By Jeremie Greer and Emanuel Nieves

Dear Community,

Ten days ago, a devout white supremacist assumed the office of President of the United States. Through our sadness and disappointment, we are reminded that Donald Trump is not the first white supremacist to occupy the White House. We are also reminded that the alarming and dizzying array of actions he has taken in such a short time — declaring a national emergency at the Southern Border, eliminating DEI initiatives across government, targeting the trans community, ending birthright citizenship, making expansionist threats to international partners, abdicating our responsibility for advancing a cleaner environment, enacting a mass deportation program designed to instill fear and chaos (potentially reaching a half a million people a year), pardoning January 6 defendants, and pausing all federal grants and loans — are not aberrations of our current political and economic realities. Rather, they are manifestations and continuations of a long arc of oppression, built on the theft, exclusion, and exploitation of Black and Brown people for a small group of elite individuals, families, and corporations to amass wealth and power.

Unfortunately, this is just the beginning. In the months and years ahead, we can expect to see more attacks chipping away at fundamental rights, needs, and guarantees that have long been with us, particularly in times of need. We can also expect Trump to pursue a second round of tax cuts aimed at showering the elite with trillions in new benefits. These will be funded directly from our pockets through potentially trillions in increased costs on goods due to his soon-to-be-implemented tariffs, as well as cuts to critical programs and supports. And, unsurprisingly, we can also expect corporations to grow and further consolidate their power over the economy — and their owners to see their wealth skyrocket even more.

Yet, even with all of these headwinds, at Liberation in a Generation, we’ve adopted the teachings of Norma Wong and her Long Arc Strategy. Our Long Arc Strategy seeks to dismantle the Oppression Economy built by white supremacists and replace it with a Liberation Economy built by people of color. In the face of last week’s disappointment, we must, as Norma encourages, be good ancestors. We choose to fight (hopefully with you!) the long arc battle to deliver liberation to the next generation.

The Importance of Freedom Dreaming Infrastructure

Historian and movement scholar Robin D.G. Kelley speaks of “freedom dreaming” as imagining a world beyond the constraints of the current social order, where liberation and justice are the norm. My co-founder Savannah Romero and I started the BLIS Collective, a Solidarity and Action hub, after a conversation that left us wondering why the Black-led movement for reparations and Indigenous-led movement for Land Back didn’t feel as closely connected as one might think. After years of planning, eating, discussions, and relationship building, we realized that critical pieces of infrastructure were missing, making it harder for transformative movements and those that engage within them to be what we call “radical collaboration” with each other.

Liberation in a Generation’s (LibGen) Liberation Economy Fellowship came at a time when BLIS was launching — in our literal infancy, and it has helped us not only sharpen our analysis but also deepen our understanding of the infrastructure needed to build lasting, transformative change. Following in the footsteps of LibGen, which defines itself as a “movement support organization,” we realized the critical role of infrastructure in holding the space for solidarity and dreaming. The fellowship has given us the tools to think expansively, invest in the work that can create long-term support for movements, and cultivate the relationships necessary for radical transformation. Freedom dreaming, as we’ve come to understand, isn’t just a visionary exercise; it’s a commitment to building the systems that can hold those dreams and help turn them into reality.

Our Inheritance: A Collective Responsibility to Transform

One of my most striking reflections during this fellowship is how eager and hungry folks are for third spaces to grapple with narrative and policy questions. There is a deep desire for places where we can openly explore the intersection of story and systems, where movement actors can come together to co-create strategies for systemic change.

As someone who has worked at a think tank, many of our strategies and conversations around policy change focused primarily on policymakers — on how we could shift their perspective and influence their decisions. But this fellowship, and the work LibGen does, shifts the focus from the policymakers to the people — the individuals and communities who hold the true power to create change. The fellowship rests on the notion that rather than relying on changing the minds of those in power, we must build power among those who put policymakers into office in the first place.

Throughout my time as a fellow, I’ve worked with LibGen to provide space for nearly 100 people, both digitally and in person, to come together and grow the movement for reparations. We explored how reparations could intersect with a baby bond proposal through LibGen’s framework of “Guaranteed Inheritance.” This framing of inheritance is powerful because it acknowledges that we inherit both the good and the bad of this democracy — its triumphs and flaws. The fellowship has reinforced my belief that the frame of inheritance is one of the most critical frames of our time — representing our collective responsibility and opportunity to transform this nation’s legacy.

New York Stands at the Feet of History

In December 2023, I had the honor of witnessing history as New York became the third state, after California and Illinois, to establish a reparations commission. It was a monumental day — a reminder of the power of standing true to our beliefs and the impact of long-standing grassroots organizing. Thanks to the work of groups like the December 12th Movement and the Brooklyn NAACP, reparations have become a tangible conversation in New York.

Several of us, including the BLIS Collective, VOCAL-NY, NAACP LDF, NYCLU, Get Free, Solidarity Society, National Action Network Brooklyn Chapter, Working Families Party NY, ERASE-Racism NY, and many others, came together to form New Yorkers for Reparations, a statewide coalition dedicated to ensuring that the commission’s recommendations are turned into concrete reparations policy.

In a conversation with long-time reparations organizer Nkechi Taifa about a year ago, she shared that she had spent so much time making the moral case for reparations that she hadn’t had the opportunity to delve into the policy implications. The policy design circle we ran as part of this fellowship provided that space.

We put ourselves in the year 2052, where reparations had become a reality, and explored critical questions such as: How will reparations impact existing policies like SNAP? What new government agencies will be needed to administer this policy? And what functions will a reparations policy serve?

The space allowed many coalition members from New Yorkers for Reparations to meet in person for the first time, sharpen our analysis, and build the collective advocacy strategy that will guide us moving forward. In the coming months, we’ll continue working closely with Commissioners to ensure that the recommendations they make are rooted in the conversations we had in the policy design circle.

As If it Could be Otherwise

There is power in dreaming. Historian James Fraser reminds us that one of our greatest challenges is our inability to see things as if they could be otherwise. This fellowship has strengthened my resolve and helped me believe more deeply in the possibility of reconstructing our reality. Together, we can shape a world that is not only different from the one we know but fundamentally more just, equitable, and free.

It is Black August and I have spent a lot of time this month in a posture of reflection and learning. As my economic fellowship with Liberation in a Generation comes to a close, I feel extraordinarily grateful to have been asked to be an inaugural fellow. During my time as a fellow, I focused on the Debt Free College Guarantee. I chose this Guarantee because education is anchored to my past, the past of my relatives and people, and holds a critical role for the future of the people and planet.

*(one of those habits that I have yet to suss out if it is my true personality or an expression of what I survived…not that I care at this point either way)

Two Giant Waves in One Storm

By the time I arrived in my early and mid-twenties, the unresolved childhood trauma combined with the slow-rolling realization that every “right” path I had taken to improve my conditions, pull myself up by bootstraps, and be good enough was not working. When police violence erupted time and time again, and I saw videos of even more people who I deeply related to murdered on Facebook, Instagram, and the internet, the “Hope and Change” I believed in Liberal Democracy via Obama opened the tiny crack in me where rage had been waiting to express itself. I spent time drawn to movements that centered disruption, de-construction, and vengeance. These primarily online social justice spaces helped to fuel my outrage, my internal rage, and my sorrow. Underneath it all was grief,sorrow, and a feeling of powerlessness that I couldn’t shake. So much had been promised to me by institutions. These spaces served like a psycho-social glue, keeping me stuck in the re-enactment of my earlier development traumas. Many of us don’t know we have been acculturated to feel a sense of comfort and belonging in chaos, upheaval, and suffering.

By now, many of us in the space to access and read my fellowship reflection understand that there is a current prevailing narrative about the crisis of liberal democracy. “Fascism is on the rise…” “We’ve got to get the youth vote, the Black vote, EVERY identity vote!” The political will of the masses has not just become anemic because food is too expensive, we can’t afford healthcare, and we will never be able to purchase a home. The political will is exhaustion combined with rage. You’ve got a wave of millennial and younger folks that are a concerning combination of under/miseducated, harmed, traumatized, and stuck to narratives of limitation. The second wave in that storm is the planet — frankly, she is tired of our shit. We can become good relatives or get bent. That is just good science.

Toward a Constructive Project

I initially reluctantly said yes to the Economic Justice Fellowship with Liberation in a Generation. I’ve been through a lot of fellowships, and lord have mercy, some were hot messes. I needed the money because I had to relocate my family out of our home state as political refugees for safety. Even as a nonprofit director, I have always had to work more than one job to feed my family, keep us housed with dignity, and keep myself from drowning in student loan debt and medical debt. I also said yes because I really trusted three people who I knew had their fingerprints on Liberation in a Generation’s work.

What I discovered over the course of the fellowship — from how it was constructed with intention, how it centered care, and how Emanuel Nieves honored my expertise as a person proximate to the problems the Guarantee tries to solve — was nothing short of revolutionary. The design sessions allowed me to engage grounded parts of myself that didn’t just ask me to ruminate on suffering. The policy design circle process and the facilitation process allowed me to be embodied, to experiment, and to make room for joy. After experiencing being targeted by bad faith actors in social justice/nonprofit spaces over the course of my career, I was experiencing a crisis of belief about IF social justice movement could, in fact, change the material conditions of the world.

The care and ethics I received as a fellow came at the right time to help me restore my dignity. As a result of this opportunity (and my own personal and interpersonal healing work), I am still committed to what I believe is my vocation: to use my skills and talents to defend my relatives and ensure present and future generations can thrive.

Folks don’t believe in a liberal democracy any longer, not because it doesn’t have the right slogans or the right people in power with a certain kind of skin color, ethnicity, or gender. Belief has faltered because the public goods, common goods, have been captured by corporations and private interests and fail to produce any material change for those who have sought it out as a path to thriving, not just surviving. Erasing debt and making college debt-free is one tactic that moves us toward repair and restoration. The first iteration of Liberation in a Generation’s fellowship model is a beautiful prototype that I hope to see replicated in other spaces where the audience can understand and receive it as an invitation to step into their power and imagine something that will make movements irresistible for life-affirming reasons.

As I reflect on my time as a fellow in Liberation in a Generation’s Liberation Economy Fellowship, I am filled with a deep sense of gratitude and accomplishment. The journey was not without its challenges, but the opportunity to engage in meaningful work, connect with passionate individuals, and contribute to critical conversations around economic justice made it an invaluable experience. My economic guarantee was focused on guaranteed housing.

One of the most rewarding aspects of the fellowship was the collaborative effort to create the policy design circle centered on guaranteed housing — an iterative, imaginative experience that empowers participants to challenge and rethink oppressive assumptions and narratives. Working alongside LibGen’s Director of Policy and Research Innovation, Emanuel, and the rest of the LibGen team, we dedicated ourselves to fostering an environment where participants could freely share their insights and experiences. Our regular meetings were not just about planning but also about reflecting on how best to inspire discussions that would yield valuable perspectives. Through this process, I truly came to appreciate the power of collective brainstorming and the richness that diverse voices bring to policy design.

Ground-truthing, a core component of the fellowship, was an enlightening process in my community. I vividly remember a particularly compelling exchange between participants in my policy design circle that highlighted the complexities of affordable housing in the context of racial and economic justice. More activist-oriented members questioned whether current community efforts to sell affordable housing were genuinely accessible to low-income residents. In response, Black local leaders affirmed that not only has affordable housing been accessible, but it’s also brought up the historical context of redlining and emphasized the importance of wealth-building opportunities for Black families, who have long been denied such chances. They argued that imposing real estate models that don’t allow for private wealth accumulation, just as Black families are starting to have access to these opportunities, is inherently unfair.

This interaction underscored the intricate dynamics at play in policy discussions and the importance of considering historical context when designing solutions for the future. It was a powerful reminder that economic justice cannot be achieved without addressing the lingering effects of past injustices.

However, the fellowship was not without its challenges. Conducting this work during a presidential election year proved a significant obstacle. The heightened political atmosphere made it difficult to maintain focus and foster the level of collaboration I had hoped for. Despite these difficulties, I was grateful for Liberation in a Generation’s unwavering support and resources. The team was always available to assist, and their commitment to the fellowship’s success was evident.

Reflecting on the experience, one area where I could have better leveraged the available resources was in outreach during the town hall. I typically use databases of activists and voters to ensure broad participation, but I neglected to engage LibGen about accessing these tools. It’s a lesson I’ll carry forward in future organizing efforts, recognizing the importance of utilizing all available resources to maximize impact.

Looking ahead, I am excited to continue my engagement with Liberation in a Generation. I plan to connect with individuals in the Florida Housing Justice Alliance who share common goals and funders with LibGen. I am also committed to maintaining relationships with the leaders and community members I worked with during the fellowship. Additionally, I hope to explore opportunities for ongoing collaboration with LibGen, particularly in areas of policy design that support populist organizing.

For future cohorts, I suggest that LibGen consider providing more deliberate organizing plans and assisting in building or lending databases for outreach. These tools could significantly broaden the campaign’s reach and ensure that the voices of those most impacted by economic policies are heard and represented.

Overall, the fellowship was a deeply enriching experience. One of the most memorable highlights was watching participants engage with the artifacts we created, like the social housing mail and the “future newspaper.” These tangible elements brought the concept of a housing guarantee to life for many and opened minds to the possibilities of a more just and equitable future.

In closing, my time with Liberation in a Generation has deepened my community’s understanding of guaranteed housing and strengthened my resolve to continue this important work. The connections I’ve made, the lessons I’ve helped impart, and the progress we are beginning to envision together will undoubtedly shape my future efforts in the fight for a more equitable society.

Race, Disability, and Power

It is impossible to fully understand, let alone redress, the historical and contemporary forms of oppression that Black women endure without examining ableism’s central role in preserving and justifying such oppression. Ableism, a system targeting disabled people whose bodies and minds deviate from socially constructed norms, is as integral to the project of white supremacy as race and labor.

There is no singular legal definition of disability in the US, as it is a complex and dynamic concept. The most expansive definition comes from the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) of 1990, which defines disability as “a physical or mental impairment that substantially limits one or more major life activities.” Elsewhere in government, however, disability is much more narrowly defined, notably by agencies seeking to restrict eligibility for public benefits and income support programs. While the legal bounds of disability have shifted over time based on state interests and social pressures, the primary issue disability policy must contend with remains one of power and powerlessness. Across all domains of life, Black disabled women and other disabled people face compounded oppression, social isolation, and exploitation.

The entanglement of disability and race is linked to state efforts to optimize labor output and accelerate economic growth. Indeed, the very designation of disability has long been tied to one’s labor production, which is itself heavily racialized and gendered. In the 19th century, for example, chattel slavery was legitimized by medical authorities who claimed that Black people suffered cognitive impairments that must be managed through their enslavement and brutalization. With the rise of industrial America, increasingly routinized and time-regulated paid labor structures led to new disability designations for those unable to conform. From the antebellum period to the present, pathologization and medicalization are wielded as tools of social control, stratifying groups in service of the political and economic interests of those in power. The resulting matrix of mass institutionalization, eugenics, and criminalization continues to marginalize Black women today, leading to premature death.

Disability prevalence in the US is also increasing, with COVID-19 accelerating this trend. In 2021, 1.2 million more people identified as having a disability compared to 2020. Much like race, disability is heavily spatialized, meaning that incidence of disability is more heavily concentrated in certain geographic areas and within specific communities. Far from incidental, this is the outcome of what geographer Ruth Wilson Gilmore describes as the “state-sanctioned production and exploitation of group-differentiated vulnerability,” underscoring that ableism and racism are co-constitutive. For instance, racial segregation clusters Black people in toxic environments where they are more likely to be exposed to illness-causing environmental hazards and less likely to have access to life-sustaining resources, such as hospitals, clean water, and housing. Across the US, Black people consistently have higher rates of disability than white people, at rates up to 2.5 times greater. This racialized disparity in disability prevalence dramatically increases with age, at least partially reflecting the cumulative disabling effects of racial discrimination over the life course.

Ableism and Racism in US Institutions: A Snapshot

Across numerous economic indicators, Black disabled people face precarity and financial marginalization. In 2017, the poverty rate for working-age people with disabilities was 26.1 percent — more than twice the rate of non-disabled people of the same age group. For Black people with disabilities, however, the poverty rate was a staggering 37 percent.

Discriminatory features of the US labor market and the punitive design of public benefits programs hinder the economic mobility of Black disabled women. In 2020, only 27 percent of working age Black women with disabilities were employed, compared with 33.7 percent of white disabled women and 40.3 percent of white men with disabilities. Disabled people who are excluded from the paid labor economy are often forced to rely on public assistance programs which typically impose strict asset limits, severely restrict eligibility, and provide meager support. In 2022, for example, the maximum federal benefit for Supplemental Security Income, a key anti-poverty program for people with disabilities, was just $841 per month. Even when disabled women do find employment, they often face discrimination in pay and promotions or are clustered in precarious or part-time roles. Today, thousands of disabled workers continue to labor in segregated settings for sub-minimum wages, due to an archaic carveout in the Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA).

Within carceral contexts, this toxic interplay between racism, ableism, and sexism comes into even sharper focus. Up to half of those killed by police each year are reported to have a disability. (For more on the harms of policing and incarceration, refer to the “Disempowering Police and Prisons” section of the report.) Black women are more likely to be incarcerated than white women, and according to the latest data from the Bureau of Justice Statistics (BJS), state and federal prisoners are about two and a half times as likely as the general adult population to report having a disability or chronic illness. Other factors—such as the unmitigated spread of COVID-19 within congregate settings, disabling conditions within the criminal legal system, and an aging prison population — contribute to the disproportionately high rates of disability among incarcerated people.

Carcerality and surveillance extends beyond the walls of prisons and jails. People with mental health disabilities, and particularly Black women, face constant risk of involuntary institutionalization and are frequently subject to coercive modes of treatment (as noted in the mental health section of the report). Psychiatric facilities, nursing facilities, and other restrictive congregate care settings are sites of medical incarceration where abuse is rampant—and meaningful accountability non-existent. Absent the robust investments and social infrastructure needed to guarantee all disabled people access to home and community-based care and supports, disabled people are instead ensnared in a complex web of surveillance, autonomy restrictions, and isolation.

These policy arrangements cumulatively cast Black disabled life as expendable. Disability Justice (DJ) — a framework created by disabled queer activists of color — provides a roadmap that can be jointly applied with BWB to disrupt ableist systems of domination and exploitation. While DJ is a framework focused primarily on the liberatory possibilities of community organizing and grassroots movement, its 10 central tenets carry transformative potential for policymaking too.

Policy Recommendations Rooted in BWB and DJ

At a baseline, policymaking rooted in BWB and DJ must unconditionally guarantee Black disabled women’s access to life-giving resources and community-rooted care. These guarantees must also be paired with policies that divert funding and resources away from criminalization and surveillance; disrupt and reverse the capture of public goods and resources by private interests; and meaningfully involve Black disabled women in policy ideation, design, and implementation. Critically, this will require robust and intersectional data collection across all sectors.

First, policymakers must act swiftly to provide robust, permanent, dedicated funding for Home and Community-Based Services (HCBS) and eliminate Medicaid’s institutional bias. They must also ensure full implementation of the HCBS Settings Rule and eliminate barriers to accessing safe, accessible, and affordable housing options. Along with the HCBS Settings Rule, strict enforcement of the ADA’s integration mandate is vital to redressing the social isolation, loss of autonomy, and threat of institutionalization Black disabled women disproportionately bear. The ADA’s integration mandate can also be used to curtail the ever expanding reach of the criminal legal system.

To transform the economic conditions of Black disabled women, policymakers must raise the federal monthly benefit and index it to inflation. In the long term, public benefits administration must be transformed entirely to eliminate cumbersome barriers and asset limits, while ensuring that anyone who needs care receives it. To protect disabled workers, policymakers must promote and protect workers’ rights to unionize; guarantee access to paid family and medical leave; increase the federal minimum wage and abolish sub-minimum wages; and provide robust investments in accessible public transit options.

Universal health coverage must also be guaranteed. By rationing access to health care by employment status, age, disability diagnosis, and citizenship our health systems cause premature death and saddle disabled people of color with disproportionately high medical debt burdens. A profit-driven health system is incompatible with life. As such, guaranteed universal health coverage must also be paired with medical debt relief which is disproportionately borne by Black households and contributes to the expanding racial wealth gap.

Conclusion

Ruth Wilson Gilmore reflects that “where life is precious, life is precious.” By applying BWB and DJ jointly, we dismantle all policies that are incompatible with all life. When Black disabled life is precious, health care, nutrition, housing, and access to community are not rationed by one’s labor output, age, disability status, or ability to conform to racist norms. When Black disabled women’s lives are valued in policy and practice, then we disrupt the systems which normalize and produce premature death. Cultivating in their place social systems rooted in an ethic of community care, interdependence, and collective freedom.

This country has never been united, and Black and brown people have always been dreaming of our liberation. Though the COVID-19 pandemic and recession completely unmasked our deeply unequal society, the choices that government “leaders” and policymakers made in its wake ensured that, to this day, communities of color continue to suffer the worst consequences — as they have for generations.

This inequitable reality was never inevitable. It’s the result of an economic and political system that is driven by elite power-hoarders — the wealthiest among us, corrupt corporate CEOs, regressive lobbyists, and more — who know that racism is profitable and have gained behind-the-scenes control over the decisions that impact our everyday lives.

At Liberation in a Generation, we know that the only way out is through — on a new path forward that all people of color embark on together, collectively dismantling and restructuring the institutions and systems that entrench our oppression. Our vision is both bold in its aspirations and practical in its approach. We call it Radical Pragmatism.

Radical pragmatism aims to transform and upend systems of oppression and harm while acknowledging our current realities and the opportunities to shift power toward that vision. In deep partnership with Common Future, we conceived, shaped, and built this new framework together.

Living Our Values through the Principles of Radical Pragmatism

Radical Pragmatism is based on 10 core principles, which differentiate it from other justice frameworks:

1. Economic liberation requires always telling the truth about the centrality of racism in our economy.
2. Racial and economic justice are one in the same.
3. We need to fix systems, not people.
4. People of color must lead throughout the movement ecosystem.
5. Efforts must be grounded in the material realities of people’s lived experiences.
6. Private actors — and private capital — must be utilized as allies of racial and economic justice.
7. Bold antiracist government policy will win economic liberation.
8. Liberation can be actualized in one generation.
9. To succeed, we must build, consolidate, and impose our political power.
10. All people of color belong.

Centering Our Voices as We Make the Change — Because We Are the Change

Each of our teams is leading vital new work that demonstrates the power and potential of Radical Pragmatism. Check out the framework in action:

An Economy for All: Building a Black Women Best Legislative Agenda is a vital congressional report produced by LibGen in partnership with the Congressional Caucus on Black Women and Girls (CCBWG). The report is rooted in Black Women Best (BWB) — a framework that argues for our government to bring Black women from the margins to the center and intentionally creates economic policies that pull Black women out of economic precarity and into economic prosperity; doing so necessarily means that everyone will benefit. It affirms that none of us can be free until Black women are free. Because — as the Combahee River Collective named — our freedom necessitates the destruction of EVERY system of oppression.

Led by LibGen’s Azza Altiraifi and Kendra Bozarth, who collaborated with over 40 other Black women to produce this visionary endeavor, we literally put Black women at the center of this project — and the Radical Pragmatism principles were present at every stage.

Later this month, the winners of the Common Future Policy Incubator will be announced. This project exemplifies leading by doing. Through the selection process, Common Future is prioritizing ideas that are race and power explicit, channel repairative solutions, redress the root of harm, and offer ingenuity. Through the Policy Incubator, they’re designing an economy of shared growth. Ultimately, they’re looking for grounded, data-driven solutions that build power and amplify the voices of those most affected by systemic failures.

How can you practice Radical Pragmatism? This framework and its principles guide our work, day in and day out. Learn more at radicalpragmatism.org.

Black Women Best is more than a policy and political framework — it’s a values statement, an organizing praxis, and a call to action. BWB compels us to move beyond restrictive white supremacist and capitalist modes of being, relating with one another, and studying the world around us. Those in power have long presented the inequity, instability, and violence we collectively navigate as inevitable and even necessary. We are told that in capitalism there must always be winners and losers, forcing us to labor under conditions that crush our bodies and spirits to access life-sustaining resources that are increasingly captured by corporations and rationed by the state. BWB is a point of departure, challenging us to craft narratives that break free of the discursive parameters set by racial capitalism and transform our understanding of wealth, health, and freedom.

While the next section of the report will examine the policy applications of BWB more specifically, here we explore the narrative and cultural context needed to understand the framework fully. Using wealth as an example, we probe the provocations that BWB activates, call for an expansive vision of wealth, and lift up the narratives that will help us tell our economic story anew.

Expanding the Definition of Wealth and Reassessing How We Measure It

Policymakers committed to redressing economic oppression have rightly focused on the need to build wealth for Black women. But first, society as a whole must broaden its understanding of what that means and what it requires. Wealth is typically presented in terms of capital, but BWB is more interested in what wealth confers — such as agency and security — than in material wealth accumulation as an end in and of itself. When we look past material wealth, we see everything that wealth provides: the wealth of autonomy, of agency, of a legacy, of time. What if we leaned into radical imagination in our considerations of Black women’s wealth? What if we allowed Black women to define wealth for themselves, creating an entry point from which the conversation can be built on over time?

BWB centers ensuring economic prosperity for Black women, our families, our communities, and our society. While this includes eliminating the barriers to traditional forms of wealth-building that Black women face, it also means investing in community-based systems and formations that support people and their wellbeing.

As a financial asset, wealth provides a buffer against the unpredictability of life, but it also functions as an emotional and physical asset. People use wealth to build intergenerational security and resiliency, investing in education, entrepreneurship, home ownership, and more. They also use it to navigate unexpected circumstances, such as job loss or illness, and to secure literal safety, leaving an abusive relationship, for example.

When we expand the definition of wealth, we see how much our current systems and institutions cost Black women — and us all. Rather than being at the whim of an economy that drastically shifts expectations and compounds pressures, we need an economy that is human-centered, offering self-determination and opportunity while affirming our interdependence.

Quantitatively, BWB requires clear and concise measures of the many facets of Black women’s wealth. Our government has failed to prioritize intersectional analyses that would convey the “official” snapshot of Black women’s assets. This failure to accurately measure and make public the current state of Black women’s wealth points to a devaluing of the problem and an unwillingness — even an adversity — to provide adequate solutions.

The distributional financial accounts provide estimates of wealth distribution by race, gender, age, generation, education, and income, but they do not provide intersectional data. These data would allow policymakers to better understand not just the level of material wealth held by Black women across all of our identities but also the share of aggregate wealth held by Black women households. The St. Louis Federal Reserve provides a detailed analysis of the gender and racial wealth gaps, but it does not provide an analysis at their intersection.

We can’t fix a problem if we don’t know the extent of its devastation. Scholars have supplemented the federal government’s lacking analyses with thoughtful evaluations and valuable insights. These findings reveal a grim reality for Black women’s wealth, but we cannot overcome this reality without an intentional, in-depth exploration of its magnitude. When we better understand the state of Black women’s wealth and its numerous dimensions, we can better implement a BWB legislative agenda in ways that will allow us to reclaim not just financial resources but everything else that access to wealth confers, including our time, energy, and agency.

We Are the Protagonists: Shifting the Narrative

​​Achieving Black women’s economic wellbeing will take more than strong policy change — it demands an intentional, long-term narrative shift. From our country’s inception, US politicians and society at large have cultivated, adopted, and perpetuated harmful myths about Black women.

These narratives — our shared cultural understandings, frames of reference, and mental models — play an integral role in both policymaking and public response. Thus, BWB cannot be fully understood nor successfully applied without uprooting the violent worldviews that serve to justify oppressive systems and then building liberatory narratives in their stead.

For instance, our social safety net policies over the past five decades have been driven by President Ronald Reagan’s “welfare queen” narrative campaign, an inaccurate trope targeted at Black women as a way to justify the decimation of welfare benefits. This narrative has successfully reinforced a toxic ideology that places the onus of poverty solely on the individual, rather than examining and acknowledging the societal and political decisions that force a person into poverty in the first place.

“The welfare queen has deep historical roots and is one of the most enduring, racist, and sexist stereotypes that has slithered its way to permanency and perceived truth within the American consciousness. It says that Black women are cheats, lazy, promiscuous, inept, and need to be tamed in order to get work out of them, and therefore don’t deserve help or concern.”

Black women today are still seen as “cheats” and are scapegoated as the main (undeserving) beneficiaries of government aid, despite the fact that white Americans have always comprised the largest share of welfare recipients.

Reagan is merely one stop in a long — and bipartisan — tradition of policymakers casting Black women as criminals out to scam the system while intentionally ignoring the inequitable systems that hold Black women back from maintaining economic security and building wealth.

Black women’s progress in the professional world is stymied by the stereotype of the “angry Black woman,” a concept stemming from chattel slavery that is still prominent today. This belief that Black women are louder, more challenging, and overall ill-tempered has been proven to hold Black women back in the workplace, with researchers finding that when a Black woman expresses anger, many are more likely to view it as a personality flaw rather than the result of a precipitating event.

As Dorothy E. Roberts has investigated, this discrimination extends to parenting as well, with Black women seen as “bad parents” and more likely to display criminal behavior compared to their peers of other races. This narrative drives inequities in the child welfare system, with most white children who enter the system allowed to stay with their families while most Black children are removed from theirs. According to PBS, “Once removed from their homes, [B]lack children remain in foster care longer, are moved more often, receive fewer services, and are less likely to be either returned home or adopted than any other children.”

We can see this play out today in everything from the abysmal income and material wealth gaps Black women face to the constant challenges to their credibility — even when they’ve reached the top of their professions. Most recently, backlash quickly emerged to President Joe Biden’s decision to nominate the first Black woman to the Supreme Court (SCOTUS), including that of a professor’s public assertion that any Black woman would be “lesser” to a man.

As of the writing of this report, the SCOTUS debate is ongoing, but we know that the nomination process will be rife with unfair and unjust critiques that are borne from racist and sexist narratives. Dr. Lisa Cook experienced similar attacks during the selection proceedings for her to serve on the Federal Reserve Board of Governors, despite being eminently qualified.

The BWB framework requires Black women to be decision-makers and power-holders as we remake our economy. The Black women most harmed by past and current policy choices should be the ones rewriting them, and we must also ensure that more Black women, who are accountable to directly impacted communities, serve in high-level policy roles. This includes legislators, court justices, and heads of agencies. The Congressional Caucus on Black Women and Girls (CCBWG) co-led by Rep. Bonnie Watson Coleman, Rep. Robin Kelly, and Rep. Yvette Clarke is the first congressional caucus that focuses specifically on the unique needs of Black women and girls; Rep. Maxine Waters is the first Black person and woman to chair the House Financial Services Committee, and she’s driving transformational policies; Sandra Thompson was nominated to lead the Federal Housing Finance Agency and would be the first Black woman to lead there, if confirmed; and Housing and Urban Development (HUD) Secretary Marcia L. Fudge is incorporating intersectionality in her push for affordable housing. Having Black women leaders, with demonstrated commitments to equity, at the helm of these institutions will drive inclusive growth, ensuring that the whole of the nation is lifted.

False narratives hurt Black women’s economic wellbeing and limit their political power. To achieve an economy, democracy, and society that fosters the success of Black women — and of us all — we must rewrite these narratives, leading with radical and righteous truths.

BWB requires policymakers to remove barriers to wealth building — and to dismantle systems of wealth extraction — for Black women through the myriad policy proposals outlined in the next section of this report. It also requires that we abandon antiquated narratives based on scarcity and scapegoating and instead operate in abundance and truth — creating resources and providing support to help Black women, and everyone, thrive.

The COVID-19 pandemic and resulting recession — and our government’s failure to provide a targeted response — laid bare the ways that structural racism and white supremacist capitalist cisheternormative patriarchy hurt Black women, people of color, and our society as a whole. We know that inequality is never an outcome of individual behavior; it is always the result of policy and cultural choices. By centering Black women in our economic decisions and rewriting our stories, we can uproot systemic injustice and build toward necessary structural change for everyone. If we make the road by walking it, guaranteed income is one of the clearest policy pathways we have for demonstrating the collective strength of a Black Women Best legislative agenda.

As we endure a still-separate and -unequal society — founded on anti-Blackness, patriarchy, and ableism — we also endure fatal stress that compounds harm in life-debilitating and -eroding ways.

In studies that measured allostatic load (AL) — a biomarker that reflects the long-term biological wear and tear of chronically elevated cortisol levels and prolonged states of anxiety, resulting in increased risk of morbidity and premature death — Black women persistently had the highest and second highest AL scores regardless of age or socioeconomic status. Additionally, Black women consistently have higher rates of chronic conditions, such as hypertension, heart disease, and thyroid disorders, than all of their racialized counterparts.

Black pregnant people in the United States — regardless of socioeconomic status or educational background — are three times as likely to die during pregnancy or from complications after birth than their white, non-Hispanic counterparts. And despite having comparable, if not lower, developmental risk in most cancer categories, Black women are the most likely to die once diagnosed, for all cancers, than non-Black women.

Research looking at telomere length — another biomarker of stress-related aging — found that stress and economic hardship played a significant role in prematurely aging Black women, biologically making them 7.5 years “older” than white women despite being the same age.

“Time is fundamental to health promotion and human agency, as in having time to exercise and maintain social relationships. Further, scarcity in time is related to stress and illness. Time is also racialized, such that racial/ethnic minorities often have less free time and suffer a time penalty in multiple facets of life.”
—Dr. Gilbert C. Gee et al., “Racism and the Life Course: Taking Time Seriously”

I’ve been thinking about the importance of finding my people. The people that embrace all of me for me. Those who want to dig in to loving debate. Those who validate my feelings and push me to think and feel further. The people who make me feel seen and that I belong. Life generally, but especially in the work of making justice, is best when we find our people.

Speaking with the participants of a recent LeaderSpring event certainly left me feeling like I’ve expanded my circle of people. We covered many topics in two short hours, and here are highlights that I left with and hold dear:

Advancing Liberation Happens on Many Levels at Once:

In Emergent Strategy, Adrienne Marie Brown offers that how we are at a small scale is how we are at a large scale, much like the structure of a fern that repeats its structural fractal pattern. What was clear from this virtual conversation earlier in the year was that the practice of unseating racist ideas and rejecting the harmful beliefs that shape our economy must happen within us, between us, and across our communities all at once.

As a Black woman in America, it’s easy to feel and act as if I am not worthy or valuable or deserving, but interrupting this urge can challenge internalized white supremacy. Changing small practices in our interactions with others, such as blaming others for their own poverty, can help us design better collective responses. Changing the professional practices that are within our control and, on closer examination, are truly unnecessary — and even harmful — can change power dynamics. I think of a push in philanthropy to simplify and even eliminate grant reports as an example. These seemingly small practices add up, dismantling the dominating forces that overpower the broader movement and our collective mission.

These practices are also supported by a set of values. Values and beliefs make their way into policies that govern how we interact with each other within the systems that shape our lives. Cementing anti-racist policies where people of color are beneficiaries of the wealth of this nation that they help create can be a catalyst for repair and healing. At Liberation in a Generation, our values undergird our worldview and the economic transformations we seek for ending the Oppression Economy and building a Liberation Economy.

Leaders of color, in particular, are balancing these practices of interpersonal, intrapersonal, cross community, and societal transformations at once. And as so many practitioners recognize and offer, this work also transcends the here and now. We sit between our ancestors and our descendents all of whom can offer us wisdom and guidance to set these practices into motion.

Using Power and Privilege to Disperse Risk and Change Systems

We all have power. Too many of us, however, do not have the privilege (of time, money, or connections, for example) of exercising that power for change. Through LibGen, Jeremie Greer and I had the privilege of starting a new organization. We were fortunate enough to have the power and privilege to take that professional and financial risk. And all that we do is in service of amplifying the collective power of those fighting for change. Our work is to uncover and shine light on the many decisions, rules, and policies that perpetuate oppression in our economy.

A core question we ask ourselves is: How do we as a movement continually shift the risk away from people experiencing the sharpest edges of our broken economy? One thought: build institutions that can help shift and absorb the risk of calling truth to power — the risk of taking physical or financial action. Organizations that are well-resourced, connected, and working in service of a broader ecosystem of change over long periods of time are institutions. They can weather reputational, financial, and legal risks that individuals can not. When we aren’t using our institutional and individual power and privilege to shift the power and privilege of those who cannot take those risks, we are off the path of liberation.

Find Your People

Liberation does not happen alone. I stay looking for others to help me workshop challenges and embark in scenario planning. Find others who inspire you and be sure to inspire others yourself. Find others to build power with — together. We know that the Oppression Economy thrives from racism, but it’s also entrenched by fabricated senses of competition between us and our paths. As you build, tell others what you’re doing, so we can accelerate change — again, together. LeaderSpring provides a wonderful space for those in struggle together to be a well of support, encouragement and imagination. Grateful for the opportunity to walk alongside you all who joined me there and with everyone reading this and working for a liberated future.

Like so many of us do these days, we set a time and date to come together in a virtual space. After the pleasantries, our conversation turned to our recent professional and personal experiences. As context, we both spend the majority of our waking hours thinking about, conspiring with others, and meditating on how to shape a liberated future with Black people. A future where we are not traversing systems of harm or living in economic oppression. This is challenging work, given all the ways that our individual and collective present can cloud our ability to see a future for ourselves and loved ones.

Of course, a pandemic creates uncertainty that makes imagining our tomorrows difficult, let alone envisioning our collective future a generation from now. This is to say nothing of the very real and very violent systemic racism — evictions, hunger, climate crises, state-sponsored violence — Black people endure that can make futuring seem impossible, absurd even.

This is not by mistake. Racial capitalism depends, in part, on us staying in survival mode, on our exhaustion preventing our dreaming.

But, Black folks do not have the luxury of allowing ourselves to stay in survival mode. We can’t let what will be, be. Dreaming begets believing. Believing begets acting and building. And action and building together beget transformation.

Imagining a beautiful future does not negate or distract from the current reality or current pain; it clarifies our destination, the tools and strategies to get there, and the crew we need to roll with. Our history is full of powerful dreamers, believers, doers — who seeded revolutions of expanded possibility and built our present. Futuring is a muscle we cannot afford to let atrophy. And the future is indeed ours to see and shape.

This February, we invite you to join us in remembering that we deserve to dream, to imagine, to manifest a Black future. We will offer modest practices to create more comfort with futuring, lower the stakes on planning, and build our futuring muscle memory. We hope that you’ll share your responses, musings, and resources with us and with your circles and networks. Open your next video call with a prompt that moves you. Or, share your favorite exercise with a friend or family member — you might be surprised by their response.

“Sing a song full of the faith that the dark past has taught us,

Sing a song full of the hope that the present has brought us.”

— James Weldon Johnson, “Lift Every Voice and Sing”

What will we carry into the future?

Follow along on Twitter with the hashtag #BlackFuturesMonth.

Connie Razza is the executive director of the Social & Economic Justice Leaders Project.
Solana Rice is the co-executive director of Liberation in a Generation and Liberation in a Generation Action.