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Live Healthy Miami Gardens (LHMG) Vaccination Coverage Project

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The COVID-19 pandemic is a critical global public health concern that has disproportionately affected the African American community in the United States with Black adults more susceptible to health risks linked to severe COVID-19 infections than their white counterparts. According to the Centers for Disease Control & Prevention (CDC), in terms of hospitalization, Blacks have COVID-19 hospitalization rates that are almost 5 times more than Whites. Furthermore, increasing evidence suggests that these COVID-19 racial health disparities have been linked to a number of racial structural disadvantages such as inequity in health care utilization/access, systemic economic deprivation, quality of life, and variations in pre-existing underlying health conditions.

The City of Miami Gardens (CMG) is the largest majority-Black City in Florida and the third-largest municipality in Miami-Dade County. Largely due to its ethnic make-up (70.8% Black and 24.6% Hispanic), the CMG is also one of the state’s largest concentrations of chronic disease and related risks. In an effort to address vaccine hesitancy within the CMG, the CDC provided funding to the City’s Live Healthy Miami Gardens Initiative (LHMG) to implement the LHMG Vaccination Coverage Project.

To address the following research question, (How do COVID-19 vaccinated Miami Gardens residents differ from those who have not been vaccinated in terms of their perceptions of COVID-19 vaccine and medical mistrust as it relates to taking the vaccine?), a mixed-methods (qualitative and quantitative) Rapid Community Assessment (RCA) was created and conducted by a research team from Florida Memorial University (Dr. Max C. E. Orezzoli) and St. Thomas University (Dr. Jodi Grace). The RCA’s focus is to better understand the barriers to vaccine uptake and identify and address drivers of vaccine hesitancy to -> inform and equip Influential Community Messengers/Networks in order to -> increase vaccination opportunities and enhance provider partnership in the CMG. The RCA’s findings and recommendations are included in the report below:

COVID-19 FLU HESITANCY QUANT & QUAL (RCA) DATA RESULTS – ANALYSES FOR MIAMI GARDENS, FL (1)

 

– Dr. Max Orezzoli, Assistant Professor of Social Sciences

Max Orezzoli

Governor DeSantis’ Anti-Protest Legislation Serves Anti-Black Racism and White Supremacy

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A useful tool when evaluating any proposed legislation seeking to expand the criminal power of the State is to determine whether the new provisions seek to identify a “race problem” and then criminalize it.

The criminalization of “race problems” has been the central animating theory of conservative politics and has served the cause of White Supremacy since before the country’s inception. As compellingly detailed in Michelle Alexander’s “The New Jim Crow:  Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness,” the criminalization of “race problems” most recently found expression in the “War on Drugs,” which was conceived under Ronald Regan in the 1980s and which continues to destroy Black Communities today.  Relying on statistics establishing that Blacks are substantially less likely to use and sell drugs when compared to Whites, yet Blacks are arrested, prosecuted, convicted, sentenced, and deprived of civic, political and economic rights in grossly disproportionate numbers, Alexander frames the “War on Drugs” as the pretextual deployment of the criminal power of the State against Black communities in service of White Supremacy, just like Jim Crow.

Black people stamped with the brand of “criminal” — through the “War of Drugs,” through calls for “Law and Order,” or through Governor DeSantis’ proposed anti-protest legislation — may then be subject to “legal” discrimination in access to employment, benefits, housing, and political participation, just like Jim Crow.

The insidiousness of the expansion of the criminal power of the State found in the Governor’s so-called anti-protest legislation lies in the broad discretion vested in law enforcement to sweep Black people into the criminal justice system based on anti-Black discriminatory factors, both conscious and subconscious, which broader society refuses to acknowledge or confront.  The reverse side of this problem lies in the inability and unwillingness of law enforcement to subject White people to the criminal and societal consequences of their misconduct that is equal to or more serious than Black conduct.  These problematic disparities are illustrated, for example, by comparing the permissive law enforcement responses to the January 6, 2021 insurrection at the United States Capitol in Washington, D.C., committed by Whites, with the brutal responses to Black Lives Matter protests in the summer of 2020.

It is with this understanding of the destructive and congenital conservative practice to criminalize any “race problem” that we evaluate Governor Ron DeSantis’ proposed anti-protest legislation, which seeks to expand police powers to suppress the right to protest in Florida.   We are hard-pressed to think of any outpouring of similar concern regarding the exercise of the First Amendment right to protest during, for example, the Women’s Marches in 2017 or during the March for Our Lives Parkland protests in 2018.  Governor DeSantis does not explain how existing criminal provisions prohibiting, for example, “unlawful assemblies,” penalizing the destruction of property, and penalizing injury to persons, are inadequate.

Our conclusion that the proposed legislation seeks to further entrench White Supremacy and serve Anti-Black Racism by criminalizing the “race problem” of Black protest is supported by the fact that the Governor’s concern to suppress the right to protest has arisen only after Black people and our allies engaged widespread and popularly received (both nationally and internationally) protests to reassert the humanist principle that Black Lives Matter.  The conclusion that the legislation serves Anti-Black Racism and White Supremacy is further supported by the fact that the legislation advances the conservative objective of Black voter disenfranchisement by assigning felony-level penalties to protest-related activity. Finally, the conclusion that the legislation serves Anti-Black Racism and White Supremacy is sealed by the legislation’s protections afforded to Florida’s monuments to Confederate racists and traitors.

It is a cynic irony that the enforcers of the Governor’s anti-protest legislation would be the very same law enforcement officers whose conscious and subconscious anti-Black racism are the very targets of Black Lives Matters protests.  A prescription for even greater suppression of Black protest than that found in the Governor’s legislation is hard to conceive.

Alexander Rundlet, Esq., Chief Strategist, FMU Social Justice Institute

Susan Rice

What Social Justice Gains Can Black Americans Expect from the Biden-Harris Administration

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Shortly after being inaugurated as President of the United States, Joseph R. Biden used his new authority to sign Executive Order 13985, “Executive Order On Advancing Racial Equity and Support for Underserved Communities Through the Federal Government.” In welcome contrast to the previous presidential administration, which consistently ignored racial inequality and provided comfort to White supremacists, Biden’s order, the first of his administration, establishes the problem of rampant systemic inequality as a foundational problem in American society. “It is therefore the policy of my Administration,” Biden’s order announced, “that the Federal Government should pursue a comprehensive approach to advancing equity for all, including people of color and others who have been historically underserved, marginalized, and adversely affected by persistent poverty and inequality.”

President Biden’s intentional and progressive action on this front is reminiscent of the clarion call of another president, Harry Truman. On December 5, 1946, President Truman signed Executive Order 9808, establishing his Presidential Committee on Civil Rights. The following year, the Committee published its 178-page report, entitled To Secure These Rights. While the committee disbanded, Truman again used the power of his office to issue two additional orders, 9980 and 9981, which ended segregation in the federal workforce and the U.S. Armed Services, respectfully.

The engine driving the work Biden has set in place with EO 13985 is the White House Domestic Policy Council, headed by former National Security Advisor for the Obama Administration, Susan Rice. Rice and the DPC will lead a coordinated effort across agencies, with the assistance of the Office of Management and Budget, to identify inequities where they exist in the federal government and take concrete steps to address them. Bad policy, even when it is put in place with good intention, is at the root of social and economic inequality. Rice’s leadership of such a broad and impactful effort offers a glimmer of hope that effective social justice measures can take root under the Biden-Harris Administration.

Some in the Black community have already expressed dissatisfaction with Biden’s first efforts to address racial inequality. EO 13985 doesn’t feel tangible yet, and his executive order eliminating the use of private prisons at the federal level, while encouraging, has a very limited impact on the ongoing issue of mass incarceration in the US. The fact that these orders were paired with memorandums from the administration that also address the plight of First Nation people as well as Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders, to some, represents a diluted focus on the broad problems of “people of color” and not Black people specifically. The criticism is fair, given that we are now far enough away from the implementation of affirmative action policies to know that, while Black people demanded these remedies, White women have been the primary beneficiaries of those policies.

It will take not only time but a continuation of strategic civic engagement and the pressure it brings for the promises made by the Biden-Harris campaign in its “Lift Every Voice: The Biden Plan for Black America” to come to fruition. The $70 billion pledged to Historically Black Colleges and Universities, as well as Minority-Serving Institutions, would have a powerful long-term impact on their fates. The promise of student loan forgiveness for families earning under $125,000 would provide much-needed relief for many, but Black women in particular, as they carry disproportionate amounts of student loan debt. When it comes to addressing other forms of economic inequality, revisions to the Small Business Credit Initiative, closer attention to the equitable distribution of the Paycheck Protection Program, as well as ensuring equitable access to credit and capital for Black-owned businesses are also sorely needed. Positive outcomes on these fronts will be decided by the pressure that Black communities can organize and apply to this current administration.

 

–  Tameka Bradley Hobbs, Ph.D., Director of the FMU Social Justice Institute

“A Social Psychological Perspective on Police Violence” by Dr. Edward Stephenson

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Police violence directed against indigenous people, African Americans in particular, has in recent times, been at the forefront of the social consciousness brought about by the much-publicized and sensationalized killing of such individuals as George Floyd and many others. The infamous cry of Mr. Floyd, “I Can’t Breathe,” has come to serve as a metaphor for the anguish and soul-wounds experienced by Black people after the many years of being subjected to state-sanctioned violence and other forms of social oppression. How do we begin to understand the nature of such violence: why it occurs, its purpose and function, and the impact it has on individuals and communities?

The root of the issue is a social psychological question, as it is necessary to gain insight into the social and cultural conditions that produce it as well as the psychological processes that allow such violence to be enacted. Understanding the social psychology of police violence will not only lead to a greater intellectual understanding but also an opening of our hearts; that is, to an understanding that allows us to develop the compassion, love, and forgiveness that is required for us to heal, both individually and collectively, both as victims and perpetrators, and aspire towards creating a world characterized not by violence and oppression but by peace, truth, and justice.

Social psychology places emphasis on the power of social situations while deemphasizing the importance of dispositions (personality or character). This distinction is an important one since police violence is often viewed from a dispositional point of view whereby the causal basis of the violence is attributed to the actors or persons, that is, the police officers. A dispositional view of police violence, as scholars Anthony Greenwald and Linda Krieger so aptly point out, “ignores significant empirical evidence from the field of social psychology suggesting that conscious racial animosity likely only accounts for a small percentage of racially motivated conduct.” Moreover, this dispositional view of police violence, while constituting an error in perception, is however intentionally reinforced by the dominant culture for the purpose of shifting our attention from the discriminatory institutional practices and policies that are embedded in the criminal justice system on a whole and the system of policing.

A systemic or macro-level analysis of police violence, however, posits that such violence is the product of a social system characterized by race and class inequality and in which police violence serve to maintain and reinforce the racially-based social order so that White privilege is preserved but only through the subordination and dehumanization of people of color.  In this view, police violence is one of the many manifestations of state-sanctioned violence used in ensuring the subordination of indigenous populations. State-sanctioned violence, as W. Martin Dulaney noted in his book Black Police in America, may be traced back to slavery where it first took the form of slave patrols. Later in the period of Reconstruction, the KKK came to be the major perpetrators of violence directed at African Americans.

In the modern era the criminal justice system, in which the police play a major role, has become the primary conveyors of state-sanctioned violence. What then are the institutional policies and practices that lead to police violence? While the answer to this question lies beyond the scope of this essay, briefly, examples of such policies include “broken windows” policing which directs police officers to focus on high crime areas and “stop and frisk policing” both practices increasing the likelihood of officers having encounters with Black people and those encounters being of a lethal nature. Moreover, it is important to point out that the criminal justice system and the policies and practices upon which it operates are all grounded on White supremacy values and beliefs. Thus, any attempt at implementing systemic changes must therefore include uprooting the myriad of forms in which White supremacy is manifested and expressed.

A major implication of embracing such a systemic approach to police violence is that it alerts us to the notion that any real, impactful, and sustainable change will need to involve a fundamental restructuring of the system of policing and the very criminal justice system itself. No longer can we afford to continue to hold on to the naïve notion that the problem of police violence can be solved by purging the system of those officers who enact the evil without radically transforming the very system that produces it.

– Dr. Edward Stephenson is Associate Professor of Psychology and FMU Social Justice Institute Affiliated Faculty Member

“Why Mass Incarceration is a Leading Social Justice Issue” by Janiyah Davis-Hines

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Mass incarceration is responsible for wreaking havoc on the Black community. The decline of Black America is linked to mass incarceration, going back to the early 1970s. During the early 1970s, an increase in arrests and imprisonment in the Black community can be attributed to infamous “Law and Order” scare tactics. Conservative Republicans coined this phrase to induce fear within White Americans, promising to be tough on crime at a time when crime was actually on a decline. This tactic was used to appeal to Republican voters during elections, promising stricter laws and more arrests.

In 1971, then President Richard Nixon identified drug use as “public enemy number one.” Once in office in the mid-1980s, President Ronald Reagan famously expanded the “War on Drugs.” The choices made by his administration changed the entire face of the criminal justice system. The “War on Drugs” gave police officers across the country incentives to violate the rights of citizens in pursuit of reducing the amount of narcotics-peddling on the streets. Prisons began raking in prisoners at rates never seen before in United States history. The prison population more than doubled. The majority of Black men currently serving time are there on non-violent drug offenses.

The ramifications of mass incarceration on the Black community have proven to be unyielding. African Americans are close to 13% of America’s population but half of the entire prison system. The so-called “War on Drugs” had negligible impact on actual drug peddling but succeeded in defaming the Black community. For many years, the widespread negative impact of mass incarceration went unaddressed. In recent years, however, the issue has gained traction. Many right-wing politicians continue to call this issue a conspiracy or even a myth and characterize it as another example of African Americans complaining about oppression.

The “war on drugs” created a reprehensible culture that continues to inform the current nature of the criminal justice system. The hyperpolicing of Black communities has resulted in routine civil rights violations without addressing the root or flow of the drug trade. Some police officers feel empowered to casually hunt Black men and Black women down like cattle, completely disregarding their rights to life and liberty.

Once victims of hyperpolicing are caught in this cycle, many are left without access to proper or adequate council, regardless of the crime committed. Guilty or not guilty, they are faced with an ultimatum: accept a plea deal or spend decades in prison. Upon release, the formerly incarcerated are saddled with felonies and a deeper sense of despondency, only to have society add salt to their injuries. Recidivism rates tell a very keen and obvious story. Ultimately, this “War on Drugs” impacted the Black community by increasing disenfranchisement, increasing poverty, dismantling the Black family, and increasing police brutality. The common denominator is mass incarceration.

This is a serious social justice issue that needs to be addressed. Our drug enforcement policies need to be investigated and changed. Drug users need treatment, not prison. Marginalized Black communities need improved education and economic opportunity. It is up to our generation to understand these issues and to be a part of the change.

 

Janiyah Davis-Hines is a Criminal Justice Major at Florida Memorial University and Volunteer with the FMU Social Justice Institute

Alexander Rundlet Photo

Alexander Rundlet joins the FMU Social Justice Institute as its Chief Strategist

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The FMU Social Justice Institute (FMU SJI) recently engaged Alexander Rundlet, Esq. as its Chief Strategist. Rundlet brings years of experience as a litigator and policy analyst with a focus on social justice issues. As Chief Strategist for the FMU SJI, Rundlet will serve as a part of its leadership team to assist with the implementation of its goals and aims.

“We are thrilled to have Attorney Rundlet as a thought-partner for the SJI,” says Dr. Tameka Bradley Hobbs, Associate Provost for Academic Affairs at FMU and the Founding Director of the FMU SJI. “From the time we launched, he’s been an active member of the advisory board. Alexander has incredible expertise in the intersection of the law, policy, and racial justice that is of tremendous value to the vision and work of the SJI.”

“It is a delight to have a talented and experienced legal scholar such as Alex join the Lion Family and to help advance the goals and objective of our Social Justice Institute,” remarked FMU President, Dr. Jaffus Hardrick.

Rundlet earned his undergraduate degree from Dartmouth College and a juris doctorate degree from the University of Pennsylvania Law School. Prior to law school, he was a Health Education Volunteer in the United States Peace Corps in Mali, West Africa.

Rundlet was awarded a Post–Graduate Justice Fellowship by George Soros’ Open Society Institute, working as a Staff Attorney at the Southern Center for Human Rights in Atlanta, Georgia, between 2000 and 2003, where he represented individuals in misdemeanor and felony cases and represented individuals on death row in Georgia and Alabama in capital post–conviction proceedings. He also was a member of the State Bar of Georgia’s Indigent Defense Committee and worked with a coalition of lawyers who, through a coordinated campaign of class action litigation, public education and lobbying efforts in the Georgia General Assembly, brought about sweeping criminal justice reform in the State of Georgia. He has appeared before the Georgia Court of Appeals and the Georgia Supreme Court. Alexander continues his work with the Southern Center for Human Rights as a member of its Board of Trustees.

After moving to Miami in 2003, Alexander gained extensive courtroom and jury trial experience as an Assistant Public Defender in the Office of the Public Defender for the Eleventh Judicial Circuit in and for Miami–Dade County before entering private practice.  In private practice, Alexander has extensive experience as a civil litigator in civil rights, complex litigation, and class action cases.

National Guardmen in Washington, DC.

The Changing Same: Voting, Violence, and American History

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This week we pause to celebrate the life and legacy of the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. If he had not been assassinated 53 years ago by a white supremacist, Dr. King would have celebrated his 92nd birthday on January 15th. In his short 39 years on the planet, he made an indelible mark on the United States and the world. His voice, his work, and his vision remain as an example of the power and potential of liberatory theology applied in the context of American democracy.  

The Rev. Dr. William Barber has picked up where King left off, reinvigorating King’s Poor People’s Movement in 2018, fifty years after King’s murder. Like King, Barber continues to build a multiracial coalition determined that elected officials use the wealth of the nation to improve the lives of our most marginalized citizens. It is encouraging to see King’s vision for America—his Dream—being carried forward today. 

This year’s observance of the King holiday takes on special meaning as we prepare to witness the inauguration of Sen. Kamala Harris as Vice President of the United States, who carries with her a list of “firsts.” She will be the first woman to hold the office, as well as the first person of African, Caribbean, and South Asian descent in the post. She will also be the first graduate of a Historically Black University to hold the office. All of these are reasons for celebration and are encouraging signs that King’s dream of a more inclusive and equitable America is still alive. 

The beauty of this moment, however, is overshadowed by the specter of racial violence of the same variant that took the life of Dr. King. The attempted insurrection at the US Capitol on January 6th was fueled in large part by White supremacist angst, the flames of which have been fanned by Donald Trump since he amplified the “birther” campaign against then-presidential candidate Barack Obama. 

Now soon-to-be former President Trump, in yet another conspiracy theory, claims that the 2020 electoral results are false, that he actually won a second term, and that the presidency is being stolen from him. He has persisted in these claims while unable to produce any evidence in court or any other venue. That has not stopped him or his followers, and it resulted in the deadly attack on January 6th that took the life of a Capitol Police officer. 

Ahead of the inauguration, in an abundance of caution, the nation’s capital has been turned into a militarized zone with 25,000 National Guard troops roaming the core of the city and the FBI having to deeply vet law enforcement and troops there for white supremacist sympathies. The last time Washington, DC, experienced this level of militarization was, ironically, in the days following King’s assassination when 13,000 troops were ordered to the city. The time before that was 1861 before the inauguration of Abraham Lincoln as the nation stood on the brink of a civil war. 

The through-line of these instances of brutality is the deadly combination of White violence in the service of the idea of White supremacy. In 1861, Southern Whites launched what would become the bloodiest war in American history to preserve White supremacy in the form of chattel slavery. The murder of Martin Luther King Jr. was the crescendo of White supremacist violence of the civil rights era, including economic reprisals, voter disenfranchisement, lynchings, beatings, and assassinations. 

In January 2021, we are faced with yet another manifestation of White supremacist violence, this time predicated on fears that White people are losing their majority and thereby their historic control of the nation’s government. While media commentators have read these behaviors through many lenses—economic anxiety, lack of college education, and other frameworks—history demonstrates that this is yet another articulation of White supremacist ideology. Examining these behaviors through the lenses of race and history, these patterns become clearer. This is the subject of Carol Anderson’s book White Rage: The Untold Truth of Our Racial Divide, which follows the trajectory of both anti-Black violence and anti-Black policy from Reconstruction through the Obama years. White rage, Anderson argues, is triggered by Black advancement, and conversely the sense by whites that they are losing power. Such behavior, at its core, is inconsistent with our ideal of a multiracial, multiethnic democracy. These two warring ideologies cannot stand together. 

White supremacist violence in American history is persistent, consistent, regrettably unsurprising. If we are going to stop future manifestations, it is incumbent upon us to address it head-on and at its root. The way to honor the life of Dr. King is to acknowledge and ultimately destroy the ideological roots of the violence that took his life. White supremacy is a cancer that must be addressed if we are ever to achieve a just and fair society. 

US Capitol Policeman Eugene Goodman

The Capitol Riot, White Supremacy, and Post-Trump America

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Wednesday, January 6, 2021 offered a pair of contrasting events that portent the dynamism of political life in post-Trump America. On the one hand, Rev. Raphael Warnock and Jon Ossoff won historic victories in their Georgia Senate races. On the other, the violent attempt to disrupt the peaceful transfer of power in our nation’s capital is a serious threat to the nation and its citizens.

The full toll of the events that day continue to be tallied and continue to shock the conscience. The murder of Capitol Police Officers Brian Sicknick. The two explosive devices were fortunately discovered before they could be detonated. The palpable anger from the crowd as they overran the barricades and officers meant to constrain them. The destruction of the Capitol building, replete with blood, urination, and defecation. The video of a lone Black Capitol Police officer, Eugene Goodman, being confronted and chased by a crowd of angry White insurrectionists through the halls. The perpetrators of the Capitol Riot exhibited all the hallmarks of a lynch mob, unmoved by calls for law and order, and determined to take matters into their own hands.

Beyond that, the glaring difference in the treatment given by law enforcement to Black Lives Matter protesters over the past several months and the insurrectionists who stormed the Capitol building is a vivid illustration of unequal treatment that is part of the complex web of systemic racism that pervades our nation.

The current crisis presents a choice. In the words of the late Congressmen John Lewis, democracy is an act. We can either choose to protect and expand our democratic values so that more voices are valued and heard, as in the example of the state of Georgia, or we can continue to ignore the poisonous ideology of racial division that has fueled this current chaos to our own peril.

Writing last week for the New York Times Timothy Snyder of Yale University, in a piece entitled “The American Abyss,” pointed out the racial roots of our division and our need to confront it head-on. “The racism structured into every aspect of the coup attempt,” Snyder wrote, “is a call to heed our own history. Serious attention to the past helps us to see risks but also suggests future possibilities. We cannot be a democratic republic if we tell lies about race, big or small. Democracy is not about minimizing the vote nor ignoring it, neither a matter of gaming nor of breaking a system, but of accepting the equality of others, heeding their voices and counting their votes.”

Now is the moment for us to act and to invest in a greater future for us all.

FMU Social Justice Institute Logo

Reflections on 2020: The Promise of the Portal

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“Historically, pandemics have forced humans to break with the past and imagine their world anew. This one is no different. It is a portal, a gateway between one world and the next. We can choose to walk through it, dragging the carcasses of our prejudice and hatred, our avarice, our data banks and dead ideas, our dead rivers and smoky skies behind us. Or we can walk through lightly, with little luggage, ready to imagine another world. And ready to fight for it.” – Arundhati Roy, April 2020

Novelist Arundhati Roy, in writing about her native India in the early days of the global coronavirus pandemic, described it as a portal, a severe disruption of norms that offered the opportunity for people to imagine new possibilities for themselves, their societies, and their governments.

While Roy was focused on India, I embrace the challenge of her dream, imagining a new universe of possibilities for the United States and the world on the other side of the havoc being wrought by the pandemic.

We’ve seen the beginnings of this change germinate within our pandemic pause and a tragedy. It was during a period of quarantine, and the slowdown it created, that Americans of all backgrounds absorbed the murder of George Floyd. I have often wondered what was different about Floyd’s killing and all the others—Trayvon Martin, John Crawford, Tamir Rice, Michael Brown—that elicited such a strong reaction, not only from the Black community but from people of all stripes, not just in the US but around the globe. I have concluded that it was the fact that we were still, and in the stillness brought on by the coronavirus more people had the bandwidth to bear witness to and truly absorb the callous horror of the careless violence exercised against George Floyd. And they were moved.

The results have been stunning. The cry of “Black Lives Matter” was transformed, for many Americans, from a misunderstood annoyance to a vivid and valid movement. Suddenly politically correct, statements in support of the ethos and the BLM movement flowed from surprising quarters of business and industry. Institutions issued statements, only to be challenged to move deeper than lip service. Then major corporations began to back up the words with major commitments. Bank of America announced a $1 billion effort to address civil rights, social justice, and economic mobility. The Ford Foundation announced $1 billion in Social Bonds, the proceeds of which would “sustain and strengthen mission-critical social justice and creative expression organizations.” Facebook came forward with $20 million. The Biden-Harris campaign has foregrounded racial inequality as a part of the priorities for their administration when they assume power in January 2021. More than lip service, the investment of this type holds the promise for substantial change and signal a significant step forward in addressing social injustice and racial inequality in the US. Likewise, many institutions accepted the challenge of the movement and took steps to be a part of the solution, like Florida Memorial University’s Social Justice Institute.

While these new developments are encouraging, there is much that has to be sorted out. How will these funds be distributed? In the spirit of kujichagulia, or self-determination, will the Black community and its leaders be consulted in meaningful ways as organizations plan to address these widespread problems? How long will these commitments last? Will it reach beyond the performative expressions of solidarity, and instead seek to address the root of systemic racism, beginning with individual racial bias, and extending to policies that create disparities?

The promise is great but so is the need. The racial and economic disparities that existed before the pandemic have only been exacerbated. The repercussions of unemployment, eviction, infection, and loss of life will be felt for years to come, challenging us to fight on the dual fronts of both reform and recovery. It calls for us to exercise the values lifted up during the Kwanzaa holiday—umoja, or unity, and ujima, collective work and responsibility. While the battle is uphill, the disruption offers us the opportunity to be creative, to exercise innovation, and completely reimagine the work and the ways that we undertake it.

Vice-Presidential Nominee Kamala Harris

We are in the Midst of an HBCU Renaissance

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Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCUs) are poised for a renaissance not seen since the 1990s, when the television show “A Different World” piped visions of the vibrant life on these campuses into the nation’s living rooms. The ascendency of Vice-President-elect Kamala Harris has given HBCUs a new level of visibility, credibility, and respect. Harris’s success, as a graduate of Howard University located in Washington, DC, has disproven the unfortunate myth that the educational ice is always colder at Predominately White Institutions (PWIs), an ideology that has sadly held significant sway in post-integration America.

Kamala Harris is not alone, as there are a slate of HBCU graduates who have achieved excellence in their fields of endeavor, particularly in the area of political leadership. Keisha Lance Bottoms, a graduate of Florida A&M University and mayor of Atlanta, served as a popular and effective surrogate for the Biden-Harris campaign, all while shepherding a major Southern city through the pandemic. Cori Anika Bush, a graduate of Harris-Stowe State University and an activist during the Ferguson Uprising in 2014, will soon be sworn in to represent Missouri’s first congressional district. Chokwe Anta Lumumba, the current mayor of Jackson, Mississippi, is a graduate of Tuskegee University in Alabama. FAMU’s Andrew Gillum and Spelman’s Stacey Abrams inspired millions with their respective gubernatorial campaigns in Florida and Georgia in 2018. Undaunted by her loss, and determined to make a change at the grassroots, Abrams went on to found both Fair Count (focused on encouraging participation in the 2020 US Census) and Fair Fight, the latter of which has been credited with the historic Democratic success in Georgia in the 2020 election. Taken together, the achievement of these and other HBCU graduates demonstrate that these institutions are more than capable of producing graduates who are prepared to lead.

This year has also brought attention to HBCUs as the potential site of athletic excellence. NFL Hall of Famer Deion Sanders sent a jolt through the world of college sports when he announced his intention to coach football at Jackson State University. The excitement continued to grow when former Florida Gator offensive lineman Javonte Gardner jumped ship to join Saunders at JSU. This was followed by the decision of several top-level high school athletes to revoke their commitment to PWI programs, opting instead for HBCUs. Basketball standout Makur Maker chose Howard University over UCLA and Kentucky. Another high school star, Mikey Williams, went viral on social media with one tweet: “Going to an HBCU wouldn’t be too bad.” Fueled by the “Black Lives Matter” Spring that captured the hearts and minds of citizens around the globe after the murders of Ahmaud Arbury, Breonna Taylor, and George Floyd, should this HBCU sports wave continue, it would be a major act of self-determination, redirecting both the attention and revenue generated by Black athletes at PWIs to HBCUs.

The last but perhaps most significant evidence of HBCUs being positioned for a renaissance comes from the recent rounds of philanthropic donations to HBCUs, now totaling $800 million, by MacKenzie Scott. Reflecting on the BLM Spring, Scott described her motivation on her blog at Medium.com: “Life will never stop finding fresh ways to expose inequities in our systems…. What fills me with hope is the thought of what will come if each of us reflects on what we can offer.” Scott, the former wife of billionaire Jeff Bezos of Amazon, is better positioned than most to contribute, and her vision and generosity resulted in investments that will help to correct both the history of unequal opportunity and access in higher education, and the haunting issues of economic inequality as it manifests in access to wealth and investments. Scott’s donations are the largest that some of these HBCUs, like Prairie View University and Virginia State University, have received in their institutions’’ history.

Taken together, these achievements, movements, and investments have created a wave of new attention and possibility for institutions who have sometimes operated on the margins of this society for a century and a half to make the American Dream possible for millions of Black people who have contributed to every field of endeavor possible. Further, HBCUs serve as the keepers and preserves of African American history and culture for generations to come. Historically Black Colleges and Universities perform incredible work and are deserving of both respect and investment. The possibilities for our collective advancement are limitless.

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