2020

Vaccinations, Polio and COVID 19: A Personal Reflection

What the history of developing the Polio vaccine teaches us about the current search for a COVID 19 vaccine.

September 27, 2020

What Ails America on Health Care?

11 theses on what an undemocratic and unnecessary mess the world’s supposedly leading democracy finds itself in.

March 28, 2017

“Now Let US Pray,” Or: Converting Melania to Mother Mary of the Masses

There’s an image makeover in progress for the First Lady in the Trump Administration.

March 13, 2017

Gun Deaths: An American Prophet

On gun deaths, Americans knew what needed doing half a century ago.

October 8, 2015

After Charleston: Gun Control and American Cynicism

Will the United States ever get real about the need for gun control?

July 18, 2015

Ottawa: A Sergeant-at-Arms As the Real Thing

Competence and the protection of the people’s house.

October 30, 2014

Al Capone of the Yoga Mat

Second Amendment joys: Only in the United States could an exercise mat be mistaken for a gun.

May 17, 2014

Healing D.C.: What Muriel Bowser Must Do

Can the D.C. mayor-in-waiting overcome the racial divide that persists in the U.S. capital city?

April 7, 2014

Obama’s Dangerous Road to Data Privatization

A tool to track “illegal aliens” potentially to track everyone else?

February 25, 2014

Goodnight Moon. Goodnight NSA.

What can jolt Americans into seeing that security comes only through transparent civic institutions?

February 24, 2014

The Narrative of the Privileged American Male

Why are Republicans having such a hard time coming to grips with the electoral defeat?

November 20, 2012

An American in Poland, Anno 1983: Return to the West (Part V)

After viewing a country under oppressive Soviet rule, what impressions would an American student take back home?

November 27, 2009

An American in Poland, Anno 1983: In Warsaw (Part IV)

What kind of restrictions were placed on the Polish people in 1983?

November 26, 2009

An American in Poland, Anno 1983: The Role of Churches (Part III)

How can shared hardships bring people of different faiths together?

November 25, 2009

An American in Poland, Anno 1983: In Gdansk (Part II)

Why was there such a large feeling of helplessness in 1983 Poland?

November 24, 2009

An American in Poland, Anno 1983: On the Road (Part I)

What were the impressions during a trip to Poland of students who were members of the Protestant student community in Bonn, Germany, in April 1983?

November 23, 2009