In Oakland, coalition of Black-led organizations was convened to address the disproportionate impacts of COVID-19 and its evisceration of the Black community.
The resulting effort is The Black New Deal, a platform of short, mid and long-range goals crafted to address the immediate needs of Oakland’s Black residents.
Black New Deal advocates are requesting, amongst a suite of other equity shifts, that the Oakland Unified School District Board of Trustees and the City of Oakland work together to provide internet access and computers to OUSD students who do not have this privilege.
In addition, the Black New Deal advocates for deeper investment from the County of Alameda to:
• Provide free testing for all of Oakland’s 400,000 citizens;
• Utilize FEMA funds to immediately shelter every unhoused person in hotels;
• Release all Black people incarcerated in Alameda County, and upon their release they be tested, provided with medical care, housing, and other services by through funding to community organizations
The Black New Deal, which is also moving in Sacramento and Los Angeles is already having an impact in Oakland as legislators are making changes to address the platform demands.
“President Roosevelt’s New Deal, the programs and reforms enacted to stabilize the United States during the Great Depression, left Black Americans out of the recovery and in many ways, exacerbated existing racist injustices and state-sanctioned discrimination,” said Carroll Fife, director of the Alliance of Californians for Community Empowerment (ACCE).
