Mapping the Left in NC: Z. Smith Reynolds Foundation: Roots of Radicalism

        

 

 Z. Smith Reynolds: Reynolda House Museum of American Art.

The Z. Smith Reynolds Foundation hasn’t always been the largest funder of liberal activist organizations in North Carolina. But just as the Reynolds family moved away from the legacy of its founding patriarch, in time the foundation abandoned its roots in free-market innovation and success to embrace an array of left-wing causes and dogmas.

The Foundation began as a tribute to its young namesake. In the early years, the Foundation was best known for its philanthropy in traditional areas, such as education, historical preservation, the arts, and building hospitals.

The transition the Foundation made to becoming one of the nation’s elite funders of the Left, and the dominant funder of North Carolina’s liberal and radical causes, began slowly and seemed to pick up steam in the mid to late 1900s, culminating in an announcement in 2002 that the foundation was going to “make sweeping changes in grant making.” The announcement made it clear that the new focus would be on the buzzwords of social, economic and environmental “justice” and backing progressive public policy.

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 David Neal and the Reynolds Family Connections