# Betsy Leondar-Wright

Betsy Leondar-Wright (born January 15, 1956) is an American economic justice activist, sociologist, and author, who writes on class and economic inequality.

## Early life and education

Leondar-Wright was raised in a middle-class family, and dropped out of Princeton University to become a full-time activist. She completed her Bachelor of Arts, MA and PhD in sociology at Boston College.

## Activism

She was a member of Movement for a New Society (MNS), where she was a member of the Keystone Alliance, organizing rallies and occupations at the Limerick, PA Nuclear Power Plant. While involved with MNS, she published the "Study Guide on Multinational Corporations and the World Economy".
From 1986 to 1988 she was Program Coordinator at Women for Economic Justice, where she organized a coalition for pay equity for women. From 1988 to 1993 she was executive director at the Anti-Displacement Project, an affordable housing organization; three of the tenant groups she organized bought and now manage their apartment complexes as permanently affordable housing. From 1994 to 1997 she served as executive director of the Massachusetts Human Services Coalition.
From 1997 to 2006 she was Communications Director for United for a Fair Economy, where she co-authored The Color of Wealth: The Story Behind the U.S. Racial Wealth Divide.
She served on the board of Class Action, a non-profit that raised consciousness about class, race/class intersections and classism. As Program Director from 2010 to 2015, she edited the blog "Classism Exposed".

## Current work

From 2015 to 2024 she was an assistant professor of sociology at Lasell College. Her 2012 PhD dissertation focuses on class culture differences in U.S. social change groups. Her book, Missing Class: Strengthening Social Movement Groups by Seeing Class Cultures was published by Cornell University Press in April 2014 and was made into a website, the Activist Class Cultures Kit. Her most recent book is Is It Racist? Is It Sexist? Why Red and Blue White People Disagree, and How to Decide in the Gray Areas which was co-authored with Jessi Streib.

## Personal life

She and her spouse, progressive book publicist Gail Leondar-Wright, are one of the first lesbian couples to be legally married in the United States.

## Publishing history

| Date(s) | Role | Title |
| 1996 | Co-author | Mass Billions: The Changing Role of Federal Support for Human Services in Massachusetts for the Massachusetts Human Services Coalition |
| 1999 | Co-author | Shifting Fortunes: The Perils of the Growing American Wealth Gap for United for a Fair Economy |
| 1999, 2007 | Co-author | Classism curriculum design, chapter in Teaching for Diversity and Social Justice, co-written with Felice Yeskel |
| 2004 | Co-author | Black job loss deja vu: think the typical job-loser in today's economy is a white computer programmer whose job has been outsourced to India? Think again. An article from Dollars and Sense |
| 2004 | Author | Climbing the White Escalator |
| 2004 | Co-editor | The Wealth Inequality Reader in Dollars and Sense |
| 2005 | Co-author | "Who are the elites?" Chapter in Inequality Matters |
| 2004–2006 | Co-author | Three annual "State of the Dream" reports on racial inequality for United For a Fair Economy |
| 2005 | Author | Class Matters: Cross-Class Alliance Building for Middle-Class Activists |
| 2006 | Co-author | The Color of Wealth:The Story Behind the U.S. Racial Wealth Divide |
| 2014 | Author | Leondar-Wright, Betsy (2014). Missing Class: Strengthening Social Movement Groups by Seeing Class Cultures. Cornell University Press. ISBN 9780801479205. |
| 2025 | Co-author with Jessi Streib | Leondar-Wright, Betsy (2025). Is It Racist? Is It Sexist? Why Red and Blue White People Disagree, and How to Decide in the Gray Areas. Stanford University Press. ISBN 9781503641297. |