Following the racial justice protests of 2020, several financial corporations and foundations promised to make investments to advance racial equality. Companies such as JP Chase Morgan, Mastercard, and Citi Foundation poured millions of dollars into Black community development financial institutions (CDFIs) as white business leaders reckoned with the ways systemic racism has impaired economic progress […]
Money
Posted inMoney, Wealth Gap
Struggling to Talk About Money? Here’s a List of Resources to Teach Financial Literacy.
As more states move to mandate financial literacy as a prerequisite for high school graduation, financial experts worry the courses lack the historical context needed to prepare Black youth for wealth building in America. For years, Black people have sounded the alarm for more holistic financial education to address the racial wealth gap. Black people […]
Posted inHousing, Money
Utility Bills and Shutoffs Are Rising. Here Are a Few Tips to Protect Yourself.
Wykeisha Howe and her eight children lost their home in 2018, sold by her landlord as Atlanta’s BeltLine development project attracted luxury developments and sharp increases in home values. After months of homelessness, Howe mustered up enough money to rent a new home, but the stability didn’t last long before the coronavirus pandemic disrupted her […]
Posted inHousing, Money
How These NYC Public Housing Residents Became Models for Tenant Rights Activism
This story was published in partnership with The City. Sign up for their newsletter here. The coronavirus pandemic laid bare the critical need for affordable housing across the United States. As millions lost their jobs, many Americans were only able to remain housed thanks to the advent of COVID-19 housing policies, including eviction moratoriums and rent freezes. […]
Posted inHousing, Money
Housing and Homelessness Are on the Ballot. Will Unhoused People Have a Say?
Most Americans across racial and ethnic groups say affordable housing is a serious problem where they live, according to an August 2022 poll. The National Low Income Housing Coalition estimates the nation has a shortage of 7 million affordable and accessible rental units, made worse in recent years by the convergence of the coronavirus pandemic […]
Posted inBlack Businesses, Money
Ye Can’t Sell ‘White Lives Matter’ Shirts Because Two Black Men Own the Trademark
The reason Ye — the artist formerly known as Kanye West — can’t legally sell his “White Lives Matter” T-shirts is not because the phrase is designated as hate speech by the Anti-Defamation League. It’s because two Black men own the legal trademark. Ramses Ja and Quinton Ward, two Black radio hosts in Phoenix, Arizona, […]
Posted inMoney, Wealth Gap
California’s Reparations Plan Exposes Deep Divides in Black Communities
With a packed house behind him, Milton Hall, a Los Angeles Mid-City Neighborhood Council representative, approached the microphone. Under his breath, he lamented about missing the beginning of his golf game to attend this meeting, a gathering of California’s reparations task force for descendants of American slavery. The task force is the first of its […]
Posted inHousing, Money
A Sweeping Ordinance Would Make It Easier For LA to Target its Unhoused Residents
Since last fall, Lee has lived in a budding community on the southern edge of Watts, a neighborhood in Los Angeles. Residents of the once-majority Black area — the epicenter of the 1965 Watts Rebellion and the 1992 uprising following the police beating of Rodney King — have advocated for investments in Black life for […]
Posted inMoney
Highlights from ‘Capital B Fest: Day 2’
Growing the Pipeline Tech journalist Sidney Fussell spoke with Sherrell Dorsey, founder and CEO of The Plug, about the issue of diversity in tech and what’s being done to correct it. Dorsey talked about what’s at the heart of complicated “pipeline” issues. “When we talk about pipelines, it’s not for lack of the support of […]
Posted inMoney, Partner Content
There’s No Freedom Without Reparations
This story is part of a special Juneteenth project with Vox which explores the ongoing struggle for freedom for Black Americans. Born into slavery, Henrietta Wood was legally freed in 1848 in Ohio when she was about 30. She only basked in that freedom for five years. In 1853, a white sheriff empowered by the […]