"Central to the work of racial justice is ensuring that Black and brown, our most marginalized communities, our most marginalized residents of this country, have access to the ballot."
This case study follows the Texas Organizing Project as it worked to build power and equity for working-class Black & Latino communities in greater Houston after Hurricane Harvey—ultimately implementing a winning 3-part inside-outside strategy.
The Economic Democracy Project aims to highlight and develop strategies that Black and brown communities can use to build economic and political power—beginning with four case studies spotlighting community campaigns across the U.S.
This case study highlights how New Economy Project and the Public Bank NYC coalition are pressing for the creation of a public bank for New York City, as part of a broader vision for economic and racial justice.
“The government has not asked questions of the banks for this latest bailout—protecting the priorities of banks and shareholders. But for the rest of us, not so much.”
“In their genesis, they’re about preventing Black people in the South from voting. So especially in our pursuit of a multiracial, inclusive democracy, these laws can’t exist.”
How our work to enforce Section 7 of the National Voter Registration Act has resulted in over 3 million new voter registration applications through public assistance agencies.
Our current voter registration system, which is designed as a voter-initiated or “self-registration” system, creates barriers to registration that do not serve any significant purpose in a democracy. Automatic voter registration is the answer.
The Government By the People Act increases the power of the small contributions that ordinary citizens can afford to give, providing incentives for congressional candidates to reach out to average constituents, not just dial for dollars from wealthy donors.
A Hawaii Partnership Bank will generate new revenue for Hawaii, save local governments money, and make us less dependent on big offshore banks that are dramatically reshaping life for families and businesses in Hawaii.
In 2016, a report from the progressive think tank Demosfound that most campaign dollars in local elections were coming from contributors who are white, male and high-income.
“Voting rights is the foundational issue in American politics and American society. Simply put, if we don’t all have an equal say, how can we expect to have an equal chance?”
"State officials are rightly wary of the goals of the commission because it does seem that the whole purpose for setting it up is to justify a preordained conclusion that somehow millions of votes were cast illegally in the last election," says Brenda Wright, vice president for policy and legal strategies at Demos, a progressive think tank. "That's the verdict, and now they want to hold a trial." [...]
Without the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, lenders preying on communities of color would continue to pull in windfall gains, while widening the racial wealth gap and undermining the precarious financial stability of vulnerable households.