This American Mosaic
A travel journal through America — its people, places, history and economy.
I’m traveling through communities across the country trying to understand how they got here, what we misunderstand about them, and what might come next.
One place. One person. One story at a time.
About This American Mosaic
America is often described as a melting pot.
I've always thought mosaic was a better description.
We are made up of different peoples, cultures, histories and places. We came here at different times and for different reasons. Some were already here. Some came by choice. Some certainly did not.
And all of those histories still shape the America we live in today.
So I decided to go looking for them.
This American Mosaic is my travel journal through America.
I’m traveling to communities around the country—and occasionally following their stories backward across oceans and centuries—to understand how they became what they are today.
Some entries may begin in a trailer park in southern West Virginia.
Others on Black Wall Street in Tulsa.
On Lakota lands in South Dakota.
In a juke joint in the Mississippi Delta.
On the West Side of San Antonio.
Or in a village in Scotland where part of an American migration story began hundreds of years ago.
Along the way, I’ll write about poverty and wealth. Race and class. Immigration and identity. History and culture. Capitalism and philanthropy. Politics and ownership.
But I don't want to understand these things from Washington.
I want to go there.
Meet people.
Listen.
Learn the history.
Follow the money.
And, almost always, discover that whatever I thought I knew before I arrived was incomplete.
Some of this overlaps with the work I’m doing to get more capital into the hands of kids and communities that have been left behind—and to figure out what else has to happen around them for that capital to really matter.
That work raises questions of its own.
What happens when a child who has never owned anything suddenly owns an investment account?
What happens if we invest in the child but not the community around them?
What does a place need in order for capital to turn into opportunity?
And what can the rest of us learn from communities that have endured economic hardship for generations?
Most of these stories will read like what they actually are:
Journal entries from the road.
A date.
A place.
Something I saw.
Someone I met.
And usually a question I wasn't asking before I got there.
This American Mosaic is my attempt to understand America one place, one person and one story at a time.
why I’m doing this
For most of the last 25 years, my professional life has been spent in politics and major-donor fundraising.
That has put me in some unusual rooms and introduced me to some extraordinary people.
But increasingly, I find myself more interested in what is happening outside those rooms.
Why do some American communities prosper while others seem to have been left behind?
Why does poverty persist for generations?
Why do some places lose their young people while others attract them?
How did race, migration, industry, geography and government shape the places we live today?
Who owns the businesses, the land and the wealth?
And what happens when people who have historically been left outside the ownership economy finally get a stake in it?
I don't have all the answers.
That's sort of the point of the trip.
from the road
FIELD NOTES · PEOPLE · HISTORY · ECONOMICS · CAPITAL · OWNERSHIP
Stories, journal entries and films from the places I’m visiting.
Read the Journal →
Watch the Films →
Michael Byrd
I'm Michael Byrd.
For more than two decades, I’ve worked at the intersection of politics, philanthropy and major-donor fundraising.
Now I’m spending a lot more time on the road.
This American Mosaic grew out of my desire to better understand the communities we talk about so often—but rarely spend enough time actually listening to.
Some of that travel also overlaps with work I’m doing around capital and ownership in communities that have been economically left behind.
But this isn't supposed to be a policy paper or a definitive history of America.
It's a travel journal.
I'm going places, asking questions, meeting people and sharing what I learn along the way.
One place. One person. One story at a time.