FAIR expands on a timeline that has been a central component of the Take on Wall Street (TOWS) curriculum and was first developed in partnership with coalition members in 2017. While the timeline’s format may have evolved, its function remains the same: FAIR exists to help people interrogate whether growing economic inequality is happening by chance or is, instead, a consequence of specific policy choices driven by institutions and individuals who benefit from them. It examines how, from colonization to the present day, the economic system of the U.S. has extracted wealth from Black people, Indigenous people, women, and communities of color.

Polling has shown that most people in the U.S. believe Wall Street has rigged the system. Rarely, however, are people exposed to information that challenges the inevitability of financialization and structural racism. FAIR is grounded in a foundational belief that people must be able to access the story of how the system is being rigged–and what the levers are for changing it–to turn their knowledge into action for change.