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.
This case study examines how community leaders forced the city of Pittsburgh to provide safe, accessible, and affordable water—and developed an accountability model in the process, by which ordinary people can oversee the public water utility.
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.
If Build Back Better is passed, how do we ensure that everyone gets their fair share? How do we follow the money from the legislation? L. Joy brings Taifa Smith Butler to the front of the class to give us the action items we need to make sure our communities get the most out of it.
Policy choices have allowed big companies to continuously use their power to preserve economic and democratic imbalances that maintain their wealth and influence at the expense of everyone else.
Until voters and elected leaders in Baltimore, Maryland took action to bring small donor public financing to their elections, big money in politics was a growing problem in the city.
"Although credit scores never formally take race into account, they draw on data about personal borrowing and payment history that is shaped by generations of discriminatory public policies and corporate practices that limit access to wealth for Black and Latinx families."
Big companies are using data to preserve the power imbalance that keeps them rich. This economic model is rooted in chattel slavery and relies on the extraction and commodification of data.
This Black History Month (and into March), workers at Amazon’s Bessemer, Alabama warehouse have the power to keep making history by voting for their union.
"Black and Latinx borrowers [are] more likely to be denied credit than white borrowers and more likely to be charged higher interest rates [...]. [O]ne of many ways the financial deck is stacked against Black and brown consumers.”
“They collect our data without our permission. They profit from our data. They fail to invest in processes to verify accuracy. And their models are not transparent. This puts Black and Brown consumers at a serious disadvantage.”
The Biden administration should implement its public credit registry proposal to shift power away from an oligopoly that exercises inordinate control over consumers’ financial prospects and towards a fairer system that better respects consumers and reduces racial inequality.
From March through May, New Florida Majority Education Fund surveyed over 21,000 Floridians to ask how the pandemic was affecting their lives and well-being. This report presents our findings from those surveys.
If we are to survive this crisis—and imagine a more equitable, dynamic economy to come, we must start with a recommitment to the value of universal, inclusive public infrastructure.
Our analysis of voter turnout in Ohio’s primary finds large disparities in absentee ballot request rates and voter turnout between predominantly white and non-white neighborhoods.